6 ms·

I'm a veteran of the UK's Golden Age of Computing too, teaching myself first BASIC and then rapidly advancing to assembler on the ZX Spectrum as a teenager. Wit

by 3chelon 10y ago

I'm a veteran of the UK's Golden Age of Computing too, teaching myself first BASIC and then rapidly advancing to assembler on the ZX Spectrum as a teenager. Without that experience I shudder to think what I might have ended up doing for a living. And I too have been through the same dilemma with my kids. I haven't got far trying to enthuse them with the RPi - even when I got Minecraft running on it, they complained it was too slow... There was also the huge problem of choice. We had no choice - you learned the language of the system you had. For a couple of years I struggled to choose a language to introduce my son to. A friend of mine even bought an old BBC Micro so he could teach his kids the Old Ways! But perhaps I over-thought it. A year or so ago I made an arbitrary decision and showed my son how to run Python from the command line, and he picked it up pretty fast. But then he started complaining that he couldn't work on it when he was at school (such is their expectation of cloud ubiquity). Now he's just turned 14, and I've discovered he's developing a pretty ambitious text-based adventure game, still in Python, but using a cloud-based IDE (cannot recall the name). So whilst I admire the project - the more the better - I think to a certain degree the tools are already there and as long as they're given the seed of interest the kids will go out and find them for themselves.

k__ 10y ago
Haha, yeah, it's probably hard to get kids to "make" with tech these days instead of just "using" it. Because much stuff is already there and back in the 90's, when I was in my teens, things looked a bit different. But funny thing is, even in 2000 people in my school laughed at me for wanting to be a software developer. "Why do you want to create new software? Everything is already created! I can play games, I can download videos/music and watch it, I can talk to other people online, what else do would you create that isn't already there?!" What did we have since 2000? Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, etc.
- 3chelon 10y ago
  I think it's important to teach kids that achievement takes serious effort, and that making a blob move around the screen is so much more important than reaching the top of the leaderboard in Call of Duty - which according to my son, many kids just don't get. I suppose it's a lack of imagination, combined with laziness, which has been reinforced by decades of "Make learning fun!" and "Science is easy!" slogans that the government education tzars love to produce.
  - k__ 10y ago
    well, there are people who make good money with gaming haha but there are more who make good money with coding
    - Cpoll 10y ago
      >but there are more who make good money with coding You should emphasize orders of magnitude more. Of course, the other problem is that people who make "good money with gaming" aren't actually gaming - they're following a practice regimen that the average gamer wouldn't stick with for more than an hour - refining repetitive mechanical motions, analyzing gameplay to identify faults, fixing those faults through repetitive practice. An amateur will ask "how do I get better at this game?" and, when you tell them, say "no thanks, I'd rather just play the game."
      - k__ 10y ago
        When people hear the term "pro gamer" they think, well these people just sat around all day playing games and suddendly they get paid mad bucks.
        vvanders 10y ago
        People think a similar thing about game developers, of course neither is true.
        jpindar 10y ago
        People mock professional athletes the same way.
      - HemanHeartYou 10y ago
        You're forgetting youtubers.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Why CLI and not IDE for Python? I'm using PyCharm with a console pane. Could/does he use github and an online REPL from school? Interested as I've been learning Python to use with my slightly younger kids.
- 3chelon 10y ago
  Because I fell out with Jetbrains over their pricing model :) Also, in school they have some pretty serious restrictions on what they can access. And git might be a bit hard for a kid to learn.
  - dyukqu 10y ago
    There's a free Educational version of PyCharm (for both three major platforms): https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/download/ https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/download/ All their IDEs are free for students who "have access to their student email address or a valid ISIC card" by the way: https://www.jetbrains.com/student/ https://www.jetbrains.com/student/ Edit: link added
    - 3chelon 10y ago
      Thanks for that, I'll look into it.
      - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
        Yes, I'm using the free community edition (2016.1 at present). Also I said "github", when doing school type exercises for a Coursera course I uploaded stuff to a gist on GitHub (https://gist.github.com/ https://gist.github.com/) to work on in breaks at work - just simply 20 line max programs, any text dump would be equivalent for how I was using it. PyCharm of course can integrate with git but I only use that locally. https://repl.it/languages/Python/ https://repl.it/languages/Python/ helped me out, as did http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html.
  - adrianN 10y ago
cturner 10y ago
Roguelikes are an easy path into programming. For an easy start, find a well-done 7-day roguelike in your favorite language. For example, z-day is in python (http://sheep.art.pl/Z-Day http://sheep.art.pl/Z-Day). Someone learning C might like Day @ the Zoo (C - http://www.happyponyland.net/zoo.php http://www.happyponyland.net/zoo.php).
david-given 10y ago
There's RISC OS Pico. It's a cut-down version of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi, without the GUI layer. It boots straight into Basic. http://weblambdazero.blogspot.ch/2015/11/modern-micro-with-risc-os-pico.html http://weblambdazero.blogspot.ch/2015/11/modern-micro-with-r... It looks like this, and anyone who grew up with the BBC Micro will instantly recognise it: RISC OS 192MB ARM1176JZF-8 Processor Piccolo Systems SDFS ARM BBC BASIC VI (C) Acorn 1989 Starting with 97040636 bytes free >_ That's also Acorn's structured Basic, with fast named procedures and multiline control statements, so it's actually reasonable for writing real programs in. It's pretty much COMAL. There's no structured types, unfortunately --- it's still a 1980s language --- but you get still get instant feedback that a traditional micro gave you (and the traditional Basic IDE experience, but I believe they also include the full-screen editor).
- 3chelon 10y ago
  Interesting project, but I actually think BASIC is a retrograde step, even with modern tweaks. Each to their own though... as I said in my original post, it's the spark of interest that matters I think, and they can forge their own path from there.
digi_owl 10y ago
I seem to recall that the initial plan for the OLPC was that everything was done in python, because they wanted the kids to explore and modify. BTW, i recall Intel showing off a variant of the python interpreter being run directly from GRUB. Would have been interesting to see that ported to RPi. Also, i think there was someone working on a Python CLI that could replace bash etc.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > BTW, i recall Intel showing off a variant of the python interpreter being run directly from GRUB. That was me: https://biosbits.org/ https://biosbits.org/ , presented at Pycon 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQ_lq5dcvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQ_lq5dcvM and 2016 with networking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlkKvetGFSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlkKvetGFSk > Also, i think there was someone working on a Python CLI that could replace bash etc. That was "xonsh" (http://xonsh.org/ http://xonsh.org/ , pronounced "conch"), by Anthony Scopatz, presented at PyCon 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaje5I22kgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaje5I22kgE
gtk40 10y ago
I did several years of programming in high school. Our teacher had first learned to program in BASIC on TRS-80 and wanted us to have the same first introduction, so we actually started with a gentle introduction to programming on TI-83 calculators in TI-BASIC which we did for about a month (for a year long first year course). My fun achievement was a Tic-Tac-Toe game that could play as 2 player or with an AI. It was pretty crude how I accomplished it, but it played well. Looking back, it was a great idea, because it is one of the few ways to get the feel of retro computing and programming, along with its advantages to getting started, that is still useful and relevant. My TI-BASIC knowledge continued to be helpful into college.

by 3chelon 10y ago

k__ 10y ago

Haha, yeah, it's probably hard to get kids to "make" with tech these days instead of just "using" it. Because much stuff is already there and back in the 90's, when I was in my teens, things looked a bit different. But funny thing is, even in 2000 people in my school laughed at me for wanting to be a software developer. "Why do you want to create new software? Everything is already created! I can play games, I can download videos/music and watch it, I can talk to other people online, what else do would you create that isn't already there?!" What did we have since 2000? Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, etc.

3chelon 10y ago
I think it's important to teach kids that achievement takes serious effort, and that making a blob move around the screen is so much more important than reaching the top of the leaderboard in Call of Duty - which according to my son, many kids just don't get. I suppose it's a lack of imagination, combined with laziness, which has been reinforced by decades of "Make learning fun!" and "Science is easy!" slogans that the government education tzars love to produce.
- k__ 10y ago
  well, there are people who make good money with gaming haha but there are more who make good money with coding
  - Cpoll 10y ago
    >but there are more who make good money with coding You should emphasize orders of magnitude more. Of course, the other problem is that people who make "good money with gaming" aren't actually gaming - they're following a practice regimen that the average gamer wouldn't stick with for more than an hour - refining repetitive mechanical motions, analyzing gameplay to identify faults, fixing those faults through repetitive practice. An amateur will ask "how do I get better at this game?" and, when you tell them, say "no thanks, I'd rather just play the game."
    - k__ 10y ago
      When people hear the term "pro gamer" they think, well these people just sat around all day playing games and suddendly they get paid mad bucks.
      - vvanders 10y ago
        People think a similar thing about game developers, of course neither is true.
      - jpindar 10y ago
        People mock professional athletes the same way.
    - HemanHeartYou 10y ago
      You're forgetting youtubers.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

Why CLI and not IDE for Python? I'm using PyCharm with a console pane. Could/does he use github and an online REPL from school? Interested as I've been learning Python to use with my slightly younger kids.

3chelon 10y ago
Because I fell out with Jetbrains over their pricing model :) Also, in school they have some pretty serious restrictions on what they can access. And git might be a bit hard for a kid to learn.
- dyukqu 10y ago
  There's a free Educational version of PyCharm (for both three major platforms): https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/download/ https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm-edu/download/ All their IDEs are free for students who "have access to their student email address or a valid ISIC card" by the way: https://www.jetbrains.com/student/ https://www.jetbrains.com/student/ Edit: link added
  - 3chelon 10y ago
    Thanks for that, I'll look into it.
    - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      Yes, I'm using the free community edition (2016.1 at present). Also I said "github", when doing school type exercises for a Coursera course I uploaded stuff to a gist on GitHub (https://gist.github.com/ https://gist.github.com/) to work on in breaks at work - just simply 20 line max programs, any text dump would be equivalent for how I was using it. PyCharm of course can integrate with git but I only use that locally. https://repl.it/languages/Python/ https://repl.it/languages/Python/ helped me out, as did http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html http://www.pythontutor.com/visualize.html.
- adrianN 10y ago

cturner 10y ago

Roguelikes are an easy path into programming. For an easy start, find a well-done 7-day roguelike in your favorite language. For example, z-day is in python (http://sheep.art.pl/Z-Day http://sheep.art.pl/Z-Day). Someone learning C might like Day @ the Zoo (C - http://www.happyponyland.net/zoo.php http://www.happyponyland.net/zoo.php).

david-given 10y ago

There's RISC OS Pico. It's a cut-down version of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi, without the GUI layer. It boots straight into Basic. http://weblambdazero.blogspot.ch/2015/11/modern-micro-with-risc-os-pico.html http://weblambdazero.blogspot.ch/2015/11/modern-micro-with-r... It looks like this, and anyone who grew up with the BBC Micro will instantly recognise it: RISC OS 192MB ARM1176JZF-8 Processor Piccolo Systems SDFS ARM BBC BASIC VI (C) Acorn 1989 Starting with 97040636 bytes free >_ That's also Acorn's structured Basic, with fast named procedures and multiline control statements, so it's actually reasonable for writing real programs in. It's pretty much COMAL. There's no structured types, unfortunately --- it's still a 1980s language --- but you get still get instant feedback that a traditional micro gave you (and the traditional Basic IDE experience, but I believe they also include the full-screen editor).

3chelon 10y ago
Interesting project, but I actually think BASIC is a retrograde step, even with modern tweaks. Each to their own though... as I said in my original post, it's the spark of interest that matters I think, and they can forge their own path from there.

digi_owl 10y ago

I seem to recall that the initial plan for the OLPC was that everything was done in python, because they wanted the kids to explore and modify. BTW, i recall Intel showing off a variant of the python interpreter being run directly from GRUB. Would have been interesting to see that ported to RPi. Also, i think there was someone working on a Python CLI that could replace bash etc.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> BTW, i recall Intel showing off a variant of the python interpreter being run directly from GRUB. That was me: https://biosbits.org/ https://biosbits.org/ , presented at Pycon 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQ_lq5dcvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYQ_lq5dcvM and 2016 with networking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlkKvetGFSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlkKvetGFSk > Also, i think there was someone working on a Python CLI that could replace bash etc. That was "xonsh" (http://xonsh.org/ http://xonsh.org/ , pronounced "conch"), by Anthony Scopatz, presented at PyCon 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaje5I22kgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaje5I22kgE

gtk40 10y ago

I did several years of programming in high school. Our teacher had first learned to program in BASIC on TRS-80 and wanted us to have the same first introduction, so we actually started with a gentle introduction to programming on TI-83 calculators in TI-BASIC which we did for about a month (for a year long first year course). My fun achievement was a Tic-Tac-Toe game that could play as 2 player or with an AI. It was pretty crude how I accomplished it, but it played well. Looking back, it was a great idea, because it is one of the few ways to get the feel of retro computing and programming, along with its advantages to getting started, that is still useful and relevant. My TI-BASIC knowledge continued to be helpful into college.