Talk:FOSS Certificate Course

From IlugCal

<sm|CPU> How to Progam - what do you think should be taught and for how long ?

<pradeepto> Yes, it it bit tricky, maybe

<pradeepto> but I am sure, not long ago people did teach programming w/o being tied to Java or whatever

<sm|CPU> pradeepto: That's the point - I was asking what would you teach ?

<pradeepto> sm|CPU: Logic building, concepts of variables, conditions, iterators, loops

<pradeepto> do we need an language for that?

<sm|CPU> pradeepto: Using ?

<sm|CPU> At some level wouldn't you ?

<pradeepto> Idealistically speaking : English.

<sm|CPU> How do you teach someone loop as a construct ?

<sm|CPU> while endmarker does not end do print I am a hero done ?

<sm|CPU> that was a bad illustration by the way

<sm|CPU> That is do-able also

<pradeepto> sm|CPU: we need to work on this one, but if nothing else works - maybe Lisp/Scheme

<sm|CPU> pradeepto: I think an English derivative of Scheme might do the trick :)

<sm|CPU> You are right - might end up teaching good english skills too

<pradeepto> next question? if any.

<sm|CPU> Yes of course

<sm|CPU> Bash

<pradeepto> Needed.

<pradeepto> very much.

<sm|CPU> Bash to do what ? As is normally unfortunately taught

<sm|CPU> Bash for admin or Bash for scripting or Learn Bash to be happy ?

<pradeepto> not admin, but atleast some one who can learn admin by themselves

<pradeepto> because he/she was taught to be happy with bash.

<pradeepto> s/someone/something

<pradeepto> let me rephrase

<pradeepto> not admin stuff directly

<pradeepto> but basics of bash stuff - whatever it can cover from find to grep to everthing else.

<sm|CPU> Nice

<pradeepto> so that in future as a contributor - either a dev, l10n chap, doc writer or whatever.

<pradeepto> she/he can use the *nix box

<sm|CPU> Hmm

<pradeepto> and know that tehre is man page there

<sm|CPU> That sounds fundamentally sound and practical

<pradeepto> and other docs there

Further on from A Mani:

• Generalities of Software Development

 * Specifications
 * Requirement Analysis 
 * Software Design
 * Software Testing
 * Formal Specifications
 * Verification

I think these things should be there too. At least the key aspects should be introduced - from an oss perspective. Going into these things would mean that the students do projects. So only the essentials must be outlined. Formal specs is important too, though for some types of programs (esp. safety-critical). Even the Z specification language can be included. I know some of these spec languages.

Many OSS projects too suffer from inadequate documentation. Including all this will improve documentation also. In the FCPU proj the specs is what really got discussed well.

OSS life-cycle

What should the students know ?

If they are all trained grads in comp.engg ... then they will be knowing quite a bit about s/w development, design, specs. But the course should be accessible to "people with some programming and s/w exposure".

The whole course can be split into smaller modules with a credit system.

Books :

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<floyd_n_milan>

Hi guys,

I'm trying to setup a similar thing in Mumbai. So after talking with Pradeepto yesterday, I think it'll be best if we collaborate and co-operate.

I have been conducting administration courses. I just finished teaching bash, in English. I'll start adding more details as to how we can teach programming in English and the analogies I used.

Thank you.