On 7/14/2012 5:11 PM, Iian Neill wrote:
Ivan,
I have some hope for projects like the Raspberry Pi computer, which aims to
replicate the 'homebrew' computing experience of the BBC Micro in Britain in
the 1980s. Of course, hardware is only part of the equation -- even versatile
hardware that encourages electronic tinkering -- and the languages and software
that are bundled with the Pi will be key.
yeah, hardware is one thing, software another.
Education is ultimately the answer, but what kind of education? Our computer
science education is itself a product of our preconceptions of the field of
computing, and to some degree fails to bridge the divide between the highly skilled
technocratic elite and the personal computer consumer. The history of home
computing in the Eighties shows the power of cheap hardware and practically 'bare
metal' systems that are conceptually graspable. And I suspect the fact that BASIC
was an interpreted language had a lot to do with fostering experimentation &
play.
maybe it would help if education people would stop thinking that CS is
some sort of extension of Calculus or something... (and stop assigning
scary-level math classes as required for CS majors). this doesn't really
help for someone whose traditional math skills sort of run dry much past
the level of algebra (and who finds things like set-theory to not really
make any sense, where these classes like to use it like gravy they put
on everything... class about SQL, yes, your set theory is mentioned
their as well, and put up on the board, but at least for that class, was
almost never mentioned again once the actual SQL part got going, and the
teacher made his way past the select statement).
along with "programming" classes which might leave a person for the
first few semesters using pointy-clicky graphical things, and drawing
flowcharts in Visio or similar (and/or writing out "desk checks" on paper).
now, how might it be better taught in schools?...
I don't know.
maybe something that up front goes into the basic syntax and behavior of
the language, then has people go write stuff, and is likewise maybe
taught starting earlier.
for example, I started learning programming in elementary school (on my
own), and others could probably do likewise.
classes could maybe teach from a similar basis: like, here is the
language, and here is what you can type to start making stuff happen,
... (with no flowcharting, desk-checks, or set-notation, anywhere to be
seen...).
the rest then is basically "climbing up the tower" and learning about
various stuff...
like, say, if there were a semester-long class for the OpenGL API, ...
Imagine if some variant of Logo had been built in, that allowed access to the
machine code subroutines in the way BASIC did...
could be nifty.
I don't really think the problem is as much about language though, as
much as it is about disinterest + perceived difficulty + lack of
sensible education strategies + ...
Regards,
Iian
Sent from my iPhone
On 15/07/2012, at 7:41 AM, Miles Fidelman <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net> wrote:
Ivan Zhao wrote:
45 years after Engelbart's demo, we have a read-only web and Microsoft Word 2011, a gulf between
"users" and "programmers" that can't be wider, and the scariest part is that
most people have been indoctrinated long enough to realize there could be alternatives.
Naturally, this is just history repeating itself (a la pre-Gutenberg scribes,
Victorian plumbers). But my question is, what can we learn from these
historical precedences, in order to to consciously to design our escape path. A
revolution? An evolution? An education?
HyperCard meets the web + P2P?
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
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