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Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:00 AM

Why Johnny can't code

BASIC used to be on every computer a child touched -- but today there's no easy way for kids to get hooked on programming.
By David Brin

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  • Wednesday, September 13, 2006 09:53 PM

    Python, Perl, PHP for a 9 year old?

    These languages may be great and all for a kid in high school, or maybe a bright middle school student.. but for a kid in elementary school I don't see them as being nearly as accessible as BASIC or Logo. At that level it's more about being exposed to simple logic, arithmetic and algorithmic thinking than leveraging the power of your computer.

    I understand that BASIC is dead in terms of being a stepping real programming language, bit it still has use as a learning tool.

    —PaulC

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