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Improvements from David Willson

David L. Willson

Jan 18, 2022, 8:32 PM (4 days ago)

to me I put up the post. I'm still not totally happy with the kitten pic, even though it's the most adorable kitten in the world, it's not really relevant to the topic. Even when one is attempting to be clever and funny, on should stay in domain, I think. But, you're happy with it, so I am... I guess.

I reviewed the material, too. My general recommendations are:

  • * Have at least a little "why" in each unit.
  • * Have some illustrations/diagrams. One to three per unit is good. They're very important in units without a demo. Speaking on behalf of students who fall asleep to word-floods, I/we need something to look at. Preferably something that moves, but a still diagram, at least.

See you Saturday, and I'm looking forward to the class. I'll be a paying student.

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2022 6:41:50 PM Subject: Re: draft of SQL David L. Willson

11:21 AM (9 hours ago)

to me

  • Consider adding description of operation before and/or after each operation:

sqlite> select "--- Display a love note from CFedde ---"; --- Display a love note from CFedde --- sqlite> select ' ...> ';

sqlite> select "--- Display the schema ---"; --- Display the schema --- sqlite> .schema sqlite> David L. Willson

11:25 AM (9 hours ago)

to me

  • Also, an illustration or three for critical points of knowledge, like at RDBMS: keys and relationships
  • [ ]
  • Definitely at normal forms, some examples/illustrations would help.

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 11:21:11 AM David L. Willson

11:43 AM (8 hours ago)

to me

  • I prefer for section-names to be 1:1 with section numbers. e.g. 1. Animals, 1.1. Dogs, 1.2. Cats (not more dogs)

  • Consider making the slides into a GitLab Pages site, or give a command to pack them into a containerized web-server and view it, or use xdg-open or open or open rather than firefox.

  • Consider requiring docker (or other OCI-compliant blah) and run the class in a Debian container, e.g.

docker run -it debian
apt update && apt install git sqlite3
git clone $MATERIALS_HTTP_URL
and so on....

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 11:25:12 AM David L. Willson

11:48 AM (8 hours ago)

  • to me
  • RE: solutions/.ex5_x.sql.swp
  • git rm it
  • echo "*.swp" >> .gitignore

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 11:43:44 AM David L. Willson

3:03 PM (5 hours ago)

to me

  • WRT verbosity/descriptiveness: Consider adding .echo and .pause to SQL all or most of the scripts.

  • Consider adding an rc script to the beginning of the class to get the runsql function, or add a shebang to the SQL scripts to replace the function by making them directly executable.

  • Attempt to make each learning unit deliverable in one hour or less.

  • For each learning objective, give the learner a chance to hear, see, do, and say it. Where that is impossible, give an opportunity to store and retrieve it, instead.

  • Make each learning unit independent of the others and rank learning units by importance, so that delivering the same material in different time-frames is easier, because you can know which units are required and which are optional for any given time-window.

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 11:48:08 AM David L. Willson

4:25 PM (4 hours ago)

to me Final thoughts: (maybe)

Retrieval is key. Ensure that the learner retrieves it. Storing it is not enough. The only way to ensure that it didn't wash off like water from a duck, or get lost like the right sized screw in a jar of screws, is to practice retrieving it. With most of the things, "do" and "say" or "do one, teach one" are the right way to practice retrieval, but sometimes they're not a fit, and you have to ensure retrieval some other how.

  • Slow down a little, relax and breathe! If you are going fast because you have too much to deliver, make cuts, at least from the delivery, until you have what you can comfortably deliver. If you're having trouble with stage anxiety, deliver mostly to one student, and just ignore everyone else until/unless they ask a question. When you're ready, switch which student you're delivering to, or add one.

I love this class. If you do, too, I hope you'll deliver it for SFS annually, forever.

From: "DLWillson" dlwillson@thegeek.nu To: "chris" chris@fedde.us Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 3:03:13 PM

Edited by Chris Fedde