[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

[Torben Hoffmann]

Fred Hebert writes:

> Or teach it through side-channels with examples. Here's a random idea,
> probablu full of holes.
>
> Show them a bunch of castles with different things: heights for walls,
> thickness for walls, number of walls, towers, drawbridges, moats, etc.
>
> - Which castle is the best?
> - Which castle would protect you best against dragons? Against
>   catapults? Against knights? Sorcerers?
> - Which castle would be the safest to be in?
> - Why is Castle A safer than Castle B for X?
> - There's an army of knights and catapults coming. How would you build a
>   castle to protect you against it?
> - What do you do if the catapults break a wall or the drawbridge?
> - Here's my castle, can you make it safer against sorcerers?
>
> Maybe there's a way through there to lead a discussion into topics like
> redundancy, time to repair, and so on, without even needing to involve
> any computers or their related terminology in the first place.
>
I think this is a brilliant way of discussing design. However, I think it is
something that should come a bit down the road as it touches on aspects that are a
bit too advanced for beginners, but I really like the idea of using appropriate
side-channels that can re-use existing thinking and reasoning.

> It may help to look at things such as Bloom's Taxonomy[1] into figuring out
> what to teach, how to teach it, and how to evaluate it, if one really
> wants to.
>
> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy
>
Good model - that is worth having in mind. Thanks for the link!

Cheers,
Torben

>
> On 06/16, Loïc Hoguin wrote:
>> Don't assume clusters of servers. Even 4 year olds have experienced the
>> annoyance of having a program crash. That's also what fault tolerance is
>> about.
>> 
>> On 06/16/2014 03:10 PM, Jon Schneider wrote:
>> >I think to understand fault tolerance you also need some understanding of
>> >business, customer service and the things that make a servers go offline
>> >such as power failure and road diggings.
>> >
>> >Therefore I am pretty sure think this particular aspect is not something a
>> >youngster is ever going to get.
>> >
>> >Jon
>> >
>> >_______________________________________________
>> >erlang-questions mailing list
>> >erlang-questions@REDACTED
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>> >
>> 
>> -- 
>> Loïc Hoguin
>
>
>> http://ninenines.eu
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Torben Hoffmann
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