Mentors & Partners
Looking for a Study Partner?
If you are taking our advice and seeking someone to partner you in your excursion into programming please use the contact page to send your name and brief description to us. We will send you our list of others seeking partners. To protect your privacy we are not publishing the names and details here, but obviously we will have to send them to those looking for a study partner.
Volunteering
We are looking for experienced programmers who are willing to volunteer as mentors for those studying this book. You need to be fluent at C++ but restrained enough to help newcomers tackle problems within the limits of what they have learnt.
If you are willing to offer your services please contact us giving a brief description of yourself that can be posted here. If you are accepted into the team we will provide a copy of 'You Can Do It' so that you will know the context of a readers questions. We do expect you to take some time working through the book so that you will be familiar with the contents and approach.
It is my (Francis') experience that undertaking a task such as this is an excellent way to improve understanding. Newcomers often ask questions that trigger insights in the more experienced. In addition participation in mentoring schemes such as this one can add a little extra to your CV.
In my experience the work load for mentoring half a dozen novices is usually very low. In general it just gives students a sense of extra security to know there is someone who will help when they are badly stuck.
The Mentors
Roger Orr
The first volunteer is Roger Orr. I have known him for several years and agree with his description of himself: "I am an experienced programmer, primarily in C++, but I also like to communicate and I have an interest in helping those new to the field". To contact him email rogero at howzatt with demon.co.uk appended.
Jacques Labuschagne
The second volunteer is Jacques Labuschagne who lives and works in New Zealand. He describes himself as "A competent programmer who enjoys helping others learn more about programming in general and C++ in particular." To contact him email (user) jlabusch (at domain) acm (dot) com.
Chris K Young
The third volunteer is Chris Young who is a software developer living in New Zealand and an aspiring teacher-to-be. He writes 'I'm keen to use my experience to help students build their programming knowledge.' Email ycdi-5935(at)ck(dot)young(dot)geek(dot)nz(More about Chris)
James Buchanan
James Buchanan is a technical college distance education course materials writer and occasional classroom teacher in Australia. He believes a lot can be done to improve computing education, and has issues with the over-professionalisation of the teaching profession (where remaining aloof and distant is considered professional, but being an enthusiastic and caring educator is amateurish). The corporatisation of schools, colleges and universities is also disappointing to him and he believes the teaching profession and all educational institutions are badly in need of fundamental reforms. He is interested mostly in computing, science and mathematics education, and spends most of his spare time thinking about education and improving his course materials.
To contact him send email to james[at]askaussie[dot]com
Ian Bruntlett
Ian Bruntlett is a perpetual student of C++ who has worked in the software industry for some time but whose work has been put to one side by illness. He started programming when he was about 13, teaching himself to program on Hewlett Packard calculators. Since then he has worked in SuperBasic, Prolog, Forth, COBOL, dBase, Archive, C and C++. Despite all that playing around, he still isn't a Language Lawyer yet. One of his strengths, the ability to put himself in the mind set of a casual user proved invaluable when writing search engines for public libraries intended for use by the general public.
He suggests that is www.accu.org/terse provides a bunch of useful links. In addition he recommneds you read 'learn programming'.