> If I were teaching someone Python, or pretty much any programming language, the first place I would start is the debugger.
Totally agree.
In the first week of programming, students should be allowed only use the debugger (no direct runs) in every course/collage around the world. I saw firsthand how many courses/collages students struggle with logic because debugging was never introduced, and they were unaware of how to step through each line.
Another mistake that new programmers make is writing 30 lines of code and then run and lost why bugs occurring. As a rule of thumb, they should debug/run the program every 7 new lines of code.
Perhaps it was just my education, but my CS classes had almost zero real-world guidance on how to do anything. Maybe a one pager on how to install the development environment. No IDE workshops, source code control, project layout guidance, etc. Perhaps the non-theoretical aspects are distasteful to professors (astronomers and telescopes or something)?
Totally agree.
In the first week of programming, students should be allowed only use the debugger (no direct runs) in every course/collage around the world. I saw firsthand how many courses/collages students struggle with logic because debugging was never introduced, and they were unaware of how to step through each line.
Another mistake that new programmers make is writing 30 lines of code and then run and lost why bugs occurring. As a rule of thumb, they should debug/run the program every 7 new lines of code.