7 ms·

My 7 year old is learning on a Raspberry Pi that does not load X by default. She gets around the terminal pretty well (changing, dirs, calling python scripts, e

by bliti 11y ago

My 7 year old is learning on a Raspberry Pi that does not load X by default. She gets around the terminal pretty well (changing, dirs, calling python scripts, etc.). The GUI is just overwhelming at this point. She prefers the terminal. In fact, she will boot it up and type: nano story.txt To start writing simple stories (she loves doing that). And yes, she saves it by pressing Ctrl-x, y, and enter. :D

jonahx 11y ago
I still feel the same way as your daughter.
platz 11y ago
I find this fascinating given that kids are exposed to things like the iPads which are purely graphical
- bliti 11y ago
  She has an iPad, but treats it like I used to treat a TV back when I was her age in the 80s. The RPi is to her what the C64 was to me. Tablets and phones are entertainment (read music, video and games) gadgets. The RPi is more like something to tinker with. However, just like Carmack's son, the environment where she learns is heavily biased towards technology. Having designed and built her own little robot at age six because I build robots myself. She also breadboards for fun because all the required parts are at her reach. If I had a quarter for every LED she has burnt...
  - platz 11y ago
    very cool, thanks for sharing
- fr0styMatt2 11y ago
  I had one of those "I must be getting old!" moments (I'm not that old, but still!). My niece is four and she's had iPads pretty much forever, so it was funny watching her sit at my desktop machine and immediately start swiping at the screen trying to drag things around and having the most puzzled look on her face of "why isn't this doing anything?". Keyboard.... how quaint! :)
  - Joeri 11y ago
    I was a keyboard only user back in the day, but I've spent too long on touch screen laptops, and now find myself getting frustrated every time I'm dropped behind a non touch laptop. Every single time I find myself tapping the screen to dismiss a dialog. I guess it's what you're used to that determines what you find user friendly.
  - bliti 11y ago
    Its happened to my kid, too. What really shocked me is telling her that books were what existed before the internet. Her response? "There was no youtube?"
jsingleton 11y ago
You can set a Raspberry Pi to boot straight into Scratch. It's a great introductory graphical programming language. The next step is usually Python but I'm not sure kids will get the significant whitespace. Go is an option or maybe BASIC (on RISC OS perhaps).
- bliti 11y ago
  We tried scratch, but it bored her for whatever reason. Its a nice environment, though. Python is something she is slowly learning through command line games like rock, paper, scissors. Go, well, I don't want to have her suffer through Go's syntax just yet. BASIC is outdated and too verbose. She has typed C code before and found it fun. Dunno, I don't want her to be anything but herself. This is just a way to spend time together.
  - jsingleton 11y ago
    You might find some hardware add-ons make it more fun. GPIO is the killer feature of the Pi. You can use a lot of the HATs from Scratch as well as Python. http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Hardware_That_Can_Connect_to_Scratch http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Hardware_That_Can_Connect_t...
    - bliti 11y ago
      I do plan to introduce her to GPIO stuff. Maybe mix it in with a video game of sorts. She does have experience with the Arduino, so the concept of sensors is not new to her.
  - grayclhn 11y ago
    It's kind of out of place in a pure text environment, but Processing[1] might be fun to play with. It's designed for visual arts. [1]: https://processing.org/ https://processing.org/
- pekk 11y ago
  There is nothing harder to understand about indentation levels than curly braces, if you haven't already developed a preference for curly braces. Go is really not designed as a tool for new programmers, you are just projecting your preferences onto kids.
616c 11y ago
I am so jealous when I hear these damn stories. Another 5 or more years to go. Does anyone have a book about the method they develop? I bet that, following it to the T or not, it would sell here with the HN crowd.
- Rabidgremlin 11y ago
  I started putting together a "book" when I was teaching my 6 year old a bit about coding. It uses a BBC Micro emulator and BBC BASIC as the intro language. Never got around to finishing it... http://c4k.rabidgremlin.com/ http://c4k.rabidgremlin.com/
  - Rabidgremlin 11y ago
    However it did encourage him to want to make games... this is the first one: http://ackson.nz/ http://ackson.nz/ I did the coding but it was his concept, he did all the graphics (scanned pictures he drew), the font (generated from his handwriting) and sound effects (that's him making all the sounds). He also built the levels and used a music generator to create the background music (not in the version that is on the website yet). This was all done in Unity with a lot of prefabs to make it easy for him to build the levels. I'm totally going to introduce him to PICO-8 (see link below) next to see how he gets on :)
    - flipmonk 11y ago
      holy camoly that is adorable!
      - Rabidgremlin 11y ago
        Totally.. he even invented the company "Ackson" (for Ackerman & Son) and the company logo you can see in the corner of the main screen (him and I holding hands). He is a pretty awesome kid :)
    - bliti 11y ago
      Nice game! Its super fun. Wll be playing it with my kid when she gets home later today. May you share the source code? I haven't dabbed in unity and it would be nice to see how you built it (and maybe hack it a bit).
alanh 11y ago
As opposed to Ctrl-o, y, enter?
bbcbasic 11y ago
> And yes, she saves it by pressing Ctrl-x, y, and enter. :D As a child there is no bias as to 'oh it must be hard doing that because I am use to clicking X in Windows' they just learn stuff and get on with it. We should all remember to be like children sometimes. Explore ... not language wars!
jbenner-radham 11y ago
That is super awesome.

by bliti 11y ago

jonahx 11y ago

I still feel the same way as your daughter.

platz 11y ago

I find this fascinating given that kids are exposed to things like the iPads which are purely graphical

bliti 11y ago
She has an iPad, but treats it like I used to treat a TV back when I was her age in the 80s. The RPi is to her what the C64 was to me. Tablets and phones are entertainment (read music, video and games) gadgets. The RPi is more like something to tinker with. However, just like Carmack's son, the environment where she learns is heavily biased towards technology. Having designed and built her own little robot at age six because I build robots myself. She also breadboards for fun because all the required parts are at her reach. If I had a quarter for every LED she has burnt...
- platz 11y ago
  very cool, thanks for sharing
fr0styMatt2 11y ago
I had one of those "I must be getting old!" moments (I'm not that old, but still!). My niece is four and she's had iPads pretty much forever, so it was funny watching her sit at my desktop machine and immediately start swiping at the screen trying to drag things around and having the most puzzled look on her face of "why isn't this doing anything?". Keyboard.... how quaint! :)
- Joeri 11y ago
  I was a keyboard only user back in the day, but I've spent too long on touch screen laptops, and now find myself getting frustrated every time I'm dropped behind a non touch laptop. Every single time I find myself tapping the screen to dismiss a dialog. I guess it's what you're used to that determines what you find user friendly.
- bliti 11y ago
  Its happened to my kid, too. What really shocked me is telling her that books were what existed before the internet. Her response? "There was no youtube?"

jsingleton 11y ago

You can set a Raspberry Pi to boot straight into Scratch. It's a great introductory graphical programming language. The next step is usually Python but I'm not sure kids will get the significant whitespace. Go is an option or maybe BASIC (on RISC OS perhaps).

bliti 11y ago
We tried scratch, but it bored her for whatever reason. Its a nice environment, though. Python is something she is slowly learning through command line games like rock, paper, scissors. Go, well, I don't want to have her suffer through Go's syntax just yet. BASIC is outdated and too verbose. She has typed C code before and found it fun. Dunno, I don't want her to be anything but herself. This is just a way to spend time together.
- jsingleton 11y ago
  You might find some hardware add-ons make it more fun. GPIO is the killer feature of the Pi. You can use a lot of the HATs from Scratch as well as Python. http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Hardware_That_Can_Connect_to_Scratch http://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/Hardware_That_Can_Connect_t...
  - bliti 11y ago
    I do plan to introduce her to GPIO stuff. Maybe mix it in with a video game of sorts. She does have experience with the Arduino, so the concept of sensors is not new to her.
- grayclhn 11y ago
  It's kind of out of place in a pure text environment, but Processing[1] might be fun to play with. It's designed for visual arts. [1]: https://processing.org/ https://processing.org/
pekk 11y ago
There is nothing harder to understand about indentation levels than curly braces, if you haven't already developed a preference for curly braces. Go is really not designed as a tool for new programmers, you are just projecting your preferences onto kids.

616c 11y ago

I am so jealous when I hear these damn stories. Another 5 or more years to go. Does anyone have a book about the method they develop? I bet that, following it to the T or not, it would sell here with the HN crowd.

Rabidgremlin 11y ago
I started putting together a "book" when I was teaching my 6 year old a bit about coding. It uses a BBC Micro emulator and BBC BASIC as the intro language. Never got around to finishing it... http://c4k.rabidgremlin.com/ http://c4k.rabidgremlin.com/
- Rabidgremlin 11y ago
  However it did encourage him to want to make games... this is the first one: http://ackson.nz/ http://ackson.nz/ I did the coding but it was his concept, he did all the graphics (scanned pictures he drew), the font (generated from his handwriting) and sound effects (that's him making all the sounds). He also built the levels and used a music generator to create the background music (not in the version that is on the website yet). This was all done in Unity with a lot of prefabs to make it easy for him to build the levels. I'm totally going to introduce him to PICO-8 (see link below) next to see how he gets on :)
  - flipmonk 11y ago
    holy camoly that is adorable!
    - Rabidgremlin 11y ago
      Totally.. he even invented the company "Ackson" (for Ackerman & Son) and the company logo you can see in the corner of the main screen (him and I holding hands). He is a pretty awesome kid :)
  - bliti 11y ago
    Nice game! Its super fun. Wll be playing it with my kid when she gets home later today. May you share the source code? I haven't dabbed in unity and it would be nice to see how you built it (and maybe hack it a bit).

alanh 11y ago

As opposed to Ctrl-o, y, enter?

bbcbasic 11y ago

> And yes, she saves it by pressing Ctrl-x, y, and enter. :D As a child there is no bias as to 'oh it must be hard doing that because I am use to clicking X in Windows' they just learn stuff and get on with it. We should all remember to be like children sometimes. Explore ... not language wars!

jbenner-radham 11y ago

That is super awesome.