On 6/13/2011 8:09 PM, Julian Leviston wrote:
On 14/06/2011, at 7:33 AM, Casey Ransberger wrote:
Kids may not have the linguistic development out of the way that one needs to do
"serious" programming. Adults who don't already code may find themselves short
on some of the core concepts that conventional programming languages expect of the user.
In both cases, I think visual systems can get useless syntactic hurdles out of the way,
so that users can focus of developing a command of the core concepts at work.
In most parts of the world, Monks used to be the only people who could read and
write, you know. ;-)
I started out messing around with computers in maybe 3rd and 4th grade,
mostly as that was when I started having them around...
personally, the textual nature of code was not such an issue, but I do
remember at the time having a little confusion over the whole "order of
operations" thing (I think I was left to wonder some why some operations
would bind more tightly than others, they did not mention it in
classes). at the time, it was mostly QBasic and DOS...
much younger, and it is doubtful people can do much of anything useful.
can you teach programming to a kindergartner?...
maybe not such a good idea, so, it is an issue for what a good
lower-limit is for where to try.
ultimately, maybe the whole topic is beyond the reach of many people
(like, maybe ability to program is more of an inherent ability, rather
than a learned skill?...). in this case, one can just make things
available, and see who catches on...
I don't necessarily think graphics are the answer though. people learn
to read and write either way, and using graphics seems a bit much like a
vain attempt at trying to water down the topic.
or such...
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