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• Thursday, September 14, 2006 09:44 AM

  Another suggestion: a Java environment

  I too learned BASIC, on a TRS-80.

  Then taught myself Z-80 assembly.

  In university, we were told BASIC

  bamaged our drains and we got to

  learn Scheme on VT100s.

  My son is only 7 and not ready for

  programming; but I have thought about

  this and have prototyped a Java

  environment which enables BASIC-like

  simple programming, with easy

  LOGO like eye-candy (for feedback).

  The student works in Netbeans

  on a 'template' Java file which provides the environment.

  The student edits the file. The file

  provides BASIC-like commands and the

  boilerplate main() function; the student

  adds to the main() function, though

  to the student who is unaware of that

  it looks like they are doing "line programming".

  (Only by scrolling through the file would they

  discover how their sugar-coated functions are

  implemented as regular Java methods.)

  The template program which provides the

  environment can also provide GUI elements

  (ie a windowed vs. command-line application)

  for graphics, getting button-press events,

  mouse X,Y, etc. I've seen some interest from

  my kid that I can make GUIs, which is how he

  currently relates to the computer (though he's

  seen me 'ping' from a command line and asked

  me about it).

  The student does NOT learn Java concepts here,

  and has to deal with the slightly-ugly C-like

  syntax of Java (eg semicolons). But the environment

  can be extended (eg, add audio primitives like BEEP)

  by a parent, is free, supported, has

  a clean well-defined language, with nice

  support for e.g., strings. Also the parent does not

  have to learn eg Logo --a big deal for working

  programmers. The intent is supervised

  learning; if the kid is mature enough to learn

  by themselves, certainly let them learn any

  language they want.

  David Honig

  Irvine CA

  —David Honig
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