One of the few tangible things I left school with was a spatula made in metal work. It was one of the most useful assignments I was given. I learnt something, plus I had something to fry eggs with in the future! :-)I once lectured in "Programming on the Internet" at the University of Technology, Sydney. Each semester 300+ students would spend 40 hours or more working on assignments for the course. That's 12,000 hours or around 500 person days! I was determined that all this time would not be wasted so I tried to come up with assignments that were fun, practical and meaningful. I largely succeeded, but I could have set an even better assignment.
Programming your own programming tools is one of the best lessons that I could have taught a young programmer. It's a bit like saving money, the earlier you do it the more compounding interest is gained. Setting a "mini Goo" as an assignment is really useful - not only do the students introspect on their own process of programming but they get to keep something that will be useful in the future.
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