Hi brinellers! Glad to see you still in business! I am very sorry to have neglected you in favor of that darned, time-consuming blog. http://www.davidbrin.blogspot.com/
In part because the political issues are so important/urgent right now that I'll grab any influence where I can get it. Of course see news at http://www.davidbrin.com and watch out for my new History Channel show in November. As for the article that just appeared in Salon, whew! Let me append below my "canned response" after receiving HUNDREDS of emails (not including more hundreds that came into Salon & Slashdot!) Thrive all! With cordial regards, David Brin http://www.davidbrin.com ===== Yes, I got a LOT of mail about the Salon article. and that doesnt count the letters to both my blog and Salon itself! What shocked me was the degree of passion... no, bilious RAGE that my effrontery provoked. In comparison, mere politics and religion seem to have mild effects! Only a small minority seemed at all interested in even looking at my core idea, which was how to create a nice, comfortable starting point for millions of kids, so they could use their computers to do a little COMPUTING for mild classroom assignments, and so get a taste of this way of looking at the world. Indeed, the tiniest fraction seemed to grasp how valuable it once was (but no longer) for ALL kids to be able to easily type in little illustrative examples at the end of each math or physics chapters. Everyone seemed to think it could still be done. But it cannot. I repeat that. It cannot AND it simply, simply cannot be done. It does no good to preach what languages kids SHOULD have. Most dont. Period. Three solutions were offered that might plausibly address the problem in a practical way. 1) Somehow persuade Microsoft to care. In which case, with a fingernails effort, they could offer micro-implementations of Basic, python, scratch, etc in versions tuned precisely to be usable as classroom and homework demos, with launchpads to download expanded versions if the kids interest is sparked. 2) Some place with an historical interest in Basic (like Dartmouth) could create a slimmed version, along with maybe a hundred little 12-line programs that illustrate everything from statistics to galilean laws of motion to PONG, and offer this perfect turnkey download for text publishers to link to. (BTW, did you know that TrueBasic http://www.truebasic.com/ is still being offered? I didn't know myself until 30 seconds ago. 40 bucks for the dumbed down version. Includes some demo programs, apparently. Sounds like no solution, alas.) 3) Many readers are so enthusiastic for PYTHON... and I admit it seems to be the logical successor to BASIC. It allows simple syntax and direct expression of the algorith in sequential lines of code -- which would be highly compatible with the notion of collaborating with schools and textbook publishers. Indeed, an effort along these lines can be seen at: http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e/ Indeed, Python is so widely available, that the goal might be achieved simply via some kind of DECLARATION... say by a prominent education association... declaring support for a Python-based universal entry-level environment. If well-publicized, that may be all thats needed for everyone from Microsoft and Apple to textbook publishers to lift their pinkies (a minimal twitch) and make this happen. 4) In order to keep using those textbooks (like my sons) that still have TRY IT IN BASIC exercises, one reader had a fantastically simple suggestion. A turn-key web site! For easy to use BASIC, it occurred to me that someone could set up a web site consisting of a single big BASIC window. Use Ajax to connect it to a server running one of the free BASICs to do the computation. Retain the BASIC session between visits using cookies. This isn't too hard, it could be whipped up in a week or two. Some of the letters Ive received pointed out that JAVA is the one language so ubiquitous that maybe it might do. Only, alas, the syntax is so difficult and unfriendly to beginners that its just not help, after all. Unless... a coterie of Java guys created some plug-ins and maybe a few dozen sample programs that would accomplish dual goals (1) illustrate something cool from math/physics curricula or a classic game or moving pixels with math and (2) enticed with software elegance. Such a set of small programs might entice textbook publishers and teachers, in turn, to go along. And Javas universal distribution could then do the trick. (And yes, I admit TOTAL ignorance about both Java and Javascript... which are apparently VERY different... which shows how long this road may be.) Alas, from the majority of the responses I received, it seems that most of those who already know software see absolutely no problem arising from the fact that nearly all computers today lack a universally accessible beginners; language. Nearly all of them have their own favorite language they want kids to download, ignoring that fact that this works for the most motivated 10,000, only. Not for the millions we really want to reach. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
