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Teaching Programming Skills to Children?
KlaatuVN asks: "My younger siblings are asking for ways to learn to program. If I remember correctly, when I was younger I started programming by writing games like 'Lemonade Stand' in BASIC for the Commodore 64. Short of finding a Commodore 64 emulator and digging up some old BASIC programming books somewhere, what do you think is a good way of teaching children to program? I'm not trying to start a 'language war', but that does enter into it. Should I start with a scripting language? What, O Wise Slashdot Readers, are your opinions?" When I was just starting out in computers, I remember LOGO being a big help in teaching me the logic skills I would eventually use as a programmer. I know LOGO is still around, but it would be interesting to note if there are other similar projects like it. What tools, and programs would you use to teach programming skills to interested youngsters?
QuickBASIC is easy to use and there's less of the problems associated with API's with it. If you don't mind the lack of legality about it, there are copies on the net. QuickBASIC
Malbolge.
'nuff said.
Stagecast Creator is a fairly elementary language that can introduce the young ones to object oriented thinking. You can program multi-level games and applications like calculators. Each object is defined by its set of parameters and how it interacts with other objects. A few friends of mine have used it to introduce their kids to programming and have found it to be pretty successful.
TiFox
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
I've been teaching Python to older kids and teens (10+) and have had good success. A few younger kids started in the classes but had trouble with typing and general computer skills. Most of the kids caught on to programming and were writing their own variations on assignments.
Very young kids have problems with attention span, reading, typing, etc. so you may want to use something like Lego Mindstorms instead of text-based programming.
See www.geekschool.org for one approach.
I forgot to mention that it's point'n'click like QuickBasic is, so it's suitable for younger children.
Additionally, here's a link for game creation resources for those who are non-programmers. Since games keep interest up, this could be a way to teach programming.
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
Good luck finding it - but if you do it is a killer teacher of Boolean Logic.
Last time I played it was on an Apple IIe.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Lego Mindstorms and it's RCX language. Fairly intuitive, robust, and you can get it to do cool real-world stuff.
While I think a child might be ok with making some little PC games, I think they would love it even more if they could build a dinosaur and make it walk like they want it to.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
The most important things to communicate about programming are the central concepts -- variables, expressions, conditional branching, looping, etc. Use whatever language you (or whoever is doing the teaching) are most comfortable with. Using an emulated C64 would not be that bad, aside from the primitiveness of line numbering by today's standards -- BASIC is not a bad TRAINING language, just a bad production one :-), but Perl or Python or BASH would be just as good or better depending on your religious views. I think making sure you start slowly and go at the student's pace will be most important. Begin with Hello World and procede from there to classics like Guess The Number. I was very lucky to have gone to junior and high school when computer classes taught how to write programs instead of use them. Good luck to you and your siblings!
I would vote for assembly (no this isn't a joke). Assembly is really simple when it comes down to it and would be good for instruction for several reasons:
1) fewer operators than pretty much any other language (unless you're talking about x86 asm)
2) teaches how computers *really* work inside. I never became an effective C programmer until I learned assembly and what was going on behind the scenes. Your kids will learn the basics of booleans, memory layout, branches, etc much more thoroughly than if they started with C. After they've mastered asm then they can move on to C and will appreciate it that much more.
It will help keep them focused on writing something that works correctly, and writing only what is needed. It should also keep them from wasting hours trying to figure out why something isn't working.
So they'll never have a chance of learning to write in English. (kidding)
My blog
Not sure how appropriate it would be for very young kids, but the TI graphing calculators make a great environment for learning basic programming. They have their own scripting language that's very easy to pick up. It's nice because you can literally learn how to show output and accept input in almost no time at all (you could write the "guess a number between 1 and 1000 game" in around 10 minutes.) It also has graphing capabilities to handle graphics, though that would require some minimal math skills (x and y coordinates and such.)
I learned to program on one of these things in high school and it was quite fun re-implementing old games...pong, brickles, concentration. A friend of mine even wrote a FPS, though it only had one really short level. And for under $100 (also doubling as a calculator), it's a lot cheaper than a full computer. I learned on a TI-85, though they probably have newer models now.
I'd stay away from kludgy languages like C, C++, Java, Basic, etc.
So Smalltalk might be good. I'd suggest Lisp, but it might be too useless ;) I've also heard good things about Ruby.
And assembler might be good too. A big light turned on in my head when I learned assember, because I finally figured out what was going on inside the computer.
Go with a flexible language as a first language. You don't want them stuck using only one programming paradigm. If possible, choose something that can do OOP, functional, logic, etc. It will serve them well down the road if they ever want to use it for anything not to be stuck in just one paradigm.
There's no sig like SIGSEG
Lego Mindstorms is another one that is simplified but gives impressive results.
Beyond that I would look for something that let them write games with graphics easily. Don't have any great suggestions though. BASICA for the original IBM PC, which is where I wrote my first games, was pretty good, but I think with windowing systems, doing any graphics has gotten so complicated that there might not be any system where it is simple to do graphics. But definitely writing games is a good way to learn, even if it is just "guess what number I am thinking of" in Python.
- adam
Macromedia Director (or Revolution, or Hypercard) seem to be a natural for an introductory taste to programming... at least they were for me.
My "real" first taste of programming was BASIC, with the old K-power magazines and my Atari 400/Apple II+. Those were the days.
At any rate, my entry into building actual applications came with Director 1.0, many years later.
It gives a timeline that anyone can animate and assign rudimentary interactivity to -- building presentations, programs, and even specialized applications -- without any programming needed, but also allows for Lingo scripting (as a next step) -- which you can achieve pretty much anything with.
Lingo is very close to BASIC, but the syntax comes closer to C/Javascript/PHP, and it's getting more object-oriented with every revision.
The bottom line is that *anyone* can build an application or presentation with any of these tools that work, without programming.
But *with* programming, you can add bells, whistles and functions that wouldn't be possible working in the timeline alone.
From there, kids can (if they have aptitude) make the jump to C or scripting languages once they can understand more complicated syntax.
Just my thoughts, but if someone tried to teach Perl or VBScript to an 8-year-old, I think it'd be an uphill battle.
A battle I'd pay to see, because I think it'd be much funnier than anything that's broadcast on TV these days, at any rate.
God, I miss LOGO.
--dr00gy
I haven't seen anything since BASIC and Pascal that's been particularly good as a teaching language.
Java, which is commonly used in schools, is *awful* as a first language -- tons of focus on semantics and OOP, not much on data structures.
I strongly disagree with people that push Scheme as a first language. I don't think functional programming is incredibly intuitive.
On the up side, whatever you use these days has memory protection and preemptive scheduling. I remember learning C on the classic Mac OS -- make a mistake, and the OS instead of the app goes down.
May we never see th
Please do not start with BASIC, it was good for C=64, but only because there was nothing else (at least early on). Now we have python and other (even more?) fully implemented OOP languages, like scheme. Teach OOP first, they can learn BASIC later if they need to, it is harder the other way around.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
The reason "we" got into programming when young is that we were all probably maths/science people looking for an outlet for our energy ("I never made the first team, I just made the first team laugh" - billy bragg).
Unless they already have a flexible and mathematical brain, it's really going to be hard to teach them to cope with the logic of
x = x+1
That statement is directly contradictory to anything that they ever learn in maths, and I certainly wouldn't want them believing that it was actually a statement of equality.
As programmers we contort our brains to think of it as 'x takes the value of whatever x is now plus 1' - but it's us changing our thinking to suit the computers for this specific task.
I have thought a number of times about trying to teach teenagers computer programming, but after having taught them maths for the last 4 years, I don't think I would attempt this with any but the most advanced students.
However, programming concepts can be taught using more visual tools. I can't remember the name of the program, but I have seen a Lego Mindstorm programming interface which is ideal for kids: it's visual, it's dragging and dropping program pieces, and it gives kids some concrete feedback on their progress (since it makes the Lego robot, or whatever, do something).
You and I might be happy to write a "helloworld" or a "prime number list generator", but most people need something a bit less abstract as a proof of their progress. LOGO had the conrete output of a picture (so it'd be a competition between the kids to make the picture). Mindstorms have robots (so it's a competition to make the coolest robot).
To summarise the summary of the summary
Cool, but useless.
From about K through 6, I fondly remember using LOGO and I think PILOT to make different graphical creations. I also recall Logowriter as a fun tool to even make movies with
Note though that these, I believe, helped me to learn to use the computer in a fun and natural way, not necessarially to learn how to actually program correctly with them. That is probably more important than anything to get kids to go into the computer fields. I mean, once they start taking those comp sci classes, by that time they either like CS or don't. Once they go down the path CS or eng, then they can take whatever requisite classes are necessary.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
I strongly recommend Python as a first language. It instills good habits from the beginning, can be used to teach imperative, functional, or OOP styles of programming, and has an interpreter so that they can learn easily by experimentation. Python is a very well-designed and orderly language, so intuition will take you a long way. They'll see patterns more easily than with something like Perl, where there are a million ways of doing everything, or like Java, where the underlying simplicity is hidden by the complexity of forced OOP and explicit typing, casting, etc. Python code is very easy to read, and unlike Perl, I can actually read other people's throwaway code. Sure, you can read Perl when the person went to efforts to make it readable, but Perl hackers regard it a macho virtue that nobody else can understand their code. One last advantage is that far from just being a good scripting language, teach the kid C after python, and there is nothing they can't do with the two.
I'd look at it from some criteria. The weights that you give these criteria would vary depending on your target audience. For most audiences, I've listed them in descending order.
I refer to the Lego Mindstorm's RCX here. There are two forms for this. One is the graphical program builder that comes with it. The other is traditional languages like NQC. Generally, NQC etc have all the disadvantages of C.
Overall, either Logo or Python would be a good choice, depending on your target audience. I'd say that Logo would be a good choice for 12 and under, and that Python would be good for after that. Note that Logo knowledge easily translates to Lisp, so one possible track would be to start with Logo, and later transitition to Lisp.
My younger siblings are asking for ways to learn to program. If I remember correctly, when I was younger I started programming by writing games like 'Lemonade Stand' in BASIC for the Commodore 64. Short of finding a Commodore 64 emulator and digging up some old BASIC programming books somewhere, what do you think is a good way of teaching children to program? I'm not trying to start a 'language war', but that does enter into it. Should I start with a scripting language? What, O Wise Slashdot Readers, are your opinions?
It would have been nice if you spent a little less time regaling us with tales of your beloved C=64 and more time telling us a little about your siblings -- like their ages!
You don't need to get a C64 emulator just to program in BASIC- there are plenty of free implementations tailored for all sorts of reasons, and quite a few intended for beginning programmers wanting to make cool stuff- simple graphics and the like. Kids like that kind of stuff usually, a high return for their time investment. Especially important with today's no-attention-span kids. I think some good experience programming could help with that though. :)
Other than that, there are a wealth of other environments which could also be fun as well as useful. There is Squeak Smalltalk, which has been used in education for almost 30 years. Most recently, there is the eToys system- which can be used by kids and adults a like for creating interactive, multi-media-ish setups by drawing/dragging your objects, assigning actions. You can do a lot without writing a line of code- but if you want to, the power of a full, mature language is at your disposal. Quite a combo!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The system itself is geared towards creating 2-D games (as someone else already said, making a game can keep it nice and fun), and comes complete with a powerful yet simple object-oriented language. I must say, after using it for a couple of years, I'm really impressed with the language. It's so well designed that many of us there who are seasoned developers have come to the conclusion that it's a superb first language for anyone who's just starting to learn programming. I have personally witnessed a number of young programmers within the BYOND community successfully learn fundamental concepts more easily than they possibly could have at their age, starting with another language. The way the language is designed, new programmers start doing things right away, putting together different pieces; and then suddenly a lightbulb goes on and they advance to the next level.
The only real drawback (from a kids learning standpoint) compared to similar systems is that BYOND doesn't provide any canned graphics/sounds like some others do. It provides the flexibility and framework to add your own, but this also means it's more work to create something nifty right off the bat. I've seen people get frustrated because while they have the programming part down, they may not be good at creating their own graphics and sounds, so they feel like the programming is a waste.
Disclaimer: the guys who created it are personal friends of mine, so yes, I am somewhat biased, but I stand behind my recommendation on the strength of the system.
Say hello to zMac.
http://www.stagecast.com/ is pretty good. It is visual programming tool for kids to create games. While it does not have programming language in classic sense, it teaches to think algorithms.
My 10 yeard old dauggter mastered it pretty quickly.
Please clarify a few things - specifically what you mean by "children" - are we talking 6, 12, 16, what?
For little kids ( say below 12 years of age), you want something to captivate them. Definitely things like Lego Mindstorms, Technixs, and anything else that moves. Remember that before 12 years of age, kids' logic is not the best.
Now, if you are talking about 12 or so, then what you want is something that will let the kid start making useful programs. I'd suggest something interpreted - kids that age learn by trying things out first, and a "edit compile link run curse debug repeat" cycle isn't likely to get them hooked. I'd suggest BASIC, TCL, Python, Forth and the like.
Teach them the VERY basics first - modularity first. Teach them to do little chunks they can build upon, rather than trying to cram the whole thing into main(). Teach them the value of a few well-placed (print|puts) statements.
Only when they have those fundementals down should you even THINK about more advanced languages.
I've a co-worker who's kid is learning on one of the programmable calculators that's out now - the thing's Z-80 based. I cut my teeth on a Z-80 (TRS-80 Model 1 Level 1) - nice and simple machine to work with. That may be a fruitful approach.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Karel takes simple commands (for example, turnLeft(), moveForward(), or pickUpBall()) and has boolean functions that act as sensers (such as hitWall() or wallOnRight().
When coupled with basic control structures, it's a fun and easy language to learn, and most Karel implementations have a graphic display of Karel moving around its world, so a wall-hugging function like the following isn't purely academic, it can be experienced just by watching.
You can make Karel programs that solve mazes or that clear the room of balls, etc. It's obviously not a good programming language to do anything of use (although I have seen a Karel half-adder accomplished by picking up and dropping balls), it's a great introduction to OO programming that seems more like a game than education.Sit them down on the couch, push the DVD of Hackers into your player, pour the microwave popcorn into a big bowl and have them enjoy the movie for 90 minutes. Then when the show is over, carefully explain to them that real-life programming is the exact opposite of everything they just saw.
Hope that helps,
GMD
watch this
The graphical aspect of programming is what would probably draw kids in most quickly. As a kid, I wanted it to be simple, I wanted it to be flexible, I wanted instant results. The ideal programming environment for beginners would have graphics. It would have a powerful, but flexible API. I'm thinking that Flash, or something similar might be appropriate.
Squeak is great on multiple levels:
Though I don't have children I would think that something like Robocode would be ideal. Considering that you can get almost instant feedback for the changes you make, and that it's a game, which if my niece is any indication, will consume any child above 2.5yrs to the point of tears when bedtime comes around.
- Gef
...or Visual Basic. Seriously.
I have to say this, because someone recommended assembly language with a straight face.
Some things you should remember:
1) Programming languages are just an expression of a problem's solution. The less time you can spend learning to express, the more time you can be solving.
2) Teaching someone logic is really the goal at early stages. Teaching them how a computer works (i.e. - low level programming) is really just noise at the start. Teaching someone object orientation is problematic in the opposite direction.
3) Your mileage may vary by age. A ten year old learns VERY differently than an 11 year old.
4) You're probably a genious that learned to program by plowing through manuals and books and scouring the web. This makes you the exception to the rule. Most people do NOT learn this way.
5) Not everyone will be good at programming, ever, but everyone can make it further than Hello World...they can make it to the point where they are conscious that they are _creating_ something.
6) Most people benefit from immediate visual feedback. Teaching someone how to compile and link slows them down. Teaching someone to write to stdout slows them down. Slapping together something in Visual Basic and then showing them how to hook up responses gets them moving quickly, especially when they can hit F5 and see what happens immediately. VB adds other complexity, though, which makes something like LOGO better in terms of simplicity.
7) Not everyone wants to be a coding god. Some people just want to see what programming is, some people _think_ they are l33t hax0rs but don't know shit (you always get these in large classes), some people are there against their will (parents made them do it, etc)...just keep it simple and fun. Most people won't take this to be the start of a career in software development.
I used to teach programming courses for summer camps. Java is just totally inaccessible as a first language. I tried. Visual Basic actually worked very well. Object orientation is best explained by NOT explaining it (people will naturally understand what a "push button" is, but it's a waste of time to explain how it's "subclassed" from a "widget". These things can come later). Half the trick is not scaring them off in the first few weeks.
If there was a free Logo package that didn't suck, I'd have used that (maybe there is, I couldn't find one at the time, but that was years ago).
My response to it all was to develop Toby (http://icculus.org/toby/), which is a variation on Logo.
--ryan.
Don't say, "don't quote me," because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying.
This may be a weird answer, but I learned with FutureBasic (version 3, I think) on a macintosh. First, let's get one thing out of the way: It's not basic. It's procedural, but it allows well-structured code. It allows really quick really powerful application development, but it's entirely coding, no silly point-and-build stuff. And I learned when I was eight; I had looked at C++, but I just wasn't ready for that yet. The editor is great (it's handling of tabs is still the best of any editor I've ever seen) and the usability is real. I really really really recommend it as the language for teaching children up to age 15 or so; beyond that I recommend Lisp, as the math (well, not math, perhaps formal logic) facilities are up for the task of Lisp, the learning is a bit more valuable, but creating usable apps is a bit harder.
I've had this sig for three days.
I think REBOL would be a good beginning language because you can stick with it for a long time and it'll remain useful.
:-)
It doesn't have the stupid limitations of BASIC. It's incredibly easy to parse strings, retrieve data from internet, do stuff with arrays (called blocks in REBOL), TCP/IP etc. It handles user advancement pretty darn well, going all the way to GUI programming.
REBOL for Dummies is a very well-written book, although it's dated by a few versions. I strongly suggest reading it.
You can get REBOL at REBOL.com. It's free and runs on a huge number of platforms.
No, I don't work for them.
Ron Paul 2012
I first programmed with Microsoft QBASIC. I thought it was awesome, but I was a young kid at the time. Hell, I made some pretty cool things. Things have changed since then. When I was trying to learn C++, BASIC came back to haunt me. I did not understand even how to use functions and loops properly, so that was bad, and I gave up. Python, however, was so clear and simple I actually learned more about C++ using Python than C++!
I recommend Python, since you can write some very good programs quickly and its just plain fun. I'd also recommend Scheme, simply because of the functional nature and the enlightenment they will gain from using it.
Also try using PyGame after you get the basics down to give the kids something interesting and fun to do.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
Everyone knows that good programming can only be taught using Scheme. Surely, kids can see the benefits of learning the statically scoped and properly tail-recursive dialect of the mother of all computer languages.
More than mere navel gazing.
I know, I know. Calm down, breath in and out, and put the flame-throwers away. Yes, PostScript is obscure. Yes, it's not a prepositional language (i.e. modifier before object, as in English), like Pascal or Basic. It's not even remotely "English-like". Yes, it's not a functional language, like C or nearly everything else. Yes, it's not object-oriented. Yes, it's not a fasionable language or one that will prepare kids for "the real world". There isn't even a bleeping "For Dummies" book for PostScript. Et cetera, and so on and so forth. Blah blah blah.
But PostScript does have a lot going for it, due in part to its wierdness:
Printing and publishing are great "nerdy" hobbies for kids. I used to help my parents collate the books they wrote, photocopy hand-drawn illustrations on to the dot-matrix print-out from our Apple IIe, and trouble-shoot Apple Writer II and the printer. It turned out those skills (as prerequisites) ne
Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy. Pick any two.
The Jargon file has an entry on BASIC. Quite frankly, I've not completely recovered.
This sig no verb.
I have seen a lot of programming languages for kids around:
1. Squeak. (Based on smalltalk). Graphical environment that has all sorts of 3d, sound, voice, etc stuff to play with. Everything is editable, down right to the squeak environment (of course this isnt mandatory, but can be done). Squeak kind sucks for professional work (its kinda slow, being an emulated environment) but is great to teach stuff on. Heck, it even has a part that kids can "program" without writing a line of code (using a visual paradigm that I dont have the most experience with, sorry). (oh, btw, squeak runs on all platforms)
2. Logo. Yup, still alive and kicking. Also runs on all platforms. If you want to teach multiagent systems, then you can look into *Logo (star logo).
3. Boxer. A mac only thing that has a lot of educational properties.
4. Toon Talk. Oriented on the younger crowd. Uses a lego like code building process to solve missions. Only for windows i think.
Any way, those programs should more then enough provide an educational start in programming to the younger audience.
This
Show them HTML - because it is forgiving, ubiquitous and has 'legs'
It costs nothing to start, just open up notepad and IE/Moz and you are away.
You can start almost anywhere with HTML and take it as near or far as you wish. You might just work out how to say "Hello World" and learn how to surf more effectively, or you might start exploring Flash, Java, Javascript, XML, PHP, Databases etc - Lots of directions to suit most tastes.
Not everyone gets off on Knuth, and you can be productive and have fun without it. Most of us will never progress beyond a bit of scripting, but that can be enough to help us through the day.
At school I took Basic, Pascal and C, but was never able to make use of them once the course had ended, because I didn't really know enough, or have an itch that those languages would help me scratch. Later on, I took HTML. Suddenly I had something I could play with and make use of. From that base I progressed into Graphics, Javascript, ASP then PHP, XML and Python. I found myself wanting to have a server to run these from and ended up getting into Tomcat, and then Apache, Samba and Linux - All because I got a foot in the door with HTML.
"But you are a clueless script monkey with no training" I hear you cry. True. But once you have fudged a dozen or so web pages and sworn all night at your own lame Javascript, you start to hang out on line and listen to the artisans talk about how to do it all properly.
Then you go back and rewrite your code (and rewrite, and rewrite), and take pride in it, because you see from personal experience, some consequences of doing it wrong. You develop the hunger for knowledge. I now find myself studying software architecture, XP, Patterns etc. Expert? No. Happy Hacker? Yes.
Yes, you can get into bad habits if you don't start in a structured way, and I admit I was influenced by my previous experience of programming languages, but I reckon everyone can get crufty or outdated, wherever they start from. It is all about developing an enquiring mind and staying on the ball.
Bottom Line: Learing HTML give you a foot in a very interesting door.
Apologies if this is gibberish, It's late.
Well, the way I started out was by learning how to program my TI-83 Plus, first in its built-in BASIC language and then in z80 assembly. But, that may not be the way to go, as TI-BASIC is really limited and doesn't really teach you much (though you get more from learning TI-89 BASIC, as it's more complex), and z80 ASM tends to be a bit tricky as a first real language... (Though it made me enthusiastic about learning other languages because they seemed so much easier :-P)
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
I don't care how many people say it teaches bad habits....I think quickbasic is a good way to start. it picks up syntax errors as you type and it's a good way to introduce functions and teach them the basics of writing algorithms.
I second the vote for Python.
Python has already found a place in some high-schools - and has been a wild success. It's popularity exploded far quicker than they imagined. I became a python convert after about 20 minutes of following a few excellent tutorials one rainy sunday afternoon. I found myself writing incredibly useful little scripts for almost an entire week. Try it and you'll see how easy it is to learn. It should be a piece of cake for intelligent kids.
Other people have mentioned Visual Basic. Well, okay - but Visual Basic doesn't concentrate on the guts of the programming. Students are more likely to splat buttons down on a form than produce anything useful in terms of knowledge of program flow, code and algorithms. I should know - that was exactly what I did when I was learning (at the age of about 14, I'm now 26) - I found I did so much more with QuickBasic for DOS than I ever did with VisualBasic 1.0 (in which I'd sit there designing huge GUIs that I excessively tweaked, promptly lost interest in and never wrote any code for them).
Seymour Papert, who holds the Lego chair for learning research at MIT (and who created Logo) wrote a book called the Connected Family which addresses this issue. The book is available at amazon, and there's a companion website. In a nutshell, he recommends using meaningful projects to teach programming concepts in an environment like that provided by Logo.
You don't need to molly-coddle most inquisitive children on technical issues. At a young age they WANT to learn technical stuff, and they find it easy.
;-)
:-)
Back in the early 80's, my parents gave me a computer in reward for learning to count to 20 (the number of stairs in our house). I don't actually remember this (I was about 3?) but supposedly I just played games on it and crap for a while.
However, I do remember that I was programming when I was 5. Sure, it was crappy BBC BASIC, and my programming was all:
IF PRINT
Hardly any understanding of loops, GOTOs everywhere, but it was a start. I don't remember my mentality as a child, but I must have been interested in it to continue with it and to play with it.
I started to learn 6502 assembler at age 7 (there was a thread about this on here a few days ago!!), C at 9, and then, bizarrely, I stopped programming for a while.
Now, at 21, I'm a full-on Perl programmer. So perhaps my story is not that great, cuz they could end up as quiche-eating bearded Perl programmers, but you hopefully see my point
I'd personally recommend Perl as a starting language. I'm biased, but I think it has the flexibility and weak syntax that kids need. There's 'more than one way' to do everything, and you don't have to declare variables and crap. It's like a modern day powerful BASIC.
It's not like they need to be doing regexes on the first day either
mogorific carpentry experiments
We just started a programming class at our high school using HTML and PHP. This is our first programming class and it has been a resounding success. The students are learning something that they can immediately put to use, and they'll be able to use it almost everywhere. It is very cross platform, all they need is a text editor.
A good side effect is that we can help teach website design. Hopefully 20 less crappy websites when these students go out into the world.
What, me worry?
Interesting that this question comes up now, as I'm just starting to teach programming to a 12 year old.
One of the first things that I worried about was what language to use. After some thought, I decided that as long as a few guidelines were followed in language choice, it didn't really matter. The most important things were:
Language considerations came from that:
This all translated into a text editor, PHP and assignments uploaded to her site. I seriously considered Perl and Python (especially Python - as it turns out that would have been very handy for teaching proper style. The concept of whitespace and proper indenting is surprisingly difficult to instill ;) ). PHP isn't my favorite language for a lot of reasons, but it's fine for teaching control flow, logic, data structures, modularity. It was handily available on her server, and meant she could show her work to her web friends right away. Python might be better in a classroom situation, because there's a pool of people with a similar environment that work can be shown to.
At any rate, we're only three lessons in, so this is still in the expermintal stages. But if you're interested in swapping experiences, reply to this and I'll leave an email address.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
I know I learned a lot of logic *before* I tackled any "hard" programming languages by writing game mods. Even if there is a graphical tool involved it's usually easy to see a fun result, and there are always games like Neverwinter Nights that combine a graphical editor with underlying code. And hell, you get to play games!
First person shooters. Start them out with Doom so they can appreciate the concept, them up to Duke Nukem 3D, then Quake, Quake II, Q3A, Unreal Tournament and UT2003, CounterStrike.
Hacking. Get his older sister a SprintPCS phone and the next month take him to SprintPCS - show him how to put in her phone number and the default password and get a complete list of all the people she has called, times and dates. Show him how to go onto her computer and read her AIM logs, look through her Internet Cache for pictures and how to re-open the html files there to see what she was browsing.
Warez. Show him how to find PhotoShop on UseNet, download all 18,000 parts of the file, where to find the two missing parts, then UUDecode the file. 'Splain him how to check it for virus and other malicious code then install it.
Pr0n. While in UseNet, hit A.B.P.E.* and introduce him to Aria Giovanni, Nikki Nova, Erica Campbell, and Kitana Baker.
A kid really needs to know this kind of information if he is going to get ahead in today's economy. Once he understands how the world benefits from computers he will eagerly want to be a 'computer guy' - and these are all necessary skills.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
This is a reasonable set of criteria. With this in mind, I would say that Mathematica (http://www.wolfram.com) meets each of the above requirements. Note that cost was not one of the criteria.
:: pi=3.1416 :: npoints=30 :: xpoints(:)
Interactivity:
The programmer opens a window much like a word processor and types commands, presses the enter button, and the result appears. Push the up arrow or click on the line above, and you are back to where you started.
Feedback:
Visualizing Mandelbrot sets is much cooler than "Enter a name:" "Thank you for your input, NAME" (shit, i forgot the $ and the \n).
Growth Potential:
One doesn't need to "learn" what an object is (~everything~ is an object in Mathematica). In the beginner's life, most things, except emotions, have probably been thought of as objects. Move this graph here. Make this graph red. Make this picture of grandma that i scanned in psychadelic colored.
Easy to use:
Very easy to use Mathematica
Plot[ Cos[x], {x,-Pi, Pi}] --- mathematica
vs.
program plot_for_me
real, parameter
integer, parameter
integer x
real
allocate(xpoints(npoints))
do x=1,npoints
xpoints(x) = cos( whateverthehellitis )
end do
call plot(xpoints) -- if you are lucky, and your plot
routine doesn't require other parameters
stop
end program plot_for_me
I mean, come on! I want to teach my ten year old how to program! Perl, python and their ilk are a more pleasant mix of the two.
Flexibility:
The above example doesn't tell the whole story: Mathematica, too, has a fullblown C-like syntax available. Object-oriented and procedural programming are both welcome. Then let the learner fall in to their own natural way of setting up and solving problems with a computer.
BTW, it might be slow, but one should have the mindset that you ~can~ ~do~ ~it~ with Mathematica.
Real World Applicability:
Mathematica is a tool that is available on all platforms. There are excellent student discounts available, both K-12 and college. If the learner goes to college, Mathematica will be there. There is a copy in nearly every physical sciences computer laboratory.
In conclusion, we should not automatically think of programming as being necessarily being "do loops" and "inheritance." All learners comes from the same background: they do not know how to program. I say you teach something that meets the above criteria, plot some cool pictures along the way, and let the student decide how much he wants to immerse himself into the nitty-gritty of telling a computer what to do. The learner might fall in love with it, or might realize that it's not for him.
High-level language, lots of functionality, and the ability to express yourself in many ways. Mathematica fits the bill, as might other math suites.
I remember from decades ago (in Byte magazine)the teaching of children what they called turtle graphics, it was basicaly a visual represetion of smalltalk or lisp especialy for kids. This was for kids in the 5-6 yr old range and up, they had great suscess teaching the kids commands to make the tutrles move, to commbine the movements into more complicatated functions lots of basic logical computer concepts. It made sliding them into a more formal language later much easier.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I am working on a library to help newer programmers get started with programming. The first section uses something like turtle graphics, but it is all written in and controlled with python and pygame. The first game is pong. There are also a bunch of demos and a couple of other games with the distribution. It is available at: http://www.nongnu.org/pygsear/
I was actually thinking about this topic the other day, so here's what I decided.
I would start out by having him (male for the sake of simplicity) play old games... games like Jetpack, Al Lowe's games, text-based games like Tradewars, Zork, Adventure. There are three reasons for this: One, these are games I remembered playing as a kid, and loved. It'd be great to rediscover them through your kid's eyes. Two, they're cheap. Every single console cost $100-$200 when it came out, with its games costing ~$50. These games are all free (and if they're all your kid plays, then he won't even know what he's missing until he gets to school). The third reason, which is the most relevent to this discussion, is that all these games would be very simple to code. If he plays and enjoys text-based adventures, it'd be much easier to code Tommy's Adventure than it would be to code Super Mario World 1024.
So, once he's been enjoying these games for a while, I'd ask if he wanted to make his own. For starters I'd just ask for a description of the game, which I would then code. Three reasons: one, it'll be easier for me to make the game than to teach him to program (when he's still very young); two, he'll learn the value of writing design documents; and three, when he's ready to start programming, he'll have ready access to the source code to games that he's designed.
Of course alongside all of this I'd be giving him constructive toys like Legos and encouraging him to create. Personally, problem solving is easy for me to do, but completely original design is quite a bit more difficult. Learning that would be much better than simply learning to program: it'd give him motivation to program.
Afterall it was meant for teaching programming.
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Isn't a half bad choice if you can find a copy.
:= for assignment. (just one example)
The language was designed for teaching, and I've found that it does a good job of enforcing concepts. For example in BASIC the = is used both as assignment and comparison, while in Turing you use
Syntax-wise, Turing is pretty much Pascal with a few tweaks to it, so it's not nearly as difficult as grasping something like C right off the top. Even better would be something like OOT (Object Oriented Turing). Like C++, it can handle regular Turing (C) code, but if you get to the point where you want to introduct objects then they'd already be in an environment that they're familiar with.
Basically, I would thing that you're looking at LOGO, BASIC, Pascal, Turing etc... but if you're looking to teach, it's hard to go wrong with a language specifically designed for teaching.
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
From an educational viewpoint it is early success and plenty of positive re-inforcement that is critical.
Therefore the most important thing is that you (the tutor) should pick a language that you know well, so that you can help them debug, which is actually the most critical skill to learn.
Python is good, but kids know understand web pages, and if they do something cool, then they can upload it, and their friends can see it. This gives them the peer approval (positive reinforcement) that keeps them going.
Therefore I would chose a web-based language - any of the above would be good but for me, PHP is the pick.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Stack based languages are cool for some things. I love my RPN calculator -- it's a lot more efficient for typical computation. After using one, I feel my brain contort when I try to use a standard algebraic calculator. It's as if I need to figure out how to "engineer" my expression into the constraints imposed by order of evaluation.
One word of warning, though: Stack-based machines have scalability problems when you try to make things high-performance. That's due primarily to the inherently serial nature of stack accesses. The stack becomes an artificial synchronization point for otherwise independent operations. Sure, you can use fancy techniques in order to reconstruct the original directed-acyclic graph (DAG) of instructions from the series of stack operations, but wouldn't you rather just start with the DAG to begin with? With a register-machine model, each register is essentially an edge (or set of edges) in the DAG. Much more direct.
Ahhhh... but I digress.
As for first programming language: I agree, good I/O (including graphics, and some easy way to do both blocking and non-blocking input) is key to retaining interest. That's why LOGO and (old fashioned) BASIC are so good! It's easy to make it "do things", where "do things" is defined as stuff happening on the screen.
I wouldn't wait too long, though, before introducing your budding programmer to something more industrial strength. It took years for the dain brammage that BASIC gave me to subside. Even Pascal wasn't a complete cure. C was much better, since it's a language that's strong enough that it can implement the bulk of its own standard library within the language.
You can't do that with Pascal. You can't implement write/writeln within the language. You can't even write a function that accepts parameters in the same manner as writeln. In contrast, printf() is written pretty much entirely in C, except the final system call to hand the text off to the OS.
From that standpoint, C was a big step forward for me. It was the first language where you could really do just about everything yourself if you wanted to. You didn't have to rely on the compiler author to think of it ahead of time and provide a function for it in the language. Compare/contrast to BASIC, where the graphics commands are part of the language. Thus, I'd say that you shouldn't shield your kids from that sort of 'general language' for too long, otherwise the damage is hard to undo.
Now, on the topic of assembly language: I'd say 'Go for it', but only if your kids show interest. I learned assembly language from beginner books, teaching myself 9900, 6502 and eventually 8086 assembly language on the way from middle school (~6th grade) through high school. (In college, I learned 6805, 8052, and baseline 80386 assembler as a part of my course work. Nowadays, I program VLIW assembler on TMS320C6000 DSPs.) It really gave me a good feel for how the machine actually worked, and gave me a better appreciation for why MHz != performance. (A 1MHz 6502 beats the pants off a 4.77MHz 8088 on most typical tasks.) Having that level of appreciation for the capabilities of your CPU will lead to a much more informed and conscious programmer, longer term. Well, at least, hopefully. Especially if your kid tries to implement even something as simple as "printf()" in assembly language. :-)
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
My other suggestion is Blassic - a "classic" BASIC language, GPL'd and everything. There are a ton of examples, though some take a little muddling through in order to understand since the variables and such may be in spanish (understandable, considering the author). There is also little documentation - the author doesn't keep his list up-to-date - I ended up checking each keyword functionality and writing the contributed reference, but it will get out of date over time, though it should still be OK for the current version online. I have found most old style code works with it fine. Your only problem will be in finding that old code for the kids to type in (no more magazines of old, unfortunately) - check your local libraries, and EBay, and used book stores until you find something (for kids, there was a series of books in the 80's published by Scholastic called "Micro Adventures" - hard to find anymore - also look for David Ahl's "Basic Computer Games" series).
Basically, you will want the kids to type in code (whether they understand it or not) to get a finished "example" - and if it has bugs, they will need to look and see why, and figure out how it works and what is broken. So, you need examples of this, plus the keyword reference, and a book on learning BASIC...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
For serious, older programmers - 14-18 teach an OO language. I started on Ada, then moved on to Java.
Look where the dollars are! This is where you want to put them!
I recently bought my 5-6 year old step sister Visual Studio.Net professional and insist that she access to Linux and Unix Type systems.
All be it she has not used it, yet she talks about it from the day I gave it to her.
Ya aleast she has had the opportunity to work with todays systems in her years of question & interest.
Dumping them off the deep end will make them familar with the technologies available today as they have grown up with it and give them reason the question technology and the way computers operate as of the reasonably annoying DOS conspirasy
You have to have used every thing available to make a standout today and anything else would be sheltered.
Ya this is my opinion anyhow and what possibly could have helped me in programming idea's, as I can't think like I used too.
I don't know, when I was in high school I sucked at Math, I barely passed Calculus (mostly due to the fact our teacher died and we had a sub for half the year and all we did was have pizza parties and watch movies)
But, I took to programming (Java, VB, C, Pascal) very well.
Why did you have to bring up Karel? That language sucks. They taught that in my College intro to programming class and I had a hard time with it. I can do Perl, C++, HTML, and Basic but Karel was so oversimplifed, I couldn't get all of the punctation for some reason. Maybe cause I am used to debugging on a computer which will tell me that I have a mistake and in class we could only use paper and pencil. Then again that was probably the better way to learn anyway.
Check out Alice, a free gift from CMU's Entertainment Technology Center. It aims to provide a strong first exposure to programming.
As a parent, and as a programmer - I can give the most final answer we all need.
Don't. Start them early on Law, and get them into law school. Programmers are unemployed. Doctor's can't afford to stay in business. Small business are risky. Middle managers get laid-off. Lawyers always have high paying work. Especially in Michigan I hear.
Allright, before you mod me off topic - you can go ahead and teach them some real basic VB/Access skills so that they can then be lawyers in the tech industry, and maybe even politicians who write laws themselves some day!
I'm not trying to start a 'language war', but that does enter into it. Should I start with a scripting language?
If you want your children to have a real, not imagined, advantage in the world, teach them a foreign language: Russian, French, Greek, Arabic, Japanese... You get the picture. What value is knowing how to program a computer when you can't communicate with most of the population of the world? Besides, it's a lot easier to learn languages as a child, and may increase a child's mental faculties in other, less obvious ways.
The lite version is free & great for kids.
No arrays, sharing of functions between programs, structures, object oriented concepts, ... so very dry for an experienced programmer.
And Scheme was meant for Teaching also. (I was going to say everything else but that's Common Lisp)
Not every kid a l33t haxor (another post)- how about Logo in CL, then the kid has something to break through to, if not that's OK also.
Single Paradyme (ST - OO) languages teach you what happens when they get to their edges, when you need singletons, multiple inheritance, or something completely non-OO(that paradyme).
Funny you should match it up with this tagline -
// "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
All that nice (Xerox PARC, others?) research in the 60's realized the need for a minimum "1 Meg Workstation". 1 Megabyte (real, backed by VM) RAM, 1 Megabit Network, 1 MegaPixel video. We have far exceded (except video) and still have to manage memory, check bounds manually, etc...
Hey.. Thanks for all the help guys.
I just wanted to say a few things in response to all your comments.
1) They already play enough of Counterstrike, Pokemon online and whatever holds the teens' attentions these days.
2) They are 12 and 15, so I decided to skip LOGO and move onto Python (all you python nuts can cheer now).
3) Since I don't know Python, I guess I'm going to have to learn it.
4) I always suspected I was a genius, but I thought most people were this smart.
-KlaatuVN
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