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Discussion on: What are the most important things to teach a complete novice dev (and how)?

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davidmm1707 profile image
David MMπŸ‘¨πŸ»β€πŸ’»

Your brother is 16 so try to not overwhelm him with too much. Try to introduce something new every time he shows you the code. For example:

  • Oh, that's cool! Now you can do X! But...what does it mean 'String usrnm = "John Doe"'?
  • It's the username!
  • Ah, ok! It was a bit hard to understand to me. Why don't you use 'userName' instead? This way it is easier to read

Don't be too hard on him and if someone has to feel like a fool, it is better if you pick up the task (Like here, where you are pretending to not understand something instead of saying "LOL usrnm that's stupid").

About googling...

Next time you get asked a question, ask himself if it can simplify it/simplify it yourself, and then do the same on Google. Like this:

  • Ivo, I want to remove an item from the backpack but I don't know how to do it
  • So...you want to remove something from a list, right?
  • Yes
  • Ok, let's see (Open Google and start to type 'Java remove one element from array') seems like that's a pretty common question. Let's open this StackOverflow link...

Try to present its questions as something simple, that everybody can do with a bit of direction (instead of something so simple that everybody should know. That would make him feel like an idiot).

Many people have a different approach to learning/teaching but forgot one of the main points: Make it interesting and fun.

Your brother is learning right now, not to shuffle excel files in the future, but because he's having fun. Let him learn while having fun too.

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ivoberger profile image
Ivo

Thanks for the reply!
One thing at a time sounds like a great idea and showing how to break problems down to simple questions too.
Main thing I need to learn here is patience and some restraint :)