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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
I noticed the very thing you talk about, back in the late 1990s. Ever since the early or mid-1990s, computers had been shipped without a programming language. Funny how I hadn't really noticed it until years later. I'm not sure what made me aware of it.
I was one of those people who grew up with 8-bit computers that had BASIC built in, and ultimately became a software developer. What a time that was! I wrote about this in my blog at http://tekkie.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/why-do-people-shun-programming/. I mostly talked about a couple blog posts on a similar topic by Mark Guzdial, a professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He referenced your article.
One thing about that time when BASIC came built in is there was a lot of support for programming as an essential part of computer literacy. Schools bought computers and started offering programming/computer literacy courses. Computers often came with instructional materials on how to program them, or pointed the buyer to resources where they could learn this. There were also plenty of programming magazines that one could buy, even at a grocery store, that had program listings in BASIC for programs that did something genuinely useful or fun. This was in the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Part of this was probably due to the fact that personal computers were becoming very popular for the first time. All of them came with BASIC because it was one way to make the computer do something useful, and to perhaps grow the software market for the computers. There wasn't much software available then. It was expected that computer users would gain or have some programming knowledge, or else the computers would be pretty useless to them.
In the mid-1980s I started hearing about how educators and industry leaders felt that programming should not be an essential part of computer literacy, but rather the essential elements should be learning to use a word processor, spreadsheet, and database. That's what it turned into. Programming courses are still offered in the public schools, at least where I am.
When a friend of mine, someone who had the same experience as I did with early personal computers, had his first child, he and I talked a few years ago about how to get him started with programming. The same issue came up: no programming languages come with the computer. We both learned on BASIC first and figured his child could learn that someday. Then we discovered emulators. He could learn in the same environment we used. My friend and I still have a lot of our old stuff we could dig out if his child wanted to look at them. I still have my old programming magazines! You've covered the topic of emulators already. The point is, there are resources out there.
I agree it would be great if a simple introductory language came with PCs today, but another essential element is introductory materials that let the buyer know that the opportunity to use it exists, and what the advantages are of knowing how to program the machine (ie. create your own software, and make the computer do exactly what you want). You wanted this opportunity to exist and found a way to make it happen. In order for the language being there to have any effect, that fact needs to be communicated, and the buyer needs to be introduced to it.
Incidentally, I heard this year that the .Net development environment, including the VB.Net compiler (probably the command line/non-IDE version) will be shipped as part of Windows Vista when it comes out. So once again, a programming language will be shipped with PCs. Will buyers be made aware of this fact? Good question. I wish Microsoft would tell buyers about it and show them how to use it. Or, at the very least point people to their Visual Basic Express IDE, which people can download for free, along with some introductory materials.
The first thing that's needed is qualified technical writers who know how to write for the age of their audience. Then some of today's popular languages wouldn't be so bad.
As of now, Perl documentation is a mess. Much of it was written by various people of unknown qualifications.
I think Python's documentation was written by Python's developer who, as far as I know, isn't a qualified technical writer and his work wasn't professionally edited.
I remember not even being able to find online Javascript documentation a couple of years ago that didn't have glaring omissions or wasn't self-admittedly out of date. I challenge anyone to find any Javascript documentation, tutorial, etc. on the internet that mentions that setTimeout starts a new thread, much less something that explains what that is and how to work around it to implement a time delay. I was eventually pointed to something that mentions the threading, but it wasn't documentation or a tutorial and therefore wasn't in the proper place. The fact that there's no "sleep" is another issue. The reasoning for having no sleep is bogus.
The technical writers of beginner's material should be instructed to mention "best practices" such as avoiding goto, declaring variables, turning on warnings, etc., only at the end of the book. With simple programs, memorizing and using that stuff just makes things harder.
Line numbers are good because they make it easier use goto. No need for a beginner to learn label syntax or what can and can't be labeled. That's one thing that documentation can't provide.
There's a similar discussion at http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22202
Python is easier and better than Perl. See http://www.polisource.com/PublicMisc/Benchmarks_Perl.html
I'm learning QBASIC this winter. I've been coding HTML for years but it's as far from programming as microwaving dinner is from Southern cooking. Eventually I'd like to get to new pursuits, like Thai cooking and Objects, but I'm also conducting an experiment. I'm 58 years old, an English major and grandma. If I can't learn basic programming, then I'll drop my harangue about bringing teachers into this century.
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