What concepts should aspiring coders know BEFORE they start?

Hey nerds and aspiring nerds!  

Exciting news today: Life and Code, the learn-to-code Tumblr written with journalists in mind, has reached 500 followers. Cool!  

In honor of that, I want to add to the Life and Code Learn to Program Resource Guide with a list of basic concepts and tools that a beginner should understand BEFORE they pick up that first programming book or crack open that first tutorial.  

What do you think is missing from this list?  What do you think beginners should know BEFORE they start?  What confused you when you were learning?

  1. Algorithms
  2. Variables
  3. Arrays
  4. Constants
  5. Includes
  6. Syntax
  7. Text Editor vs IDE
  8. Version control

Also, I want to include something on model-view-controller/object oriented, and functional/procedural, but I’m not quite sure what I’d call those categories.  Halp?  

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evanfleischer:

MIT students play Tetris on the side of the Green Building.

(Photos/more video.)

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clitc0mmander: woah that’s sick

clitc0mmander:

woah that’s sick

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More university CS101 courses online, for free

Apparently Stanford scared the shit out of Harvard with their enormously successful free online CS101 course:

radcoco:

Today, Harvard joined MIT in announcing edX, an online service allowing anyone anywhere to take Harvard and MIT classes online and free of charge. The pilot course is in Computer Science and runs through early June - enroll here.

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I guess this “lack of lectures” is pretty cool as long as you’re never formally required to demonstrate that you’ve learned anything whatsoever.

*Of course, once you abandon the need to demonstrate any formal understanding of the nature of microbiology — hey! Have at it! A vast new dawn beckons! The hardware’s dead cheap now, and it’s not like anybody can stop you.

Bruce Sterling, on an “all lab, no lectures” biology curriculum being published by O’Reilly.  Wonder if I should look at it?

Etsy's Coding Scholarship for Women

futurejournalismproject:

via GOOD: 

Etsy may be better known for knit products than coded ones, but the company just announced that it’s teaming up with Hacker School, a three-month coding program in New York City, to give out scholarships to women who want to become better programmers. The tech world has long been a boys’ club—not even one in five software developers are women—and the idea is to take a stab at evening out the gender inequality a bit. 

The scholarship program will award $5,000 grants to 20 women who want to attend the summer 2012 session of Hacker School, held in Etsy’s headquarters in New York. The school, whose three founders include a woman, looks for students who love programming and have “curiosity, passion, raw intelligence and a desire to build things.” The full-time program takes students through an informal instruction period for programmers of all skill levels, requiring that “everyone writes free and open source software” so others can use and learn from it. The goal of the scholarship is to fill half the spots with women and have a gender-equal classroom.

Keep Reading

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fuckyouverymuch: We like this project. As a fan of dogs and vespas we must reblog.  Via pnnnk.

fuckyouverymuch:

We like this project.

As a fan of dogs and vespas we must reblog.  Via pnnnk.

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prostheticknowledge: Mondrian of Life  Monkeon tests the idea of applying the mathematical rules of Conway’s Game of Life within matrices of Mondrian paintings: Conway’s Game of Life is one of the first computer games. It is a mathematical ‘game’ in which you create patterns in a grid and according to the following rules, you can watch the pattern evolve. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction. You can play an on-line version here if you can be arsed to faff around with java settings. “But how would those rules work with the De Stijl paintings of Piet Mondrian”, I hear no one ask. Well, that’s what I’ve created below. Just roll your mouse over a painting for it to play out, and click the painting to reset it to its original form. You can check out the rest of the iterations at Monkeon’s site here (Above are only six iterations)

prostheticknowledge:

Mondrian of Life 

Monkeon tests the idea of applying the mathematical rules of Conway’s Game of Life within matrices of Mondrian paintings:

Conway’s Game of Life is one of the first computer games. It is a mathematical ‘game’ in which you create patterns in a grid and according to the following rules, you can watch the pattern evolve.

  • Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
  • Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
  • Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
  • Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

You can play an on-line version here if you can be arsed to faff around with java settings.

“But how would those rules work with the De Stijl paintings of Piet Mondrian”, I hear no one ask. Well, that’s what I’ve created below.
Just roll your mouse over a painting for it to play out, and click the painting to reset it to its original form.

You can check out the rest of the iterations at Monkeon’s site here
(Above are only six iterations)

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jademlane:

How The Guardian turns data into a polished story.

This makes me want to use Prezi; instead of flipping to a new slide, the > button just refocuses you on an area of a larger infographic. 

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The Investigative News Network (INN) has received approval of non-profit 501(c)(3) status from the IRS, allowing the organization to directly receive grants from foundations and donations from individuals and continue its mission of supporting investigative journalism. The approval was granted last week on Friday, March 16, 19 months after INN applied for 501(c)(3) status and following numerous discussions with the IRS over INN’s mission and goals. Over the past two years, the IRS has, in general, increased its scrutiny of journalism-related applicants. “We are delighted with the IRS ruling, which reflects the intent of INN to provide public service journalism to citizens everywhere and to hold government and business accountable through nonpartisan reporting,” said Brant Houston, chair of INN’s board of directors and one of the co-founders of INN.

The Investigative News Network receives non-profit status from IRS | Investigative News Network | INN

GREAT NEWS!!!

(via susanmernit)

This is indeed, good news. 

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