How would you encourage good code practices in the classroom? Consider the grade level you are teaching or going to teach. What specific strategies would you implement?
“Good code structure & style are about making your code readable and understandable. I would think scientists would value this because it helps others reproduce their work. I would expect engineers to also value this is as a best practice in software engineering” — Jeremy Bradbury on Twitter. (See the debate in the rest of the thread as well :-)) Do you agree with this? Does everyone benefit from or care about good code structure?
A-Z Handbook #CSK8 Twitter Chats Moderated by Vicky Sedgwick
In chapter 25, we read “Teaching students to write efficient and readable programs is a key goal of teaching introductory programming.” Why should this be one of our key goals when teaching students to program?
Chapter 25 presents a variety of “tips for developing good habits of programming”. Can you other tips you have used to help K-8 students to go beyond just working programs to readable, efficient, and even elegant code?
Contributed by Dr. Christine Liebe (CSTeach Course, Colorado School of Mines)
What are ways in which you (can) encourage variable naming conventions in your class? How can you help students value code readability and learn how to create descriptive variable names?
