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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Any bright kid can start coding simple exercises in python or php, and the results display through a web browser. Using Google to uncover the many ways of accomplishing this is a fine challenge for young minds.
Of course, there are graphics libraries and other things to contend with, but learning to code in Basic, with its GOTOs and line numbers, would be like learning to speak in archaic English.
Modern coding has a fluidity and coherence which Basic can't match.
Young minds are incredibly dynamic, and shouldn't be burdened with ancient models.
Better to start with Smalltalk than Basic, or some other early OO language! But then there's Python, so why take a giant leap backwards?
I wish I'd learned Python a few decades ago ;-)
Some of the very finest programmers in the world today are in their early 20s, and already publishing books on their efforts.
See Philipp von Weitershausen's Web Component Development with Zope 3 his site
* http://worldcookery.com/
and this interview
* http://blogs.nuxeo.com/sections/blogs/tarek_ziade/2005_03_09_web_component/
As Phillip says in the interview:
""" I have been interested in computers since I was a teenager, started using Linux around kernel 2.0.18. The early PHP got me interested in web applications and I managed to work as a PHP programmer in the afternoons after school. Later, I discovered Zope and through it came to Python. """
These are not Basic babies, as far as I can see!
Johnny can't code because he watches too much TV, probably.
Peter Fraterdeus
http://www.fraterdeus.com
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I just graduated with a Computer Science degree, and started an awesome job doing cool stuff with code. How did I start? Not anywhere on my computer, I can assure you. I was programming furiously, and gaining a lot of experience I still draw on, before I wrote a single line of code on a keyboard.
After all, pretty much everybody in my 7th-grade math class had a Texas Instruments TI82 calculator. Which have a language that looks a lot like a version of BASIC. And so, within a couple of weeks, we were using the supplied links to swap programs around between one another's calculators - games, mostly. Simple text-based affairs where we fought demons, bought and sold narcotics, and raced cars. Some were happy with that.
But some of us - like me - weren't satisfied, and we cracked open the games we were playing, and started fiddling around. What if I double this number? Suddenly, my attacks are twice as powerful! What if I tweak this equation? A whole new racetrack! And lo and behold, now I can buy and sell my classmates instead of drugs! I was hooked. By the time winter break hit, I'd moved past tweaking games and put together several basic tools to make my life in math and science classes easier. I tried building a game from scratch, but had to abandon it when I realized that my design was simply beyond the extremely limited capabilites of the little machine's language - never mind the slow going imposed by those tiny chicklet keys.
These days, the calculators are a lot more powerful, and a bit cheaper, but the language is still pretty simple. It's still pretty BASIC. We used to have a few kids getting family computers with a simple language avialable. Today, we have lots of kids getting tiny little computers of their very own, every one of them just four AAA batteries away from HELLO WORLD.
...to put out a simple version of Basic.
However, it would be almost as easy for educators and textbook writers to put out their own version of Basic. Call it 'School Basic,' make it cross platform and free to download. Then all those textbook examples and those wonderful little programs that Scientific American used to put out can come alive again.
IOW, if we really want a universal programming language--and I think we do--then I think it's really up to the schools to maintain and develop it, exactly in the same way that schools maintain such universal languages as arithmetic and spelling. Companies just don't do arithmetic and spelling, no matter how much they depend on it, and it may be just as ludicrous to expect Microsoft to maintain Basic as it would be to expect that banks should teach people how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
sounds like it might be a good fit for your son's needs.
http://www.leopardprogramming.com/screenshots.php
http://www.leopardprogramming.com/download.php
From Wikipedia:
"Leopard is a programming language featuring an integrated development environment for creating Windows applications. Leopard is designed to be easy to learn and it is especially aimed at users who have never programmed before. Leopard is written in Liberty BASIC."
Is Andrew Leonard on vacation or something? How did this crap get on the front page of Salon? My eyes are bleeding.
Dude. Basic sucks ass. Teaching your kid basic first is like teaching them how to stumble so that they can learn how to dance. Hell, they can try Ruby right in their browser at http://tryruby.hobix.com/, with interactive lessons right there.
And go read Strunk and freaking White. Wordy, wordy, wordy.
Dig out a old Windows 95 or 98 install CD and look in the \other\oldmsdos directory. Just double click on qbasic.exe and it runs. A useful installation with the excellent help system involves copying help.com, help.hlp, qbasic.exe and qbasic.hlp to a directory on your hard drive. It will run in a window or full screen. Hundreds of thousands of already written programs and examples will be at your command. With minimal modification many Visual Basic code samples will work.
It is essential for a mechanic to understand a lawn mower engine before they move on to electronic engine management systems. Likewise an programmer should start with something simple. Those that skip the beginning of a learning process usually end up making beginner mistakes later when the "cost" is greater.
It is a shame that operating system companies don't include BASIC in the default installation. It would cost nothing and would open a window for countless potential programmers.
The BASIC language is far from dead. Anyone who says otherwise probably thinks BASIC programs still have line numbers.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
