in programming, software, software development

Learnable Programming, Bret Victor, and Other Two Word Phrases

Bret Victor just published his latest essay, “Learnable Programming.”

In “Learnable Programming” Bret criticizes the Khan Academy’s latest “interactive” programming education tools and suggests a better way to teach programming.

He footnotes the essay with this summary:

This essay was an immune response, triggered by hearing too many times that Inventing on Principle was “about live coding”, and seeing too many attempts to “teach programming” by adorning a JavaScript editor with badges and mascots.

“Inventing on Principle” was the talk he gave at CUSEC 2012.

If you haven’t seen/read both you must immediately:

  1. Get a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever comfort beverage you prefer.
  2. Find a comfortable place to sit and pay attention for about two hours.
  3. Watch the video of Inventing on Principle.
  4. Read the Learnable Programming essay.

It’s fantastically worth your time.

Bret sidenotes* the essay with this exciting teaser:

Forward reference: Some work that I’ve done in automatic visualization of ad-hoc data structures will be published later this year, in collaboration with Viewpoints Research.

I’m looking forward to that!

* I just invented the verb “sidenote,” as in, “He sidenoted the heck out of that teaser in the side note.”

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