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Hello From My Basement featuring Barbra Lica
I just love her voice.
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
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Microsoft teases its future Office UI.
I'll admit I haven't read the accompanying article...but the video near the top is one of the most uninspired, useless "says-absolutely-nothing" things I've seen in my life.
Someone produced that. Someone approved it. What it's trying to articulate, I have no idea. The other images in the article just leaves me thinking, so white. So plain.
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The next UI will float around everywhere and you'll basically be doing your daily workout while navigating Office.
Maybe you'll find the "Open document" button in the living room or maybe it's in the kitchen.
Also, various machines will randomly spawn near each other.
You'll also need at least three hands for it to work.
What's not to get? 
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Sander Rossel wrote: What's not to get?
It.
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I'm sure we'll tease it as well :P
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Browse the automotive media. It's filled with useless stuff like this.
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So the ivory towers are all marble and glass these days?
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A friend of mine is thinking about a career change and she was thinking about programming.
She's freaking smart, got multiple degrees, among which psychology.
She's currently a primary school teacher, she loves the kids, but she dislikes lots of other things.
So I'd like to show her some programming stuff, mostly that it's not that hard to learn (but impossible to master) and it's easy to get into.
I'd like to start with some WinForms because it's very easy to grasp (it's how I got started) and then move on to some web programming.
Just some C# and then JavaScript and HTML and CSS, probably a bit of SQL as well.
The goal is to give her an idea about programming, what it is and how it works.
I could even show her some production code.
I'm not going to show her stuff like C or Python, simply because I don't know it myself.
So, within the constraints of .NET and a fun afternoon, is there anything I absolutely should or should not show her?
Looking for a sort of curriculum or idea, like a to-do list.
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That's very nice of you to do that for her. When you say she is considering programming, is that because she knows something about it and therefore has an informed opinion?
Or is she just guessing that she might be good at it, not knowing anything about it?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Might be a bit of both, but I think mostly the latter.
Her brother did some Python for school and he showed her some.
She's looking for something where the effort she puts into it, will show in the results.
I already told her that's not always the case with programming, especially when working in a group, but she still liked the idea.
At least it's better than "when a mom decides to put her kid to bed an hour later than usual, my next day will pretty much be living hell." 
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Ask her if she has used Scratch - Imagine, Program, Share[^] Since she is a primary school teacher. My wife teaches elementary school gifted and has done some programming work with her kids using spheros[^]. They are good from some of the very basics like conditionals, looping and the concept of functions or methods.
If she has then she might be further down the road than she knows.
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Good one, will ask.
She hasn't told me about it though, so I don't think so.
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Let her lead the conversion, then whip out a sample to illustrate:
Code samples - Windows app development
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Sander Rossel wrote: currently a primary school teacher
Maybe good as a tester / QA then.
Find out what happens when a hamster or a crayon is entered rather than the expected input.
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Ask her if there is something she'd like to do on a computer or something she'd like to have or a problem she'd like to solve.
If you only show hew code that does nothing interesting (ie. hello world) she'll get bored.
With a goal in sight, programming will be easier.
I'd rather be phishing!
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This. As weird as it may sound my introduction to programming was Perl regular expressions. I stumbled across them and was fascinated, so I learned the minimum Perl I needed to play around with them (load text, call regex, output results). That turned into curiosity about Perl in general and 17 years later I still learn stuff using the same process. Find something interesting and then dive down the rabbit hole.
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Comment, ( mostly to her ) I've "learned" a system while building a ( small ) working program ( IEC structured text - did it's job ). BUT, I'd a lot of background, and I still don't _know_ the language, and parts took extra work.
Different people have different learning patterns, but I'd suggest a hybrid. Do a brief tutorial or book ( K&R comes to mind, but I'm a mechanic ) for basics, start, maybe do a project. Do a longer tutorial or course. ( repeat ?)
The more formal will fill in lots of holes. ( This from someone who's written a couple of drivers then found he couldn't talk to a serial port in C# )
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If she can't think of anything in response to Maximilien's question, ask her what her favorite topic is, and then show her how she can organize that info through a database, or with objects. She can teach you something new as you help her!
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Good advice, will ask 
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Are you sure its the programming she interested it... hint hint..
A Fine is a Tax for doing something wrong
A Tax is a Fine for doing something good.
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Yeah, pretty sure, she's happily married
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If she is smart she will do the learning thing alone (or pick alone the route at least)...
As you not actually going to teach her programming, you should show her the possibilities - how versatile computer programming is... Do not waste your (and her) time on 'Hello World'-like things... Make her hungry, move her imagination... If she is any good the rest will come...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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