So much great feedback, that's really awesome. What I'm hearing is that there are many different kinds of "newbies", from people coming other languages, to kids without forgetting hobbyists...
I learn things bottom up, I need to understand "why" before I can start using the "how". Lots of people don't learn that way and there is nothing wrong with that. There are languages that are more suited to writing basic games and GUI for newbies (Flash was actually great at that). I actually don't think Go is the perfect fit for all new programmers. I do think however that if you want to learn the basics and you're willing to pay a certain price upfront, that's the right approach. In this context, I'd like to personally focus on helping new developers who are interested in building some knowledge foundations. I very much agree about having something tangible they can be proud of, but I also don't think Go mobile is currently a good fit for that. Maybe it's a bot, maybe it's a CLI, maybe it's audio or image processing. I don't quite know yet, but I do know that very basic things such as strings and numbers, use of the terminal, finding stuff in the standard library are very poorly covered and maybe we/I should start there. Another simple thing I've been meaning to do so many times: provide example tests for the standard library. This way users who get started and learn the basic, can browse the doc and find concrete examples of how to use an API. This is such a powerful feature, and whenever I find one of those examples I'm very thankful! I'm sure we could, as a community, provide way more examples (it will slow down the test suite, but I think that's ok). Anyways, keep the feedback coming! On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 7:11:26 PM UTC-7, Tim Hawkins wrote: > > My personal experience is as somebody comming from almost 3 decades of oop > with c++ and java, while there are a lot of tutorials etc for folks > starting out with go as a first or second language. I find there is a lack > of support for people moving from other languages and other methodologies. > > On 20 Jul 2016 9:53 a.m., "simran" <sim...@dn.gs <javascript:>> wrote: > >> I personally find Go just a joy to program in and show my kids some code >> all the time (my kids are 9 years old)... it's still complex for them as i >> haven't overwhelmed them with programming. What they do absolutely LOVE >> though is code.org <http://s.bl-1.com/h/26Yp8n1?url=http://code.org/> ( >> https://studio.code.org >> <http://s.bl-1.com/h/26YpD93?url=https://studio.code.org/>/ ) - their >> school has a extra-curricular class around it, and all the kids have taken >> to it with a huge amount of enthusiasm. >> >> The main thing i think they like is that it's visual - for an >> introduction (as a first language), i think the visual components really >> really help. At the moment, you can see the "JavaScript" behind the visual >> components you build, and the kids are starting to progress to that. What i >> believe might be really good is if we can help adapt code.org >> <http://s.bl-1.com/h/26YpJZ5?url=http://code.org/> to also show >> potential "Go" code (as an alternative to the javascript) and let people >> tweak the Go. The educational and fun structure has already been built by >> code.org <http://s.bl-1.com/h/26YpPy7?url=http://code.org/> and they >> have done such a marvellous job, why not build on that? >> >> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Dan Kortschak < >> dan.ko...@adelaide.edu.au <javascript:>> wrote: >> >>> It's an interesting post and something I can see being true to an >>> extent, but I'd like to put forward an alternative from my own >>> experience. >>> >>> I came to Go as an extremely inexperienced programmer - a couple of >>> years with Perl and a childhood with C64 basic/6502/Z80 and virtually no >>> formal CS background (one half year unit in first year undergrad). >>> >>> When I started using Go it had only been open sourced for a year and a >>> half. I found the support for people starting to use Go to be >>> outstanding even when questions were only tangentially related to Go >>> (generic algorithmic problems were happily(?) helped with). In part it >>> seems this was due to decisions by the Go core developers to help foster >>> a helpful and welcoming environment (rsc has discussed the motivations >>> for this in the past). Maybe that "fresh scene" has diminished a little, >>> but it doesn't really seem so to me. >>> >>> Dan >>> >>> On Tue, 2016-07-19 at 08:16 -0700, Matt Aimonetti wrote: >>> > I just wanted to point out a post I published today talking about the >>> fact >>> > that we are often leaving new / less experienced Go developers high >>> and dry: >>> > https://medium.com/@mattetti/go-is-for-everyone-b4f84be04c43 >>> > >>> > I'd love to see what you all in mind to help new or junior developers. >>> > Maybe share some of the pain points you've experienced or seen (for >>> > instance setting up the Go path, finding resources to get started >>> etc...) >>> > I'm thinking about a bunch of very short posts on basic topics and >>> maybe a >>> > real beginner tour of Go. We are going to do a beginner night next >>> month at >>> > our LA/Santa Monica Go meetup and hopefully better understand what the >>> > current pain points/blockers are. >>> > >>> > What do you think? >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "golang-nuts" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to golang-nuts...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "golang-nuts" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to golang-nuts...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. 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