Status check!

[elz]

I'm planning to post lecture 4 today, but I also thought maybe we could do some brainstorming. How are you doing so far? Finding anything confusing or the pace too fast? Would it be helpful to have some simpler, less MIT-ish problems to warm up with? A weekly chat option to go over things or watch the lectures? Partners to work on the problem sets with?

Fire away with any ideas and suggestions!

Comments

[sabeth]

I'm still working my way through the reading for Lectures 1-3 and the first problem set – I don't think I'll be able to keep up with two lectures a week, so I'm trying for one. (And falling behind, but I think I can still catch up. :D;;)

I don't know about anyone else, but less MIT-ish problems would be really helpful for me. I can grasp the programming just fine, but my brain pretty much just shuts down when confronted with phrases like "the sum of the logarithms of all the primes from 2 to n." (Something more like the exercises in Chris Pine's Ruby Tutorial, maybe? Although I'm not sure I'll have time to do those on top of the MIT problem sets.)

[elz]

I love that tutorial - I stumbled across it a few years ago, and it really clarified some of the basics for me. I think I'll go a-googling and see if there are similar resources for Python.

[luckykitty]

Pretty much ditto this comment--I was trying to keep up, but with Thanksgiving craziness, I haven't been able to get to Lecture 3 and I'm definitely not going to be able to do two a week with Christmas coming up, so I'm going to be slowing down to one a week I think (and trying to catch up after this week ;P)

Also this is exactly how I feel on this: I can grasp the programming just fine, but my brain pretty much just shuts down when confronted with phrases like "the sum of the logarithms of all the primes from 2 to n."

[zulu]

I'm definitely falling behind. I can keep up with the lectures, but I'm still stuck on Problem Set 1. I feel like we haven't learned what we need to know to actually do the problems! And the math is making me gulp. That's a great wall of text to me that's difficult to work out what they want, let alone program for it.

I'm still game to keep going, though! One lecture a week with another time-per-week to work on the problems would be my suggestion.

[elz]

Maybe we should take a break next week to review/consolidate all the stuff from lectures 1-4?

I feel like we haven't learned what we need to know to actually do the problems!

Yeah, that's definitely true. It's kind of like "Lecture 1: introductory stuff!, Homework for Lecture 1: go learn Python on your own!" Which is kind of nuts if you're not a full-time student.

And the math is making me gulp.

*nods* I think the problems are mathier than they necessarily need to be. I've definitely been out of school long enough to freeze in fear at the mention of logarithms, let alone anything more complicated.

[gchick]

I suspect the mathiness is actually designed to be, y'know, *fun* for the intended audience -- nothing we've seen so far actually requires math skill to solve the problems, and they're kind of cool and interesting math facts, so I have to assume that it's there as culturally appropriate random subject matter. But that doesn't make it less brain-bending when you're out of practice or just plain non-mathy. It would be better to have problems that are both differently written and more explicitly broken down in terms of the programming skills they're targeting.

When DW+OTW rule the world, beginning programming classes will be full of students who say, "I think get the programming, but I just can't wrap my head around this Yuletide Matching problem!"

[quartzpebble]

Review and consolidation! That sounds awesome.

I've been not quite keeping up the pace but have been feeling fairly good about the material (but then, I've been *missing* doing mathy things in the job I'm in). At the same time, I've been looking at other people's solutions and seeing that they're taking different approaches than me in structuring their programs, and I feel like a review post might put information together in a way that might help me see things from different angles.

[gchick]

1. Moar tickies! On the last lesson, I got through three questions and fell down on the fourth; it would be easier to track my own progress from one problem to the next, and to spot any big difficulties the group as a whole is having if there were ticky boxes for each problem.

2. I'd love a chat option, but I can't imagine the cat-herding to find a time that works across time zones and schedules -- maybe something more like an always-on chat space, IRC channel, whatever where people can stop by for help and/or leave questions at the times that suit them. That's a tricky one; synchronous stuff always is.

3. Moar shared resources! I've just tagged the online readings for the MIT class and a few others in delicious with the tag "intro-cs-dw". If anyone else has more good links (mine aren't necessarily class-specific or even Python-specific, but I'm aiming for good teach-yourself stuff), please go ahead and use the same tag.

[elz]

I thought about IRC, and then I remembered that I haven't used it since ~2002. But if anybody wanted to set something up, I'd be game!

And good call on breaking up the ticky boxes and using delicious more.

[erda]

I'm finding this very time consuming, and I don't want to expend so much energy here that I lose time with Rails. So, for me, yes, the pace is too fast. I'm just going to have to go on at my own pace as best I can.

[elz]

Ooh, yeah, it's hard enough to learn one at a time! Definitely stick with whatever schedule works for you.

[yhlee]

I'm behind (still stuck on the same problem in PS2) but that's because I had to deal with some Festivids administrivia. I think I'll be able to catch up.

I think less MIT-ish problems would be a wonderful idea. I'm not bothered by the math--I got my bachelor's in math--but if the intent is to learn the language and CS concepts moreso than math per se, then it would be great to have that as an alternative.

Also, if anyone has math-specific questions, I'll try to remember to keep an eye on comments, and maybe I can offer some help for those who would like pointers. Like, the thing with the logarithms doesn't actually require that you know what a logarithm is in order to code the solution, but I can definitely see how it would intimidate people who haven't seen logarithms in a while.

I don't know how you'd handle the logistics, but I'd love to have a study partner for the problem sets. I find coding much more fun when I can do it with someone to brainstorm with.

[yhlee]

YAY I JUST DEBUGGED PS2 Problem 3. It was an embarrassingly silly error. Onwards!

[acari]

The pace is definitely too fast for me. I can't keep up. The lectures are fine, but I don't have time to do all the reading and I'm running smack into not-enough-math-vocabulary issues all the time. I'm German.

I thought this would be something fun to do in my spare time but I'm learning MySQL and PHP for my regular studies already so I don't have enough time to devote to Python.

[ex_rustler489]

I too am falling a bit behind in terms of being able to keep up with the lectures, but not all the reading and problem sets that go with them. Simpler/less mathy problems woud probably be a great help, but I'm also probably going to scale back to only trying one lesson as week.

[aldanise]

I'm way behind, because I'm also taking an intro programming course in college, but it's in Java, which is compiled rather than interpreted, and I'm having trouble switching over to Python. Also, CS=totally not my major. But that's my fault and I'll catch up.

I don't know how useful it would be (see: way behind, no idea what's going on), but my teacher has a wacky sense of humor about pop culture, so we got early problem sets like write "A Thousand Miles" in code that will allow you to change the distance by just changing one line. We're working on a sudoku solver now. Would those types of questions be interesting to anyone?

[tassosss]

I too am falling behind but more due to time constraints than problems with the work.

Maybe we can have a official roll call post for people doing it on a one lecture a week schedule with links to the week's lecture and problem set on that schedule plus anything that comes up. That way it will be a little more organized for those who need the extra time. I'm willing to lead that effort if you want.

[medrin]

I'm not behind! Actually just caught up. But I do have an advantage by having studied programming before, only not python, and have forgot a lot of the theory. So I'm doing this as a repetition mostly. But I am available for questions! Can try to help if someone needs it!

I also just finished lecture 4 and noticed that a lot of what he was talking about would have been useful in solving problem 2. Since there are about the double amount of lectures vs. problems I propose maybe 2 lectures a week and one problem? Otherwise we're maybe going to not know the theory before trying to solve something.

[gchick]

If you look at the course schedule, you'll see that starting with the current lecture, the problem sets are spaced out every 2-3 lectures rather than one every class -- I suspect that they wanted to push through the basics of dealing with different variables, looping, defining functions, etc as quickly as possible at the beginning of the course. (How well that kind of front-loading works for different people is obviously an open question!)

[newrambler]

This thread is making me feel much better. I've watched the first three lectures and am doing okay with the readings, but I'm still stuck on the first problem set and was in fact seriously thinking of giving up (cue the I'm-not-smart-enough self-loathing channel!). But I would like to continue to plug away at it. My mother informs me that logarithm is just a fancy word for exponent, so I may even be able to handle the mathy stuff, but all the kinds of help people have suggested and offered sound great.

[person]

Chiming in weeks later: I no longer had time or energy after PS1/lecture 3, but I finished the one class I was taking this semester and plan on re-starting with the folks who begin in January.