We’re building Chiron so students can learn to program and pass that knowledge along to the next group. The lessons need to work for someone reading on their own, including someone who is still learning what a terminal or a file path is.
These notes are for students writing lessons or working through an idea with another student. They describe the checks used in the course, the research behind the lesson structure, and how we prepare a version for a new group.
When working together, start with what the other person expected to happen and what they actually saw. A program might fail because the terminal is in the wrong folder, even when the Python is correct. Looking at the exact command and output is usually more useful than guessing what they misunderstood.
If an explanation is missing from a lesson, add it to the page. The next person should be able to find it without having the same conversation. Keep examples small enough to trace, and give the person writing the code time to try their idea.