google / google/clojure-turtle

create intro Clojure material using Logo

Open
#10 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Clojure
Stars
424
Forks
32
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

The following idea is on the basis that I've previously created a set of lessons in the style of a textbook and a 2 hr basic Clojure workshop among other teaching experiences...

When trying to introduce new people to Clojure (students new to programming, curious/interested experienced coworkers), they stop learning when they reach a point where the concept is too difficult/unfamiliar.

So far, there seem to be 2 groups I can think of: beginners in programming, and experienced programmers.

For the first group, Logo is a great way to learn. The key to engage such students once they reach mastery of basic Logo concepts and teach them more / more advanced programming concepts. Doing so in a gradual way, so as not to lose these learners, is one of the original motivating reasons for clojure-turtle. An approach that works for beginners should work for anyone.

For the second group, they look for an approach that makes them feeling like they're learning faster than average. They expect that their programming experience gives them a basis of comparison that they can use to intuit a new language's concepts, syntax, etc. as they bypass "beginner" material. Currently, if there is a stumbling block, it is that most programmers' experience currently does not yet include languages the look or behave like Clojure. The perceived gap here is a gentle intro to Clojure syntax and FP at a pace that assumes knowledge of basic programming concepts. One way to do this is to create a set of materials designed as, "Here's some concept implemented in Python, now here is the equivalent in Clojure".

Although the materials for the groups outline above would be different in nature, the structure of the lessons should be able to achieve convergence -- over time, the learners in the first group should eventually be able to reach the same mastery of Clojure as in the second group, and everyone should be equally satisfied.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the existing textbook-style lessons and the intro-clj-pres workshop linked in the issue, then compare their approaches for beginners and experienced programmers. Define the lesson scope and progression before implementation; done should be a coherent introductory Clojure curriculum using Logo as a gradual path toward Clojure concepts.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
clojure
Domain
content, documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.