FWIW, I was one of the LOGO kids in the early 70s, playing with mechanical turtles with Cynthia Solomon and Seymore Papert. I don't remember a time when applyi

FWIW, I was one of the LOGO kids in the early 70s, playing with mechanical turtles with Cynthia Solomon and Seymore Papert. I don't remember a time when applying an algoritm to a problem wasn't a potential solution. I think the main benefit here wasn't so much learning simple programming than it was "internalizing the metaphor of algorithm." (i.e.-you can use algorithms to solve problems.) You don't have to have a computer to use a binary search algorithm (but it certainly helps.) You don't have to have a computer to apply the "follow the left hand wall" solution to maze traversal, as any DnD dungeon crawl player will tell you. And then figuring out why it doesn't work when there are cycles in the graph is sort of important. I saw a video of young kids in England "playing LOGO" before their schools had acquired computers. They were taking turns playing the part of the turtle while other kids spoke programs like "forward 4; right 90 degrees." Papert was big into "embodied learning" where concepts are translated into physical actions and artifacts, so it's no shock he would recommend something like this. Somewhat related... my mother was an educational researcher at the time, so I'm one of the few people who can say "my mother taught me Lisp when I was 7 years old." Also... I learned unix sysadmin in the 80s maintaining my mom's Sun 3/60. Pretty sure the idea of using a Sun as a daily driver was an idea she picked up from her interactions with Papert's lab. I just finished reading Brian Dear's "Friendly Orange Glow" where some interviewees said they felt Papert was a bit arrogant. But... having benefited from both PLATO and LOGO, the only thing I can say is "more arrogance like Papert's, please."