In message <a03a2e33fa7f448098f8e97a57f6d...@donna>, Dilwyn Jones
<[email protected]> writes
Hi Dilwyn,
Yes, there has been some talk in the educational world that young people
are no longer getting involved in "programming" - with he use of the so
called "professional packages" produced by the big commercial companies
that has all but taken over.
There is now very little actual programming being directly taught with
pupils in Schools.
I have read some articles about a small Basic that does aim to give the
easy opportunity to program things like simple games - aimed at the 8 to
12 age range. Because the UK has a good skill in the production of
computer games. Yet, this may not be so in the near future.
So, perhaps this is the same thing ?
Anyway, I think that "hands on" is the best thing that can happen.
I notice that Micro$oft have released something called "Small Basic"
(it's been around a while actually) which is a cousin to their QBasic
and the like, designed to go with the .net framework etc. But above
all, what got my attention was that it was "designed to put the fun
back into programming."
It's been designed to be a simple to use second generation BASIC and
seems to be aimed at youngsters and people who just want to write quick
applications for their own use rather than being a development system
for commercial/free aps as such. There's info about it here and a
"getting started" guide which gives an idea of what it's about.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx
Is this some kind of admission that people are wanting to go back to
simpler, easier to learn programming systems like our S*Basic for
example?
What does everyone else think?
--
Malcolm Cadman
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