Ask HN: Any Things You Wish You Were Told When Learning Programming?

There are so many details one has to get right in one's head to program at all, that non-programming experience doesn't prepare one for. E.g. the assignment operator isn't symmetric like the equality boolean operator (in most languages). This is not how it works in math. The simpler the language you start with, the easier it is to model in one's head.

Having a simple language with a REPL is super useful for getting this straight--if you don't know what it does, you quickly test the assumptions. Go through lots of small examples. Have the students predict and write down what the output will be, then run it and have them explain why they were surprised. This should help you diagnose where their mental models are wrong. Tell them to assume the bugs live in the programmer's mental model, not in the compiler. Flip the classroom if you need more time for this. (I.e. pre-record the lectures, and have them watch them as the homework, and work on the exercises during class time.)

Explain the language's memory model. What lives on the stack or on the heap? How are arguments passed? What's a copy and what's a mutation? Diagram on the blackboard. Write assumptions down. Human working memory is extremely limited. The gifted students might have seven registers to work with, when they're concentrating. If they're learning the language itself, or talking to you at the same time, there isn't much left to program with. Those with more average IQ might not have anything left at all. Have them start with pseudocode, and iteratively break it down to the level that it can be mechanically translated into the language. Offload everything you can.

The newest recommendation is to make sure you understand how AI will help in programming. It's changing and will continue to change how programmers work.