Zed Shaw's Template for "Learn X The Hard Way" Books

https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-way/blobs/master/README

by nbashaw • 14 years ago

123 48 14 years ago

gitorious.org

zalew2• 14 years ago

A few bits that caught my attention and perfectly show why Zed's publications are so good:

> 1. Use just a simple editor like gedit, notepad+, or Textwrangler. NO vim! NO emacs!

> 2. Do not have them use git or other RCS tools. They're here to learn code, not git.

> 3. Make it work for Windows, OSX, and Linux if you can.

> 4. The install of your language should not involve tons of steps.

> 1. Your book should educate people, not indoctrinate them. If you find yourself talking constantly about how awesome your language is and how it will change their life, then you're not educating, you're just making another cult follower. Leave the decision of whether the language is good to the reader.

> 4. Lightly make fun of programmers and inoculate your student against religious wars over syntax, idioms, editors, tools, and anything else that gets in the way of them learning. Remember, you are writing this book for them, not your fellow coder friends.

This should be the mantra for everyone who writes a tutorial (which often land here on HN) or any other form of introduction into technologies. Way too often authors waste a huge chunk of their educational material on shoving their tools of choice down readers' throats. 'hey, you want to learn rails? ok, now buy a mac, install git, learn emacs, download my dotfiles...'.

TLDR: want to educate? be agnostic.

orangethirty4• 14 years ago

I'm currently writing a book and the pointers are great. Had been having trouble getting good momentum going due to the nature of the topic, but the bit about creating the structure of the book and then filling it in is just golden. I do the same thing with programs, but had not thought that it just applies to writing too.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

If you're stuck then I'm finding there two common causes:

1. It's a structure problem, so you have to go back to organizing the concepts and how each chapter flows. Try changing the first lesson as a way to start rethinking this.

2. It's an audience problem, so you have to go figure out who the book is really for and then constantly try to write it for them. Try even changing who it's for and then see if that makes the book work for them.

wturner3• 14 years ago

All education is a form of indoctrination. When you teach a kid to read you are indoctrinating them, but you do so with the assumption that if you don't teach them to read they will be worse off. So you indoctrinate them. As we all go through life people are interacting making similar judgement calls based on time, place and circumstance. So indoctrination in that regard is omnipresent and has a good side. Sorry to be off topic but I felt like typing that. I agree that we should fight our shallow inclinations to sensationalize in ways that diffuse "robust" learning.

chipsy• 14 years ago

Wikipedia says it in the first paragraph: "(Indoctrination) is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned."

Zed is specifically referring to this usage. You should never assume you are doing the Right Thing in programming, because you probably aren't, at best you're doing the "least wrong" thing for your situation.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

No, and I'll give you my distinction that separates education from indoctrination:

Education's goal is to teach you something so that you can then go on without them, thus why they teach a wider range of topics within a subject.

Indoctrination's goal is to make you dependent on the educator, thus why they focus on only their version of the subject and squash differing opinions using propaganda tactics.

For example, you don't have to go back to your highschool math teacher to use Algebra or back to your grade school to read something. You are independent and may never set foot in your school ever again, but can still do these things.

If you teach someone that Python is the one true language and use propaganda to make them want to use it, then they'll be dependent on that language and the community in order to write code. Even simpler is if you only teach them git and github then you've indoctrinated them into always needing github to share code.

Bad kinds of education are like History classes that teach fairy tales like "George Washington never told a lie." These are indoctrination masquerading as education because they make the student dependent on the country for their identity.

The reason indoctrination like this is bad in programming though is because programming languages and tools die all the time, and when they do it destroys these people the indoctrinators have made dependent on the technologies. It also smacks of a con that's covering for shit technology that can't survive on its own merits.

Finally, finding a particular topic in the gray area between them does not disprove that there's a difference. Rational people don't think in binary, so this is a continuum where you could find some topics that require a bit of indoctrination, and some where it's the complete wrong approach. In my opinion, programming education only has indoctrination because that lets shitty technology hide behind propaganda.

e12e2• 14 years ago

I'd say education is teaching to ask questions; indoctrination teaching to accept answers.

salmanapk• 14 years ago

Totally agree. Even worse is when someone tries to shove another language down your throat in a JavaScript tutorial i.e., CoffeeScript.

mhartl3• 14 years ago

2. Do not have them use git or other RCS tools. They're here to learn code, not git.

This is good advice for Zed's LxTHW brand, because those books are geared toward learning one particular language at a time. But in some contexts having an integrated approach can be an advantage. Readers of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial often tell me that they didn't really "get" web development until they saw how Git, GitHub, Heroku, and Rails all fit together. That's because the goal of the book isn't to teach Rails; it's to teach web development with Rails. Unfortunately, this means that some readers are overwhelmed by all the detail (and I may someday make a product to better meet their needs), but for many readers seeing the whole picture is a revelation.

zalew2• 14 years ago

the case is, git, github or heroku are not needed at all for web development. if I was to teach somebody how web dev as a whole works, I would introduce them the concept of source control and web hosting for sure, but not tie them into some specific solutions of my choice. learning technologies (languages, databases, frameworks) is timeless, learning how to use a commercial website popular at the time isn't.

frankly speaking, whenever I drop into a tutorial and it begins with an introduction to github or vim, I leave the page. it's because it shows the author isn't focused on solving my problem which is I am not familiar with some specific technology, he prefers to advertise his favorite tools for some reason and lock me in his way of doing things. just show me what I'm looking for, I will figure out the rest myself if I need it.

danso2• 14 years ago

For a book like the Python book, what features of LaTeX were used? I usually associate it with its ability to do fancy typesetting. But the Python book looks like it could be done in mostly Markdown.

btian2• 14 years ago

lots of formatting features, easy to version control, able to convert to print book and pdf easily, fully text based thus more predictable, and so on. LaTeX can be used for any document from CV to an entire book.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

Most of this is true, but I found that it completely falls flat on its face once you want to do any reasonable HTML output. htlatex is an abomination that should be destroyed in the fiery pits of hell after some long quest with a ring and some hobbits.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

I don't use raw LaTeX anymore. Check out the new README and latest repo as I've switched to rST and full on Dexy to do the build.

seancron• 14 years ago

Just a heads up: this isn't the latest template according to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4953872

If you're looking to do a LxTHW, you should contact Zed to get the latest base structure.

Edit: Also, if you want to write a Learn X The Hard Way you should read this post about how to do it (http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1288945508.html)

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

No, this is now the latest template. That's what I'm using in all my books now, and it's coming from a more advanced project for writing music books http://orkestrix.org/

My goal was, if I could write about code and music at the same time, then making a build system for books would be easy. The above is the end result of that work. Enjoy.

kroger• 14 years ago

Orkestrix is nice.

I understand you don't want to use LilyPond because it is too complex, but you may want to know that LilyPond comes with a tool to convert from ABC to LilyPond (abc2ly). One could use it to write the music examples in ABC and have LilyPond typeset them. I'd consider using a setup like this to typeset the "final" version since LilyPond's typography is so nice.

minikomi• 14 years ago

I just recently started attempting to teach myself how to teach with my friend and his girlfriend as Guinea pigs using Zed's books as a guide.

Another thing I would add - go slow, but let the student explore and achieve on their own. Small accomplishments without frustration are much more motivating and "sticky" in the mind.

kleiba2• 14 years ago

I know Zed is a vim afficionado - I wonder why he advises against it for writing lxthw books?

chas• 14 years ago

It's an additional hurdle (with quite a bit of a learning curve) that would get in the way of learning to code. That said I wouldn't be too surprised to see a learn $EDITOR the hard way book out at some point.

xradionut• 14 years ago

Yes! Learning vim or Emacs would have been a lot easier if I hadn't started learning Unix with a bunch of bearded gurus back in the day. Although I did impress a few with my now-forgetten VMS/DCL chops...

j45• 14 years ago

As a recent vim uptaker, vim is an entirely separate subject matter on it's own and should not be used as a distraction to learning a programming language.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

No, I advise against telling students to use it unless they're ready.

Use whatever the hell works for you if you're writing a book. Well, except Microsoft Word.

kleiba2• 14 years ago

Ah, now I see. I misread that - thanks for the clarification!

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

Crap, well I just updated this and didn't rewrite the README. Let me fix that real quick.

nbashaw• 14 years ago

Sorry for submitting to HN with it not quite ready! Just stumbled across it today and thought it was really fascinating. I'm working on a "learn to code" product myself. Just watched your talk at Oredev in Sweden yesterday. Thank you so much for sharing what you're learning!

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

Meh, I was just being lazy and should have done it yesterday. No harm done.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

Alright, all fixed up and should work with the actual content and the newest dexy. Shoot me problems if you try it.

http://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way/learn-x-the-hard-w...

danso2• 14 years ago

If you've never taught beginners how to program, then you should obsessively follow Zed's advice...I just cringe whenever I see even a mention of "git" or any other development tool in the context of beginners coding.

I can only say that it is nearly impossible to underestimate the technical unfamiliarity of this audience. Opening the command line terminal is bewildering to them. Not understanding why 'ls' worked a minute ago but not now (it's because they're in the interactive interpreter) causes rage.

You may think you're enticing the beginner by teasing all the cool things they'll eventually get into, but it ends up being a disservice. They're already entering a world of confusion and frustration, no need to add orthogonal concepts to the mix.

btian2• 14 years ago

I agree in principle. However, sometimes it is useful to bundle things together if that's how things work in the real world, like Ruby on Rails + Github + Heroku in a RoR book. Then again, it would be counter-productive to add in totally irrelevant things like vim or emacs.

zedshaw10• 14 years ago

If I'm teaching someone rails deployment and making their first rails app, then maybe but that's a whole lot of indoctrination there. You have to pick, but to me you're basically just making customers not programmers.

If I'm teaching someone who doesn't know how a computer loops in a while loop or what a variable is, then you're advice is counter productive. None of that is useful for them and just gets in the way of what they need. At best you're just impressing them with a flashy demo that they may not even really understand.

orangethirty4• 14 years ago

I disagree. Adding github + heroku to a Rails book is a mistake. Too much time is spent setting up things you don't really need to learn how to code with Rails. Its a big drag. Imagine if at school you were taught how to write cursive while also being taught how to hold the pencil. Shit gets complicated too fast.

dizzystar• 14 years ago

I vividly remember my first foray into real programming a year and half ago. Trust me, just getting Python to install and compile was lesson enough. It was months before I learned how to use the Windows command line. To a total beginner, especially one who is only familiar with Windows, path variables and stuff like that is absolutely frightening. It also doesn't help that the documentation for many programs is Linux-only.

If you can't get someone started with the following steps:

1- Go to website

2- Download and press next until the prompt says "Installation Finished."

3- Click here to create a file and save the file on your desktop.

4- Press "Run."

5- See "Hello, World."

You already made it too damn difficult for week one.

All that other stuff is secondary. Getting the words "Hello, World!" (much less getting the screen to show 1 through 10 without dropping into an infinite loop) to show up w/o supervising the student is a huge victory. I can't tell you how long it took me to understand while and for loops, but it wasn't one or two days.

Getting someone set up and running with a semi-significant website is an unrealistic goal to accomplish within a few months... well, if you want that site to be reasonably coded, that is.

People with lots of experience forget that the basics, for a total beginner and near technophobe (as I was 18 months ago), is very difficult. The real "oh, crap" moment came for me when I was first exposed to Emacs. I complained that, in today's day and age, it was utterly fucked-up that some stupid class would suggest you don't use a mouse. I was told that that statement was probably the biggest indicator of my newbie status than all the horrid code I could demonstrate up to that point. Just remember that people aren't ready to learn a bunch of new tools and they aren't ready to give up familiar tools at the start.

jcoder2• 14 years ago

> Not understanding why 'ls' worked a minute ago but not now (it's because they're in the interactive interpreter) causes rage.

Oh, you probably just need to tell them to download Pry.

nailer• 14 years ago

Yes, because clearly the only way to see a list of files is by typing something in a command prompt, and beginners should install lots of apps to handle different edge cases so they can't program on their own.

gnu8• 14 years ago

zed shaw's [something], let me fall all over myself to pay attention to this rot.

roryokane• 14 years ago

Your comment would be more helpful if you wrote what is actually wrong with this book template, or with Zed Shaw’s works in general.

hahbhc• 14 years ago

I am expecting Learn Scala the hard way. Scala for the impatient (first free eight chapters) was a very good book, Scala Coursera was interesting. Some of Zed advices are very practical.

alexk7• 14 years ago

I guess writing "Learn 'alexk7's favorite C++ subset' the hard way" would violate the "no indoctrination" rule... :)

Zed Shaw's Template for "Learn X The Hard Way" Books

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