Roles of variables

Some history first...

I started programming when I was ten. Everything I've learned so far has been through self teaching from books in the library and articles in the web, and asking and reading stuff on forums.

Currently I'm studying electrical engineering at a university, and we have these compulsory basic programming courses. They're teaching us this concept I had never heard of. Turns out it was recently developed in another Finnish university. I'm talking about roles of variables.

The page linked above pretty much explains the thing, so I don't bother writing it here. What do you think about this concept?

I think roles could help beginners to understand the basics of programming better, but because those compulsory courses have people with previous experience too, it's a waste of time forcing them to learn new terminology they aren't likely to use outside the course. Therefore, requiring people to recognise and name the roles in exams isn't necessary.

If a novice programmer needs a crutch like this to help learn programming, find and explain errors, provide visualization assistance, and help comprehend larger programs, he has probably selected the wrong Major.

One of the examples used a variable called "age" as a counter. This only has this meaning in the context of the code it is being used in. A variable called age would typically be a value that was entered or was associated with a current record from a database. So, the same variable name, depending on the specific way it is being used in the code, would have multiple role types. It does not make sense to do this.

When programming, you select variable names that have meaning within the context of the program. By defining and adding this "Roles of variables" layer to something that is intuitive, you are just complicating something that is already... intuitive.

While I only read the page at the link you provided and the first article linked on that page, the concept reads like a sociology graduate student came up with this for his masters thesis on how he would go about teaching novice programmers a way to overly complicate something that is intuitive - naming and using variables in programming. And what do I base this on - I hold a BSEE degree from 1981.

I'm no guru, but I have to agree with what the previous post said. The purpose variables serve isn't exactly rocket science. If a student can't understand them, I think they're in the wrong field.

talk about a confusing explanation. Sorry but I was more confused by their explanation of what a variable is then I ever was when i was first learning. Maybe it was because my instructor based it off of something i was already familiar with (math variables) but... *shrug*

My take to put it bluntly - what a load of crap.

Actually one of the articles I read was so poorly organized that you could not tell how this Roles of variables was being used until you got 2/3 of the way through it. Normally when you write about something, the first paragraph introduces and defines what you are talking about.