Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Suggestions for a coding club that is just starting?

[Thomas HARDING]

Le 17/09/2015 17:10, Pen-Yuan Hsing a écrit :
> Hello,
>
> First of all, thanks everyone for your help several weeks ago on the 
> Freeing of a scientific software I mentioned here. I have a couple 
> follow up questions which I plan to post in another message, but for 
> now there is another issue.
>
> I learned that a teacher in a secondary school in my town is starting 
> a coding club for their students (probably teenagers), and they're 
> looking for information or other direct support regarding how to start 
> it. Since this coding club is just starting, I think this is a great 
> opportunity to include in their agenda the concept of Free Software.
>
> I am not an active coder myself, but care a lot about Free Software, 
> and I want to do what I can to make sure this club goes in the "right 
> direction". However, I have zero experience doing this. Do folks here 
> have ideas, or better yet links to existing 
> websites/information/teaching plans that are appropriate for this? I 
> plan to email the lead teacher soon about the important of Free 
> Software in their club, and would appreciate anything you can 
> provide!! I think the more we can give the teacher the better. Thanks!!
[having only little skills in English, please point any impairing 
mistake (I'm French)]

Fortunately, coding is one of the most outstanding features given by 
Free Software, not only by design but by lang::fr::nature :)

That said, first question is not "what do you want to code" but "what do 
you need needing coding": first step to learn for coding is to something 
simple which *you want to exists but can't find*, or, at option, reallly 
do not already exists, or, more, already exists but do not fit 
*perfectly* *your* needs.

My opinion is: some tools always exists but never fit perfectly your needs.

Just take the ways to rotate a screen and the way and conditions *you 
think* a screen should rotate. You have a project, scalable from a bash 
alias to a C project (Ada would work too if you want for contracts), 
with any kind of programming model and typed level.

You'll also want the screen rotates from a web interface, authenticated 
and with no [fakes?] to a complete classroom if your goal is to say 
"now, we start to read text displayed vertically as a book, please 
rotate your screen counerclockwise... No Allan, *counter*clockwise, the 
goal is not to read head top-bottom").

While you can do almost anything with free software with excerpt for (at 
time) quantic crypto break and low cost blu-ray tray scrambled video 
reading, anyone in the crew needs only whiches :-)