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David Brin Laments Absence of Programming For Kids

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the watch-johnny-run-run-johnny-run dept.

An anonymous reader writes "David Brin is an award-winning science fiction writer who has often written on social issues such as privacy and creativity. Now, he's written an essay for Salon.com titled 'Why Johnny Can't Code'. He discusses his son's years-long effort to find a way to use his math book's BASIC programming examples. All they were ever able to find, however, were either children's versions (on the Mac) or 'advanced' versions which attempted to support modern programming requirements (and which required constant review of the user's manual). Ultimately, they ended-up buying an old Commodore 64 on Ebay — Yes, for those of you under the age of 30, 'personal' computers like the Apple II and C64 used to all include BASIC in their ROMs."

15 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. 10 Print "This news really sucks!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    20 goto10

  2. If Johnny could code... by psykocrime · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... maybe he'd code up a "dupe detector" for the /. editors to use?

    --
    // TODO: Insert Cool Sig
  3. Yeah, really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I mean, if I had kids, the first thing I'd do is program 'em to get up and get me a beer from the fridge. Good fer nothin' brats.

  4. Welcome back to Slashdot - we missed you yesterday by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Welcome back to Slashdot - we missed you yesterday... http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 9/14/0320238

  5. Get with the vibe, dude by Space+cowboy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Surely it ought to be:

    10 LET ZONK = 1
    20 LET EDITOR = 1
    30 IF (EDITOR = ZONK) THEN GOSUB 1000
    40 GOTO 30
    1000 REM DUPE POST
    1010 RETURN ... or something similar, unless you're on BBC BASIC of course - just about the only 8-bit BASIC with real structure to it

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  6. Yeh... by ijakings · · Score: 2, Funny

    A boy who searches for years to find a program that will let him do some examples from his maths book. He is like the /. King. We must find him and make him our saviour, he will lead us to victory over these so called "norms"

  7. Re:One word... by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no! This is a dupe story, you're not going to catch me posting again.

    Oh, wait, shit!

    KFG

  8. Re:GG by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Funny

    Next up: Why Zonk Can't Edit.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  9. Correction by PFI_Optix · · Score: 3, Funny

    10 Post news item
    20 goto 10

    --
    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  10. A c64 from eBay? by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Good lord man. Why go through all that trouble?

    The article should be called Why Johnny Can't Freaking Use Google.

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    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  11. Flame Baby Flame by neonprimetime · · Score: 4, Funny

    Kids that grow up to learn Python are more presentable and well mannered that those that grow up to learn Perl. Flame On!

  12. Windows only by JoeCommodore · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nor does it seem to be open source - so low poosibility of porting it.

    God that is sooo 90s.

    I'd reccomend Python.
    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
  13. Re:Despite the Dupe - I *Hated* BASIC; PASCAL Baby by Bastian · · Score: 3, Funny

    If I wanted to tech my child programming, I'd start with Scheme. Here's why:
    - I hate loops
    - I hate variables
    - I hate kids

  14. Re:There are options by sg_oneill · · Score: 2, Funny

    There also was "Alice", a python / 3d environment to teach kids object oriented coding. Python is of course a perfect first language for *anyone* as well.

    However, its a crying shame that a good solid programming language, perhaps with game making potential or some other hook for kids, isnt included with every copy of windows.

    Oh yeah old school basic for Windows: http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/basic/#5

    Its really really old school however.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  15. Re:There are options by xrayspx · · Score: 2, Funny

    20 GOTO 10 isn't going anywhere.

    Sure it is.

    --
    I like music