Re: Debian for kids (long)
Ben Armstrong wrote:
> My children are younger, and C, I think, is largely beyond them. As a
> child, my own father taught me Pascal first. But I realize that C has
> long since superceded Pascal as a "first" language to teach at the
> university level. Today, Java is gaining in popularity. All of this
> motion from one beginning language to the next is as much motivated by
> political and business concerns as it is by practical concerns. I'm
> left confused now about what language would be "best" to introduce to
> my kids first. At one time in my life I would have said "Logo" without
> hesitation. I guess I'll have to look closely at what SEUL-EDU has
> undoubtedly already discussed on this topic.
Take a look at Python - it's descended from abc (I think, can't recall
the specifics now) which was designed as a teaching language.
If you have a 95/98/NT machine around, there is a program called Alice
that uses python as the internal scripting language that lets kids
manipulate 3d models, both interactively and under program control.
When my niece and nephews get a little older I'm going to set them up
with it and turn them loose and see what happens.
Python is a nice learner language - interpreted, no pointers to worry
about, does gc for you. And once you do learn it, you can do powerful
stuff, it isn't a toy language by any means.
jpb
--
Joe Block <jpb@creol.ucf.edu>
CREOL System Administrator
Social graces are the packet headers of everyday life.
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