Ryan Mitchley a écrit :
On 03/10/2012 10:39, Loup Vaillant wrote:
An example of a killer-something might be a Raspberry-Pi shipped with a
self-documented Frank-like image. By self-documented, I mean something
more than emacs. I mean something filled with tutorials about how to
implement, re-implement, and customise every part of the system.
And it must be aimed at children. Unlike most adults, they can get
past C-like syntax.
Can I also add my vote for this idea?
You can, thanks. Though I recall it has already been mentioned here?
Another comment - I have decided that I learned the most as a child by
typing in program listings from books / magazines.
[…]
I think the idea of a "build your own computer", magazine partwork style
- with both hardware and software being built up piece by piece - is
possibly the way to go.
Possibly. However, you still need a working computer to be able to
write such a system. I see 2 obvious paths:
1 Ship a full computer system, and the magazine will explain how to
redo (a subset of) it piece by piece.
2 Ship a bare-bones computer system (say, a Forth console), and the
magazine will explain how to _bootstrap_ from there.
I think path 2 is best for curious hackers. For children, path 1 is
probably better. First, only path 1 can implement Bret Victor's ideas
about learn-able programming¹. Second, it is probably best for the
child to be able to make something tangible right away, like a cat
chasing a mouse.
There's also a catch: device drivers. Most computers have very
complicated hardware whose interfaces are not easy to program to.
The Raspberry-Pi itself has some proprietary parts. Maybe a decent
kernel isn't that hard to write, but if it is, we may want to start
by sweeping a layer of virtualization under the rug.
Loup.
[1]: http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/
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