Daniel J Pezely wrote:
Anyone interested in teaching Lisp?
Not for $0. I just went down to Portland and made $0 on signatures, after my motel bills. It's not fun. Overdrafting one's bank account sucks.
What's needed is a demonstration of code maturing from blank canvas to just-get-something-working to various directions of "what if?" before settling on what's right for the task at hand.
I think it needs domain-specific grounding. People aren't interested in Lisp or Scheme. People are interested in what Language X can do for game development, webhosting, system administration, scientific visualization, etc.
We could structure our sessions with the first 30 minutes for instruction and the next hour or so as deeper presentation, show & tell, etc.
Nobody learns anything in 30 minutes. Nor does anyone learn anything in 2 days. I am completely cynical about conferences. I don't think "being a free instructor" can possibly work as Grand Strategy. I think we have to motivate people to learn on their own, and provide them resources that help them do that. The reality is you have to be pretty smart and self-motivated to bother to swallow a new language or technology when you're already innundated with many other mundane life concerns. People like that do exist; SeaFunc has a disproportionate number of them. The vanguard that is competent to do things on their own is what needs to be cultivated. The masses have to wait until the vanguard has proven they can get some results. Cheers, Brandon Van Every