Biggest issue: I'm still not finding time for code reviews in these relatively large classes,
and I feel like we're running so fast that getting real code-quality introspection from
the students is getting short shrift. I don't always buy the "less is more" argument, but I
think it probably applies here.
So even though I finally found a start-up TDD project that I like (the Autocomplete project),
I think that has to go. We can do TDD in Python in conjunction with the API design and
implementation, and then take our time introducing IntelliJ after the web application.
Maybe this means I should start using PyCharm.
With that background in mind, here are some suggestions.
- Keep the "Unix thing of the day" going all term. The students really liked it, I discovered on the
last day of class.
- Put learning goals into the assignments.
- Make sure all the samples are documented the way you want student projects documented.
- Have some sort of mechanism for checking that they're processing your lecture ideas, since the
lectures can often be more general than the current assignment.
- Kill the start-of-term IntelliJ project, and start right off the bat with the API stuff and pyunit.
- You just saved 2.5 weeks. Use it for code reviews, threading, encoding, and automation,
and a more gradual intro to HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
- Introduce .gitignore in a less fraught context than IntelliJ projects, and then come back
to the whole "what should be in my repo" question then. You can also incorporate
a discussion of the security debacle of login credentials in github at the same time.
- Make authors/books work better as a sample. Either flesh it out, or emblazon on it THIS IS
NOT A GOOD MODEL OF A SEARCH INTERFACE. Too many of them copy too many aspects of that sample.
- Have a ramp-up assignment for IntelliJ before the MVC stuff.
- Modify Daleks: comment it, switch to either Canvas or a background with ImageView-based sprites.
- Have a "get to know the Daleks project" assignment
- Rethink KindaPong's structure. Maybe the MVC style of Daleks will work. Note that the students used
Daleks, KindaPong, and SpriteWorld, depending on what their final project was like (and also
depending on which one they started with...).