What if we have 90 minutes only to teach programming?

TL;DR

This paper proposes a 90-minute introductory programming session using a novel, category theory-based language, aiming to lower entry barriers and promote computational problem-solving skills.

Contribution

It introduces CON-CAT, a functional and concatenative language designed to simplify learning programming fundamentals in a short time.

Findings

A session plan effectively introduces programming in 90 minutes.

CON-CAT language reduces accidental complexity for novices.

The approach makes fundamental programming concepts accessible to beginners.

Abstract

Programming is about automation in a wide variety of domains. Developing itself is one of those. As a side-effect, progress in automated coding may make people less willing to learn computer programming. This could become an issue, if the skill of computational problem solving is not only for the immediate economic benefit, but an important part of our knowledge about the world. We suggest that weakened incentives can be countered by lowering the entry barrier. We plan to shorten learning time by reducing the accidental complexity of the programming language and its runtime system. We describe a session plan that introduces programming and computing fundamentals for novices, assuming only basic mathematical background. This requires a non-mainstream, functional and concatenative language. This language, CON-CAT, is a by-product of research in category theory. It provides direct access to fundamental ideas like recursion and advanced ones like G\"odel-encoding in an entertaining puzzle-like manner.