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139 Comments
- AdamMaras, on 11/09/2008, -13/+61I still think kids should start off with plain ol' C.
- weaselfingers, on 11/10/2008, -2/+46screw that, have them manipulate the electrons through sheer force of will.
- bearzly, on 11/10/2008, -1/+40screw that, start them with assembly. kids have it too easy these days
- Seth024, on 11/10/2008, -0/+23printf("%d+%dn",x,y);
is so simple for 8-year-olds. - canadas321, on 11/10/2008, -1/+23As a professional developer, I can say with confidence that the 62 page "easy to read manual" that is supposed to be designed for 9 years olds - is not designed for 9 year olds. There are some mathematical concepts (like advanced geometric shapes) that the manual goes over which I doubt any 9 year old has been learned. Although the manual does make an excellent tutorial for anyone, regardless of age, to learn the fundamental concepts of programming. My only concern is that the manual uses goto statements in many of its examples. Even though goto was used heavily in pre-oo languages, it SHOULD not be taught to students today, it gives kids a bad starting foundation.
Yet despite all of this, I would still encourage the youth today to program, regardless if they want to be programmers or developers. Programming enstills kids with a good concept on how to think logically to solve problems. - inactive, on 11/09/2008, -4/+24I have great memories of getting this 10 pound book from the library when I was.. 8?... 10?... and sitting down and diving into BASIC. That initial line of "beep"... OMG I MADE THE COMPUTER BEEP!!!
I then started making little games of all sorts... and.. farting butts... with green "pixel poo" coming from the butt with fart sound effects (as best as a PC Speaker could do such things).... yeah.. kids... ;-) - tttt123, on 11/10/2008, -9/+29That's exactly what kid's should be doing nowadays. Learning to be anti-social.
- connieLingus, on 11/10/2008, -3/+21***** i remember riding my bike to the radio shack so i could write basic programs in the window display TRS-80 and save my code on a cassette tape...
...and it was uphill both ways, too. kids have it too easy these days. - ravage86, on 11/10/2008, -0/+15Why, they already have QBasic... I learned that when I was 8, are kids today getting stupider?
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+15Today's youth missed out on a great thing - when personal computers were still new, and everyone learned how to program.
- charm803, on 11/10/2008, -1/+16I am so jealous of our youth.
- aznpwnzor, on 11/10/2008, -1/+15you again show that programming does not mean maturity
not that i'm mature - freesf, on 11/10/2008, -1/+13Now, how the Apple fanboys and Linux geeks going to bash Microsoft? They'll come up with something,
- RussTaylor, on 11/10/2008, -0/+11Nice easy way in for kids, C would require too much work setting up a compile and sorting some IDE for your average 8 yr old :) The blog has a couple example screenshots.
http://blogs.msdn.com/smallbasic/
Better they learn to make the games rather than just sit there playing them... didn't do me any harm. - stormgren, on 11/10/2008, -2/+12Do any of you actually *use* C? Because I do. And it's a weird language with strange design features.
For example, try explaining to a kid that the pointer associates with the variable not the type, so that:
int* x, y;
makes x a pointer and y a regular int.
And that since arrays are pointers (most of the time),
a[3] means *(a + 3) means *(3 + a) means 3[a];
So you can put the indices outside the brackets. I mean wtf. yeah C is a great low level language but you should learn something else first. - FatLoser, on 11/10/2008, -4/+13prepare to be buried... C is the language that few people on Digg probably use, but all of them viciously defend.
- robot1122, on 11/10/2008, -2/+11java < C
C just runs so damn fast!!! - therightclique, on 11/10/2008, -3/+11that statement doesn't even make sense.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+8Oh my poor children are going to love/hate me! :D
- jjb123, on 11/10/2008, -4/+12screw that, have them program in binary.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+7Man I miss QBasic I would have loved to have had this as a kid
- Narcowski, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6Buried because your bitcode is gibberish.
- Terr01, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6Pfft. These are kids, right?
The right tool for the right job. Maybe Python.
But if it's a C/Java issue, definitely Java. They're not building 3D graphics rendering libraries or crap like that, and it makes perfect sense to incur the overhead of a JVM for all of the benefits it provides.
And academically, it makes more sense to start them on the concepts of objects and useful programs before trying to tutor pointer arithmetic. - Beatmiser, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6I'd also recommend Alice:
http://www.alice.org/ - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+6Aren't corporations supposed to be evil?
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5Speaking from a psychological point of view - I think it makes sense to use goto statements, as they're much easier for a kid to conceptualize. I know, I know, we don't want to instill bad habits in kids learning to program, but really, for younger children, it's much easier to have something concrete, something where they can physically see the connection and follow the flow through the program.
Geez, I never thought I'd find myself discussing the psychology of programming. - Matt2k, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5How dare they release a language that is not Python. The language that everybody uses!!
- raydeen, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5I grew up programming in Atari Basic and GW-Basic. The ONLY time I used GOTO was to set the main loop of the program (usually 10-99). Everything else was a GOSUB.
- AbeX, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5Since you had to ask, probably not.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -2/+7Would be nice if there was a kid friendly version for C
- Metasquares, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5How does writing directly to memory help you think outside the box? It's good to know what's going on behind the scenes, but I don't see the connection.
Anyway, I don't think requiring children to slog through a whole bunch of stuff they don't understand or care about is a good way to teach anything. Sit them down and let them just code. Who cares what language it is? Exposure is the most important component. - huckdunsany, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5Dugg for the mention of Hypercard!
- raptor87, on 11/10/2008, -0/+5LEGO LOGO !
- mrBitch, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4@freesf RE: " Now, how the Apple fanboys and Linux geeks going to bash Microsoft? They'll come up with something, "
well, it's pretty easy to see how MS can be bashed over this "free" programming IDE. For one example, see astutissimo's comment :
" Evilness in this case comes from .NET, which is a Microsoft proprietary platform. " - abajaj2280, on 11/10/2008, -2/+6so this means i can learn it!?
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5if anything, children should start off with Hypercard or at worst Visual Basic 6. Can't get any simpler than that.
- phrees, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5An alternative:
http://lolcode.com/ - Metasquares, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4It's so easy to change your mindset about programming languages anyway that I think trying to avoid instilling "bad habits" is a waste of time. I started by learning Basic, coded in QB and VB for 9 years, then switched to "good" C++ in a matter of weeks. It's far better to learn early with "bad habits" and transition over than to wait years and attempt to learn programming as an adult because one insists on being "proper" or using a "proper" language. The important thing isn't the language. It's that people are programming *in the first place*, because a lot of people just can't make the switch as adults.
I see it in my students too. The ones who code well are the ones who started early, irrespective of the language they started with. The ones who just picked up programming as freshmen seldom have the skills required for the course. - pezholio, on 11/10/2008, -0/+410 PRINT "What is your name?"
20 INPUT $name
30 PRINT $name " is cool"
40 GOTO 30 - Metasquares, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Good Programmers write Good Code in any language. Learning how to code in the first place is more important than learning one particular language or set of habits.
- JayD16, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3@stormgren
"try explaining to a kid that the pointer associates with the variable not the type, so that:
int* x, y;"
Heh, that's an easy one. It's a case of aesthetics vs. clarity. Its only a formatting convention that it should be written int* x and not int *x. I've never liked that convention at all. Besides, you could always put your pointers on the right side can't you?
int y, *x; - amoeba, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4buried as another tool to wean kids onto windows
- Myztry, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3PlayBasic is much more likely to do the things that kids are going to want to do.
The authors and myself taught each other to program as kids, though I couldn't force myself to devolve into the poorly written mess that is Windows API/framework.
Hopefully Small Basic protects kids from that ugliness even though it appears to use a derived namespace approach.
I was quite a proficient programmer, and Microsoft still managed to be me off programming to this day. I just wish Win32 had been halfway comparable to the AmigaOS API.
Changing from Caviar to gruel is not an easy thing to do. - paxmaniac, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3You know what? GOTO is not such a bad thing to learn. If you want to actually understand how a computer interprets language, GOTO is a really useful concept. Sure, they will eventually discover that high level control structures are much more useful, and much less likely to cause a huge headache - but they will remember that a computer fundamentally interprets a loop as a set of statements, a terminating conditional and a GOTO.
- counterplex, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3screw that, start them off with a qubit and some probability theory.
- Lith25, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3Dugg for hating on the Win32 API. I've never seen a library so poorly written.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4No way, I'll take my QBasic, thank you very much. *throws explosive banana at ensta2*
- HisNoodly, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4http://hacketyhack.net/
- Matt2k, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3> Even though goto was used heavily in pre-oo languages, it SHOULD not be taught to students today, it gives kids a bad starting foundation.
I know it's fun to repeat this, but I think everyone turned out okay. It's not a big deal. It's more important that they START in the first place. If they want to be a programmer, they'll be a programmer either way.
I mean, look. Above, some people above are suggesting they start with the fundamentals and learn assembler. How do you think you do flow control with *that*? You have JMP. Good enough. - Myztry, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3I think he meant outside the framework/API. Writing directly to memory is unavoidable but hitting the hardware registers in a multitasking environment isn't such a good idea, in most cases. Certainly not on IBM PC compatibles.
As for learning to program, any language is good enough. Brute speed has overcome the need to optimize opcodes down to the cycle. (Ah, the memories)
The framework that you are working against is crucial though. Microsoft isn't pushing the NET framework because it's the best. It's because it is theirs.
"He who controls the Spice controls the universe" - Dune (The Movie) -
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