Re: git clarity
Great post - i wholeheartedly agree.
I don’t know how to drive so the following analogy is fraught but some people need to learn a car from the engine first and others need to learn it from the steering wheel first.
In my own case, my learning preference is somewhat influenced by a broader context: to what extent am i needing to just Get Something Done, and to what extent am i interested in the topic for its own sake?
- If i just need to Get Something Done, and i'm not interested in the topic for it's own sake, just tell me about the steering wheel, and don't distract me with anything that's not immediately relevant.
- If i need to Get Something Done, but i'm also interested in the topic for it's own sake, it's okay to briefly discuss engine-related stuff, but not too much, before telling me about the steering wheel; go into detail about the engine (or link to such details) afterwards.
- If i don't need to get Something Done, and am interested in the topic for it's own sake, tell me about the engine first and the steering wheel last.
One would think that different people having different learning preferences in different contexts should be uncontroversial, but my experience has been otherwise. In particular, i've found discussions of maths education regularly feature lots of One True Wayism. But i'll leave that for a separate post. :-)
“The One True Way of teaching maths”
☙