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Stephen Wolfram: No Need To Teach With 'Toy Programming Languages' Like Scratch (wolfram.com)
theodp writes: From Stephen Wolfram's blog post announcing the Wolfram Programming Lab: "It's a very important — and in fact transformative — moment for programming education. In the past one could use a 'toy programming language' like Scratch, or one could use a professional low-level programming language like C++ or Java. Scratch is easy to use, but is very limited. C++ or Java can ultimately do much more (though they don't have built-in knowledge), but you need to put in significant time—and get deep into the engineering details—to make programs that get beyond a toy level of functionality. With the Wolfram Language, though, it's a completely different story. Because now even beginners can write programs that do really interesting things. And the programs don't have to just be 'computer science exercises': they can be programs that immediately connect to the real world, and to what students study across the whole curriculum. Wolfram Programming Lab gives people a broad way to learn modern programming — and to acquire an incredibly valuable career-building practical skill. But it also helps develop the kind of computational thinking that's increasingly central to today's world." So, when it comes to programming education, are schools hitchIng their cart to the wrong horse?
My daughter (7 years old) spend 10 minutes choosing proper shade of pink for a cat in her first Scratch game. I don't think that Wolfram can even start to compete in same category of fun. She was a lot more interested in possibilities of making things meow or bark rather than trivially connecting her results to per square-furlong gross national product of 10 most polluted cities in the world.
If you are targeting 12-15 year olds, sure, pick whatever. They are forced to learn French, they can be forced to learn any other strange programming language. But for 5-8 year olds, let us play with Scratch. And having to explain that father does bit different things at work than picking between pink colors for cats... he picks between different shades of blue for odd lines in table css... yes, it is kind of a cat for grownups, just square and painted in blue stripes.
I taught myself how to program using the BASIC books located in the Radio Shack stores and typed them into the (new) TRS-80's they had out. (Yes I am THAT old) I then moved on to using Assembly (Z80). At the moment I can code in 23 languages, and I think in C so there can be a progression.
Although I completely agree that one needs an introductory language to bridge the gap between language arts and programming, the last time I checked Dice there were no openings for Wolfram programmers. I do however remember all the hype around the various instances of BASIC and I can attest to a large number of VB apps that were written (very poorly) by non-programmers. Coding past an interpreter syntax does not qualify you as a programmer.
I see this entire discussion, including the various calls for CS education in the public schools as yet another instance of what killed my profession: the incorporation of unskilled labor. I am CCIE #12981 and there was a time when having that certification meant I could pull down a well paying job nearly anywhere. Now it almost doesn't matter because so few organizations need highly qualified networking resources. They have farmed out networking to a 3rd party, or they have a few slightly skilled resources that keep the lights on. I see the same thing happening to software development, and we as a culture will continue to suffer under the risks of running poorly written applications, because corporations don't see the need to hire highly skilled developers. Shoving all students into the pot via mandatory CS education, or promoting BASIC languages like Wolfram will only make that worse.
If you want a programmer you don't start with a language. You start with math and specifically with logic. The language used is a mere vehicle for the expression of concepts and as such learning its syntax is secondary. Rather teach principles, such as "Always check your inputs, and your return values" which is true in any language.
Exactly. Same goes for all the boiler plate code just to get things running. We have to start with a bunch of complicated stuff like "int main(int argc, char **argv)" and "#include ". Java makes it even worth by having to declare a class simply to write hello world. Languages like basic are much simpler for beginners because there is no boiler plate code. Hello world is a single line of code, and very easy for people to understand.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Guy with profit motive thinks his pricey programming environment is better than one that is free.
He also doesn't understand how Scratch is used. I help teach programming to 4th graders in an after school program, using Scratch. The kids go to the site, and start programming. With Wolfram's site, they can't do that, because they hit an immediate roadblock: An email address is required. Most 9 year old kids don't have an email address, and don't know how to get one.
I was unable to create an account, because it seems to be Slashdotted, but from looking at the demos, it seems to require a lot of typing, rather than the graphical interface that Scratch uses. So my impression is that this is something that is too hard for young kids, but too silly for adults. In my school district, after the kids learn Scratch, they move up to a "real" programming language (Python) in middle school, so I am not sure if this product has a niche.
Actually, I disagree it should be about algorithms and data structures to begin with. In fact, it's a terrible idea. Don't shoot for "productively", don't look for "creating suitable models of real-world situations". That's way too much way too fast.
You don't teach a kid to build stuff by letting them build a real functioning bridge. You give them some legos or building blocks and let them run wild with it. Let them realize things fall over, or collapse, or don't fit.
What we need is a way to accomplish small, discrete, achievable tasks ... as quickly as possible, in a way they can fiddle with permutations and see the outcomes, and with as little abstract concepts as possible. At least, not ones which seem like abstract concepts.
You're not trying to make people who are professional programmers ... you're trying to establish "if I do X, Y happens ... if I want something which is kinda like Y, I need to do something which is mostly like X but different in this way".
One of the exercises I saw done in junior high/high school to teach people the root concept was to get them to "program the robot". You have them walk someone through the steps of doing an easy task for a human ... ideally the "robot" understands you can ONLY do EXACTLY what they tell you, EXACTLY as stated, and that you CAN'T interpret for them.
"Go get the book" results in nothing. Step with your left foot, step with your right foot, extend your hand, open your hand, close your hand. I had a class mate who just couldn't wrap her head around this until a teacher and I did this after class ... once she'd done it, she suddenly kinda went "oh, so I need to break this down into a bunch of small steps it already knows how to do". She was never going to be a professional coder, but suddenly she understood the underlying fact ... computers are idiots and can't do anything on their own.
The idea you need to formulate a set of steps, plan it out and describe it correctly to do something is what you're learning when you first get introduced to the concept of "programming". And it's incredibly eye-opening how much people struggle with even that as a concept.
Start throwing around words like algorithms and data structures, and people will switch off LONG before you've taught them a damned thing.
You need to lay the foundation to help people being to grasp what it means to start filling in those blanks, and extrapolating to a more generalized solution. You can do an awful lot of that adevelopers.slashdot.org
What you describe is not suitable for teaching kids, or establishing the concept. It's for people who are going to be pursuing something much more rigorous and formalized.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I learned to program in college before computers were found in the home, starting with Fortran. And, I could do it, but it didn't really come together for me till I learned assembly language. In class, the teacher started with a very simple model of a computer that had only an accumulator and a small instruction set. We didn't learn about index registers until we had had to write self-modifying code to go through a list. We learned about indirection and pointers and so on.
And it wasn't hard! OK, I already had experience, but really, a kid could have learned it easily enough. One could probably turn it into a kind of game without much trouble. And, after that, you just know.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I started in BASIC. My software made me $4 million last year, and is often cited by other developers as being exceptionally well done.