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My suggestion is that they won't write functions, not for quite awhile. Why would they ever need to understand decorators or object oriented design to start wri

My suggestion is that they won't write functions, not for quite awhile. Why would they ever need to understand decorators or object oriented design to start writing code!? They can write actual code though, not just addition in some REPL. In Haskell, you do need to understand a crazy number of things to do anything. That "actual code" I mentioned can involve drawing on the screen, which as I pointed out in painstaking detail, is not going to be explainable to a five year old with Haskell code. That kind of visual feedback is incredibly important to concrete learners, which everyone is at that age. Haskell and Python are not similar with regards to "conceptual/semantic complexity." At all. I have used Haskell in the past. I understand it. Someone who hasn't reached Piaget's "formal operational" stage is not going to understand it. Piaget's theory isn't perfect, but it is normally true that people start out at a very concrete level. As I said, don't be ridiculous. Here is some super complicated Python code that kids can learn a lot from: from turtle import * color('blue') forward(200) left(90) forward(200) left(90) forward(200) left(90) forward(200) left(90) done() Eventually, they'll move on to using for loops! Or even asking the user a question and drawing something based on that. You literally have to understand (at a basic level) monads and effect systems to start implementing a question-response system in Haskell. Please, show me what my above code looks like in Haskell, since it's so comparable in complexity. I don't think you have an appreciation for what goes into learning programming. You've probably been doing it for far too long at this point, without thinking back to the early days. Why are you so defensive about Haskell in the first place?

jolux 8y ago
https://cdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/haskell-for-kids-week-1/ https://cdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/haskell-for-kids-we... Books like The Haskell School of Expression have been teaching functional programming using simple graphics in Haskell for a long time. Need I remind you that the entire concept of a Turtle comes from Logo, which is Lisp minus parentheses?
- thrower123 8y ago
  What a terrible book that is... The Haskell School of Expression was the text for one of my early CS courses, and was a significant contributor to my bailing on a major in CS and going to something more sensical. Since then I've picked up a handful of other Haskell books, and without exception they have been far better suited to actually teaching programming.
- coder543 8y ago
  I never said Lisp nor Logo was a bad choice, now did I? Lisp is incredibly simple, even if it makes some things obtuse for beginners. I would rather have a strong type system like Haskell's for working on a large application, but Lisp is way easier to get started with. The parentheses are a huge stumbling point, though, which is where Logo comes in. For the record, those kids do not look like 5 year olds. Once someone is old enough to do abstract reasoning, I think Haskell might be a workable choice, if carefully taught. More often than not, it's more likely to drive them away than something simpler. That article appears to be using some web interface which was designed to hide all of the monads... I think that's a splendid way to get started. The students aren't writing their "main" function. Unfortunately, the website linked from that website is down, so it's hard for me to verify. You haven't been listening to anything I have said, so I'm going to stop. I wish you would reflect on software education, because however well-intentioned, starting with Haskell is likely to drive many more people away than it would help to show what they can accomplish and inspire them.
  - jolux 8y ago
    So we basically agree. You seem to have drawn from my comment that I think Haskell is some ideal language for teaching programming to babies. No. I merely said that basic math is similarly simple. I mentioned ML as well which you completely ignored, and in later comments I talked about Lisp and Logo. I was just trying to broaden the discussion to functional languages which are often passed over as teaching tools these days because they are frequently viewed as too difficult to understand or useless, when the actual genesis of CS pedagogy in children is with Logo and Lisp. Apologies if my comment was unclear.

jolux 8y ago

https://cdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/haskell-for-kids-week-1/ https://cdsmith.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/haskell-for-kids-we... Books like The Haskell School of Expression have been teaching functional programming using simple graphics in Haskell for a long time. Need I remind you that the entire concept of a Turtle comes from Logo, which is Lisp minus parentheses?

thrower123 8y ago
What a terrible book that is... The Haskell School of Expression was the text for one of my early CS courses, and was a significant contributor to my bailing on a major in CS and going to something more sensical. Since then I've picked up a handful of other Haskell books, and without exception they have been far better suited to actually teaching programming.
coder543 8y ago
I never said Lisp nor Logo was a bad choice, now did I? Lisp is incredibly simple, even if it makes some things obtuse for beginners. I would rather have a strong type system like Haskell's for working on a large application, but Lisp is way easier to get started with. The parentheses are a huge stumbling point, though, which is where Logo comes in. For the record, those kids do not look like 5 year olds. Once someone is old enough to do abstract reasoning, I think Haskell might be a workable choice, if carefully taught. More often than not, it's more likely to drive them away than something simpler. That article appears to be using some web interface which was designed to hide all of the monads... I think that's a splendid way to get started. The students aren't writing their "main" function. Unfortunately, the website linked from that website is down, so it's hard for me to verify. You haven't been listening to anything I have said, so I'm going to stop. I wish you would reflect on software education, because however well-intentioned, starting with Haskell is likely to drive many more people away than it would help to show what they can accomplish and inspire them.
- jolux 8y ago
  So we basically agree. You seem to have drawn from my comment that I think Haskell is some ideal language for teaching programming to babies. No. I merely said that basic math is similarly simple. I mentioned ML as well which you completely ignored, and in later comments I talked about Lisp and Logo. I was just trying to broaden the discussion to functional languages which are often passed over as teaching tools these days because they are frequently viewed as too difficult to understand or useless, when the actual genesis of CS pedagogy in children is with Logo and Lisp. Apologies if my comment was unclear.