Re: What Language for a kid

Alan Johnson wrote: > On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Bill Freeman wrote: >> I can't resist.  There is always lisp.  No indentation.  No semicolons.  >> Format it so that it makes sense to you.  Anyone approaching algebra will >> get the bonus of learning that parentheses

Re: What Language for a kid

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Ric Werme wrote: > PostScript is a Lisp variant. It has some nice visual output. > ​There you have it, Kenny. Teach your daughter PostScript. -- Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com Date Format PSA

Re: What Language for a kid

For those who may have missed it: http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 1:44 PM, David Rysdam wrote: > Ric Werme writes: > > PostScript is a Lisp variant. > > I don't think I would say that. It's a stack-based thing that's like > Forth

Re: What Language for a kid

On 12/29/2015 2:24 PM, Ted Roche wrote: > On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Alan Johnson > wrote: > >> > Unfortunately, I don't know of much in the way of practical >> application of Lisp outside AI researchers... If the song is true, then creating the universe. Yes, God had a

Re: What Language for a kid

Ric Werme writes: > PostScript is a Lisp variant. I don't think I would say that. It's a stack-based thing that's like Forth or an RPN calculator. Lisp is nothing like that. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list

Re: What Language for a kid

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Matt Minuti wrote: > > Agreed on Python, but trying to grok the difference between whitespace > characters (let alone nonprinting characters) when you don't really > understand characters is a little frustrating. In my experience teaching

Re: What Language for a kid

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Bill Freeman wrote: > I can't resist. There is always lisp. No indentation. No semicolons. > Format it so that it makes sense to you. Anyone approaching algebra will > get the bonus of learning that parentheses must match. > ​I will

Re: What Language for a kid

AI and Emacs plugins... and there may be some overlap there. - Chris On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Alan Johnson wrote: > On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Bill Freeman wrote: > >> I can't resist. There is always lisp. No indentation. No

Re: What Language for a kid

On 12/29/2015 2:03 PM, Alan Johnson wrote: > On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Bill Freeman wrote: > >> I can't resist. There is always lisp. No indentation. No semicolons. >> Format it so that it makes sense to you. Anyone approaching algebra will >> get the bonus of

Re: What Language for a kid

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Alan Johnson wrote: > Unfortunately, I don't > know of much in the way of practical application of Lisp outside AI > researchers... Well, there was Yahoo Stores, nee Viaweb: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

Re: What Language for a kid

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Chris Linstid wrote: > AI and Emacs plugins... and there may be some overlap there. > ​ctrl-meta-meta-ctrl-spacebar-up-left-down-right then you just think about the plugin you want and the emacs plugin writer plugin writes the plugin you want

Re: What Language for a kid

I second everything Bill said :) Not that you can't start there. I only have graphical programming with > LavView, but I suspect that the skills don't translate as easily as you > hope. > [If you're a EE or maybe chemist or physicist with no programming skills - > if you can find such anymore -

Re: What Language for a kid

On Dec 24, 2015 12:47, "Paul Beaudet" wrote: > Pointing to the training wheel equivalent here alarms me we may be overlooking the key objective, which is inspiration for a young person. Conversely, if you give a ten-speed racing bike to someone who has not yet learned to

Re: What Language for a kid

I think that you should consult the child as to whether she: 1. Wants to make the computer do stuff beyond playing games and typing term papers; 2. Is thinking along the lines of joining a FIRST team and contributing to the software; 3. Wants to build her own robot or similar; 4. Wants to

Re: What Language for a kid

Conversely conversely, I never learned to use a ten speed bike because I never had one. |Things like proper syntax, rules of scoping, function definitions, and so on can be weeds for some. Completely agree with that, because I felt as though all of the aforementioned things were in the weeds.

Re: What Language for a kid

Small correction, App Inventor doesn't share code with Scratch, it uses Blockly (a Google project) as it's basis. A search for "blockly games" should bring up some fun demos and stuff; I'm a fan of the rubber duck one. :) On Dec 24, 2015 2:18 PM, "Brian St. Pierre" wrote: >

Re: What Language for a kid

I just recently discovered MIT App Inventor -- http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/front.html It's Scratch embedded into a web-based environment that updates an app running on your Android device in real-time. I've only played with it for about 10 minutes, but it "just worked" to get a quick

Re: What Language for a kid

I've never used labview or the newest version off mindstorm, so honestly these programs could be completely relevant I could be completely out of touch. The big point is, making programing accessible is great if it can be used practically and the programer identifies him or herself as having

Re: What Language for a kid

My son (age 10) and I are learning Python together on https://www.codecademy.com/ here and there. They have a bunch of languages there with a very similar style to https://www.khanacademy.org/ . We have not finished the course yet, so I don't know if it will get advanced enough for my

What Language for a kid

Hi All, My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she just want to learn how to code. What do people think is the best language for

Re: What Language for a kid

Scratch is on lots of Raspberry distros. I think it's moved to internet based with the most recent version. Lego Mindstorms (also from MIT). I think Minecraft PI is involved in some learn to program things. Python is also good. There are things out there for teaching kids with Python. I took

Re: What Language for a kid

Python is the defacto intro language at colleges now. I'm not sure what step one is to learn python but step two is http://pythontutor.com Click 'python' on the first page and then on each of the sample apps press 'Forward' until completion. That is pretty much all of computer science 10[0-9].

Re: What Language for a kid

OK, three people in a matter of 10 minutes have suggested Kano to me. For the benefit of others, The Kano is a raspberry Pi that kids build themselves, and learn to code using examples from Minecraft and others. It's a really cool system: http://us.kano.me/ On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny

Re: What Language for a kid

I was going to recommend scratch as well. I think it’s installed on some Pi distros so it should be easy to set up and use. -Mark > On Dec 23, 2015, at 12:47 PM, Star wrote: > > To go against the grain a little here, I'd probably recommend starting with > something a

Re: What Language for a kid

Probably not surprising anyone, I'm going to recommend Python. It lets you dip in to the structure of algorithms without having to first learn to manage your own variable allocations, type restrictions, etc. Those things can be added later when adding C or Java. Python is also available by

Re: What Language for a kid

She did do a little with the Hour of Code thing last year, and I had thought that her interest had dropped off after that. Come to find out, she is very much still interested, just discouraged by the lack of exposure in school. I have to say, I have never heard of Scratch. There are a lot of

Re: What Language for a kid

You can get the Kano OS separate from the RasPi bundle. If you already have a keyboard, mouse, HDMI TV (or HDMI to VGA + monitor) and an SD card, you have the pieces already. There are UK based PI magazines (MagPI is online I think) with Scratch and other programming tutorials aimed at kids &

Re: What Language for a kid

To go against the grain a little here, I'd probably recommend starting with something a little more touchy-feely, to see if the interest persists. Start with scratch, it's available for everything, except maybe my toaster, but it's a little old. If the building/seeing keeps the interest then move

Re: What Language for a kid

Also, did she do any hour of code stuff? That just happened recently, so perhaps that served as inspiration and could help guide the quest. Or maybe she just heard the rhetoric around it and thought it would be neat? On Dec 23, 2015 11:25 AM, "Kenny Lussier" wrote: > Hi All,

Re: What Language for a kid

Paul Beaudet writes: > One thing I really want to recommend against is scratch or mindstorm. I > think they are both really fun and all, but no one that solely uses > graphical code block type systems self identify as a programmer or has > confidence to tackle issues that

Re: What Language for a kid

Hey Kenny, One thing I really want to recommend against is scratch or mindstorm. I think they are both really fun and all, but no one that solely uses graphical code block type systems self identify as a programmer or has confidence to tackle issues that involve code. Honestly it defeats the

Re: What Language for a kid

I have to agree with David here, except mindstorms is pretty awful, unless the only concepts you're looking for are simple loops, do...while, and conditionals, all mostly independent. It used to be based b some MIT stuff and was scratch-like, but it's been LabVIEW since the NXT. The current