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I think the whole reasoning behind exposing his children to the command line first and working from there is to give them a better understanding of the fundamen

I think the whole reasoning behind exposing his children to the command line first and working from there is to give them a better understanding of the fundamentals before moving on to higher level UI. A window manager is the next logical step (as that's where computing actually went next). I agree, introducing a touch screen at a later point in time makes sense, but I think a window manager is both more practical and fits in the progression he's trying to achieve.

ThomPete 14y ago
Kids aren't learning abstract fundamentals at that age though. They are mimicking stuff. My son was two when he could operate the ipad, go to youtube find his movie. That's not because he could read or knew what he was doing, but because he had learned to mimic how I did things. So the kids might learn the commands and there might be a lot of value in that. But I do not believe that they are actually internalizing and learning fundamentals in any intelectual sense. Anyway it's kind of a hard subject. I think it's great what the OP is doing but I fear he is reading a little too much into the reaction from the kids. Unless of course they are gifted with a high IQ (which might very well be the case)
- ethereal 14y ago
  > Kids aren't learning abstract fundamentals at that age though. They are mimicking stuff. I have to respectfully disagree with you on this point. A member of my extended family does extensive work with deaf young children (aged six months to six years). Her job is to accelerate their spoken-language development, which has been delayed by virtue of being deaf. She repeatedly makes the point to me that the difference between children with delayed language (e.g. most of those she works with) and a "normal" child is that those with delayed language tend to not understand (or use) abstractions in their speech. They treat each word as if it has a single application or use. Once they understand that each word actually can have multiple applications, their ability to learn new words grows exponentially. Until that point, they are simply mimicking. That sounds like an abstract fundamental to me, though I am perhaps mistaken. (This is also subject to a counter-argument about the nature/nurture aspect of language, e.g. do we have an inborn understanding of language.) Also, on a more personal note: by the time I was five, I was experimenting with electrical circuits. A few 1.5V flashlight bulbs, a pair of switches, a few D-cell batteries, and some wire went a long way. I taught myself that you couldn't put lightbulbs after each other and have them light up to the same brightness (e.g. series resistance), but that you could connect them in parallel without any of those effects (these were short-term, so I didn't notice the extra power draw). Likewise for switches -- if they were in parallel, then breaking one was enough to break the entire circuit. Those are brand-new, abstract concepts that I was, as you say, internalizing in an intellectual sense. And no, I wouldn't have called my IQ particularly high at the time, and I still would not.
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    I don't think what you say contradicts my point and I am in agreement with what you are saying to some extent. I am not saying there is no understanding going on at all. What I am saying is that when my son uses the iPad or iPhone he does not know what the different things mean (i.e. he can't read that it says Video) he just knows what it do when he presses the icon. I can't say to him: "Find the LinkedIn application" Only if I have done that a couple of times in front of him will he be able to. With regards to the discussion about language, then yes that is a very complex discusion :) My own theory is that we are born "pattern recognizing feedback loops" and thus our ability to recognize those patterns and recognize that we recognize them is the foundation of our ability to learn a language. Language is simply an abstraction of our natural ability to do symbolic manipulation. It's like assembler (our basic symbolic manipulation skills) and the higher level languages (our more developed culturally inherited languages)
- ehsanu1 14y ago
  Eh.. I know 2-year-olds who know how to do things on the iPad that the adults around them don't! It's ridiculous to think kids aren't learning at these early ages - it's when the brain is most plastic after all. The fundamentals of language are getting pinned down at the same time in their little heads, and children who start training any skill at such an age tend to become proficient at it. I don't see why this can't be the case with computing as well.
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    You know. We all know kids that are exceptional. But the exception is not the rule.
- wtetzner 14y ago
  Even if all they're doing is mimicking, it might at least be valuable in teaching them not to be scared of using the command line. I know too many people (including developers) that are afraid of the command line, and think it will be "too hard" to use.
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    At that age they are afraid of nothing :) My son uses the command line. Just not for anything but hammering in random text.

ThomPete 14y ago

Kids aren't learning abstract fundamentals at that age though. They are mimicking stuff. My son was two when he could operate the ipad, go to youtube find his movie. That's not because he could read or knew what he was doing, but because he had learned to mimic how I did things. So the kids might learn the commands and there might be a lot of value in that. But I do not believe that they are actually internalizing and learning fundamentals in any intelectual sense. Anyway it's kind of a hard subject. I think it's great what the OP is doing but I fear he is reading a little too much into the reaction from the kids. Unless of course they are gifted with a high IQ (which might very well be the case)

ethereal 14y ago
> Kids aren't learning abstract fundamentals at that age though. They are mimicking stuff. I have to respectfully disagree with you on this point. A member of my extended family does extensive work with deaf young children (aged six months to six years). Her job is to accelerate their spoken-language development, which has been delayed by virtue of being deaf. She repeatedly makes the point to me that the difference between children with delayed language (e.g. most of those she works with) and a "normal" child is that those with delayed language tend to not understand (or use) abstractions in their speech. They treat each word as if it has a single application or use. Once they understand that each word actually can have multiple applications, their ability to learn new words grows exponentially. Until that point, they are simply mimicking. That sounds like an abstract fundamental to me, though I am perhaps mistaken. (This is also subject to a counter-argument about the nature/nurture aspect of language, e.g. do we have an inborn understanding of language.) Also, on a more personal note: by the time I was five, I was experimenting with electrical circuits. A few 1.5V flashlight bulbs, a pair of switches, a few D-cell batteries, and some wire went a long way. I taught myself that you couldn't put lightbulbs after each other and have them light up to the same brightness (e.g. series resistance), but that you could connect them in parallel without any of those effects (these were short-term, so I didn't notice the extra power draw). Likewise for switches -- if they were in parallel, then breaking one was enough to break the entire circuit. Those are brand-new, abstract concepts that I was, as you say, internalizing in an intellectual sense. And no, I wouldn't have called my IQ particularly high at the time, and I still would not.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  I don't think what you say contradicts my point and I am in agreement with what you are saying to some extent. I am not saying there is no understanding going on at all. What I am saying is that when my son uses the iPad or iPhone he does not know what the different things mean (i.e. he can't read that it says Video) he just knows what it do when he presses the icon. I can't say to him: "Find the LinkedIn application" Only if I have done that a couple of times in front of him will he be able to. With regards to the discussion about language, then yes that is a very complex discusion :) My own theory is that we are born "pattern recognizing feedback loops" and thus our ability to recognize those patterns and recognize that we recognize them is the foundation of our ability to learn a language. Language is simply an abstraction of our natural ability to do symbolic manipulation. It's like assembler (our basic symbolic manipulation skills) and the higher level languages (our more developed culturally inherited languages)
ehsanu1 14y ago
Eh.. I know 2-year-olds who know how to do things on the iPad that the adults around them don't! It's ridiculous to think kids aren't learning at these early ages - it's when the brain is most plastic after all. The fundamentals of language are getting pinned down at the same time in their little heads, and children who start training any skill at such an age tend to become proficient at it. I don't see why this can't be the case with computing as well.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  You know. We all know kids that are exceptional. But the exception is not the rule.
wtetzner 14y ago
Even if all they're doing is mimicking, it might at least be valuable in teaching them not to be scared of using the command line. I know too many people (including developers) that are afraid of the command line, and think it will be "too hard" to use.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  At that age they are afraid of nothing :) My son uses the command line. Just not for anything but hammering in random text.