absolute beginner? Start at https://www.hedycode.com/

Which will ultimately lead into vanilla Python. This is the creator explaining why Hedy is uniquely designed for learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmF7HpU_-9k

I’ve never seen these “express code/tests in natural language” ever work well. Your non-coders need lawyer-like skills to wield English very precisely, or it falls to coders that would be better off using code directly.

problems only have one answer and often one strategy to get to the answer

Totally disagree

You’re thinking of equations, which only have one answer. There are often many possible ways to solve and tackle problems.

If you’ll permit an analogy, even though there’s “only one way” to use a hammer and nail, the overall problem of joining wood can be solved in a variety of ways.

IMO mathematical/logical/abstract thinking is critical for programming well, but IMO that’s different from “math degree” math.

Software as a means to an end can be used in almost every domain, so proficiency within that applicable domain is often either useful or necessary. That is to say, “math degree” math is likely needed for 3d rendering (certain games), scientific computation (incl machine learning), etc, but maybe not, otherwise. It depends on what software you’re trying to build.

To be more specific, general programming is definitely and specifically different from trig and calc. However, because math is also broad, “mathy” concepts like type theory, relational algebra, set theory are considered important for programming, even if only informally or indirectly so.

I don’t understand, if you’ve got easy to delete copy-pasted code, then delete it. It’ll be a nice and cathartic exercise.

But sounds like what you’re really talking about is code that isn’t easy to delete.

IMO folding to hide is about equivalent to moving all contents to another file/private function:

def bad_function(args):
    return _hide_elsewhere(args)

i.e. does nothing. Real solution to pyramids of doom is to fix the code.

That’s changing the goal posts to “not static”

Sounds easy to simplify:

Use one of: constructor A(d), function a(d), or method d.a() to construct A’s.

B and C never change, so I invoke YAGNI and hardcode them in this one and only place, abstracting them away entirely.

No factories, no dependency injection frameworks.

IMO factory functions are totally fine – I hesitate to even give them a special name b/c functions that can return an object are not special.

However I think good use cases for Factory classes (and long-lived stateful instances of) are scarce, often being better served using other constructs.

But would you pay for it?

My employer’s paying for my access, and I only find it a bit useful here and there

Maybe my company gets a great discount or something, but if they would pay me the subscription cost to give up Copilot, I wouldn’t miss it