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Even more exciting than these kids learning Ruby is that they're learning programming. After they have a grasp of the concepts of how to program a computer, the
by Luyt 16y ago
Even more exciting than these kids learning Ruby is that they're learning programming. After they have a grasp of the concepts of how to program a computer, they can expand to other languages (or stay with Ruby ;-)
I think programmatically controlling hardware (like robots and Lego) can be very attractive to kids, too.
- jacquesm 16y agoAbsolutely, but contrasted with say 'logo' the power of ruby is that it is not a 'toy' language, you can build just about anything other than hard real time systems in it. That's a pretty powerful tool to master. The only other languages that I can think of that are that accessible to children are Logo, Basic and SmallTalk and none of those is as well established as a starting language for kids to use and as powerful at the same time. The lego robotics kits are nice and well thought out but there is no stepping stone between there and say making a website or some other non lego-related program. Robots and turtles are cool in that they allow control of real-world objects from a programming environment.
- steveklabnik 16y agoAnd, as we did with Hackety, you can embed Logo inside of Ruby. You get the best of both! DSls are awesome.