The article reports on the methods and forms of teaching programming used by the authors during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. It describes how the authors communicated and discussed with the learners, how they changed and adapted their full-time teaching to distance learning, how they managed to maintain and adapt the best practices from classical teaching programming, and how teaching aids were changed to practical distance learning. They also analyse the suitability of some methods for distance learning such as problem-based and project-based teaching programming; programming according to instructions; use of classic and interactive electronic textbooks; use of programming courses via the internet; computer game programming, and gamification of programming. The process of programming is highly creative. A good programmer must possess a range of skills that he uses and combines to solve diverse problems. The source code does not mean a strict write-down of an algorithm. The source code reflects the skilful and optimal use of all elements of the programming environment that the programmer uses. Those elements include (besides the flow-control structures, miscellaneous statements like assigning the value, subroutine call, doing various operations and likewise) standard (ordinal or primitive) and compound data types and data structures (records, sets, enumerations, classes and similar) of the programming language. The problem solved by the programmer is represented using different data structures defined in the default packages delivered within the standard installation. The process often puts the programmer in defining new data structures (classes) to better express the data needed for the final solution. Encapsulating the data into the suitable classes within the proper data model often noticeably simplifies the solution. Thus, one of the programmer's skills is the ability to transform the problem to the proper data elements (classes) or the proper data model. In other words: to create a valid data model.

algorithms and programming; playful way of teaching; game-based learning; gamification