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Stephen Wolfram's Free Book Teaches the Wolfram Language To Kids
theodp writes: Stephen Wolfram received a PhD in particle physics at age 20 (his thesis committee included Richard Feynman). So it's probably not too surprising that Wolfram's new book, An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language (free on the web), aspires to teach those new to programming how to do much more than just move Minecraft and Star Wars characters around. "The goal of the book," explains Wolfram in a blog post, "is to take people from zero to the point where they know enough about the Wolfram Language that they can routinely use it to create programs for things they want to do. And when I say 'zero', I really mean 'zero'. This is a book for everyone. It doesn't assume any knowledge of programming, or math (beyond basic arithmetic), or anything else. It just starts from scratch and explains things. I've tried to make it appropriate for both adults and kids. I think it'll work for typical kids aged about 12 and up."
>This is a book for everyone. It doesn't assume any knowledge of programming, or math (beyond basic arithmetic), or anything else. It just starts from scratch and
>explains things.
I thought MIT Scratch was programming. I must be really confused.
The Wolfram Language represents a major advance in programming
languages that makes leading-edge computation accessible to everyone.
Unique in its approach of building in vast knowledge and automation,
the Wolfram Language scales from a single line of easy-to-understand
interactive code to million-line production systems.
This guy has serious talent in math, science and computers, but his self-promotion skills rival P.T. Barnum.
I was trying to figure out where I can use the language. I found something that looked like a portal for about $5 a month. is that the intended way to use this. Is the a free junior version of this somewhere? $5 isn't bad at all if you use it frequently but I'd rather learn it and see if I actually use it for free.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... it helps if you make it fun. Ok, some people will learn anyway because they're really into it, but others - especially kids - won't unless its fun. Which is why Logo did well back in the 80s with moving a virtual or real turtle around.
Looking at his book it seems to me "fun" wasn't exactly in his top 10 ToDo list when writing it. For most people it will be about as much fun as having a tooth pulled. Lists and barcharts in chapter 4? Seriously? Fine in the MS Excel manual, not so great in a beginners book targeted at people who wouldn't normally think about learning programming.
Stephen Wolfram - A new kind of science - the kind you have to pay for.
The language isn't free.
From what I can tell you must pay $10/mo to $15/mo in order to "save your notebook".
How nice of him to give out free books that teach about his non-free language.
I suspect very few 12 year olds are going look at this. Wolfram may be genius but a usability expert he is not. The Wolfram Language, his name, looks like something a mathematician would come up... "Let's see I've used all the math symbols already so let's start using all the punctuation symbols to do other actions! And I can combine punctuation symbols for more actions so I don't have to type too much!"
Where space is expensive, terseness is needed. Everywhere else it's the terseness that is expensive. Steep learning curve, expensive debugging (both logical and functional), and expensive mental context switches for people who want to be multi-lingual.
On the other hand if it becomes a high demand language then those who master it will definitely have job security.
All my university classes used Mathematica.
Which was invented by ... Stephen Wolfram. Funny old world. To the trolls: he already has a very successful language for scientific/engineering computation. This is something new.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.