"She contemplated teaching herself, as generations of autodidactic computer nerds have done before her, and as her brother (a senior engineer at a major tech firm) recommended. But she doesn’t learn well in isolation, she said....."
The article suggests that many people might learn computer-related skills better in groups... perhaps even in courses! See below for anecdotal explanation of why so many of us find this a shocking but welcome concept.
The article suggests that many people might learn computer-related skills better in groups... perhaps even in courses! See below for anecdotal explanation of why so many of us find this a shocking but welcome concept.
Excerpt above from "Can tech conservatories save the day?" by Catherine Rampell, Opinion writer, February 17, 2015, The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-tech-conservatories-save-the-day/2015/02/17/bcca4104-b61e-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
I didn't realize that I was an "audodidactic computer nerd" because we didn't have that terminology yet when I learned FORTRAN, my first commercial programming language, as an undergraduate. I had a part-time job plotting curves from output data from the Princeton Forrestal Accelerator. I was given graph paper and expected to use a pencil and a French curve (anyone remember what that is?).
After a few weeks of this tedium and pencil smudges, my supervisor said "Go to the U-Store, buy a copy of the FORTRAN manual, read it, and when you can use a computer to calculate values of e to the x for any value of x, come back and learn how to use that computer-printer in the basement." So I did. Luckily for me, there were a few grad students and staff working in that basement who didn't mind making suggestions to me when they saw how befuddled I was when that computer rejected my punch cards or spewed printer paper all over the floor.
And, for many years to follow, that was how I expected to learn computer programming languages and anything else about those machines. And so did many others.
Steve Gilbert Feb 20, 2015
I didn't realize that I was an "audodidactic computer nerd" because we didn't have that terminology yet when I learned FORTRAN, my first commercial programming language, as an undergraduate. I had a part-time job plotting curves from output data from the Princeton Forrestal Accelerator. I was given graph paper and expected to use a pencil and a French curve (anyone remember what that is?).
After a few weeks of this tedium and pencil smudges, my supervisor said "Go to the U-Store, buy a copy of the FORTRAN manual, read it, and when you can use a computer to calculate values of e to the x for any value of x, come back and learn how to use that computer-printer in the basement." So I did. Luckily for me, there were a few grad students and staff working in that basement who didn't mind making suggestions to me when they saw how befuddled I was when that computer rejected my punch cards or spewed printer paper all over the floor.
And, for many years to follow, that was how I expected to learn computer programming languages and anything else about those machines. And so did many others.
Steve Gilbert Feb 20, 2015
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