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This comment assumes that Ruby, Python, and Scheme are easy enough for children to get started with, and I disagree with that assumption. This is clearly, in m

This comment assumes that Ruby, Python, and Scheme are easy enough for children to get started with, and I disagree with that assumption. This is clearly, in my mind, better than the languages out there and I've only seen 3 lines.

6d0debc071 13y ago
Why do you disagree with it? Children have started on and understood them easily enough before.
vidarh 13y ago
Age 5-7 I spent figuring out to get sprites and music to work on a Commodore 64 that had no commands for it - it was all "POKE"'s to various memory locations. I was by no means unique for my generation, or even my class. There's a huge number of us that are evidence that non-custom languages that were massive pains to program are easy enough for children to get started with. Does Ruby, Python and Scheme have dark corners that are harder to understand than BASIC? Sure. Just like my C64 had all kinds of secrets I couldn't figure out by myself by POKE'ing randomly around at that age. But I'd hazard a guess that most children will be mature enough at some point between 5 and 10 to be able to pick up the basics of pretty much any reasonably "normal" language if they have the motivation to try (for me it was seeing my dad program a simple game and wanting to be able to do the same thing). I'd hate to dumb it down unnecessarily.
- James_Duval 13y ago
  > Scheme Out of interest, what are the dark corners of Scheme? I've been using Racket for a while now and I've not come across any unexpected behaviour. I suppose using non-idiomatic language elements such as mutations is a little odd but so far I've found nothing in the language which has surprised me.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    I meant as in "stuff that is difficult for most 5-10 year olds (or so) to pick up easily on their own".
  - GregBuchholz 13y ago
    Oleg Kiselyov has done some exploration into the darker corners of Scheme. See things like: How to Write Seemingly Unhygienic and Referentially Opaque Macros with Syntax-rules http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/macros.html#dirty-macros http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/macros.html#dirty-macros
lettergram 13y ago
I agree this language is easier than say Ruby or Python, but I do remember in 4th and 5th grade (8 to 10 uears old) learning a bit of BASIC from a couple books my father gave me. By the end of 5th grade I had written a calculator, a stopwatch and a couple other items in BASIC(programming exercises from the book). Then in high school I decided to learn some Ruby and had a good time tinkering with that and the things I learned from BASiC made it relatively easy. The point is, a kid can pick up on that stuff if they want to learn it and BASIC is defiantly simple enough to "start with" and I would guess so is Python and Ruby which don't have too much semantic complexity.

6d0debc071 13y ago

Why do you disagree with it? Children have started on and understood them easily enough before.

vidarh 13y ago

Age 5-7 I spent figuring out to get sprites and music to work on a Commodore 64 that had no commands for it - it was all "POKE"'s to various memory locations. I was by no means unique for my generation, or even my class. There's a huge number of us that are evidence that non-custom languages that were massive pains to program are easy enough for children to get started with. Does Ruby, Python and Scheme have dark corners that are harder to understand than BASIC? Sure. Just like my C64 had all kinds of secrets I couldn't figure out by myself by POKE'ing randomly around at that age. But I'd hazard a guess that most children will be mature enough at some point between 5 and 10 to be able to pick up the basics of pretty much any reasonably "normal" language if they have the motivation to try (for me it was seeing my dad program a simple game and wanting to be able to do the same thing). I'd hate to dumb it down unnecessarily.

James_Duval 13y ago
> Scheme Out of interest, what are the dark corners of Scheme? I've been using Racket for a while now and I've not come across any unexpected behaviour. I suppose using non-idiomatic language elements such as mutations is a little odd but so far I've found nothing in the language which has surprised me.
- vidarh 13y ago
  I meant as in "stuff that is difficult for most 5-10 year olds (or so) to pick up easily on their own".
- GregBuchholz 13y ago
  Oleg Kiselyov has done some exploration into the darker corners of Scheme. See things like: How to Write Seemingly Unhygienic and Referentially Opaque Macros with Syntax-rules http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/macros.html#dirty-macros http://okmij.org/ftp/Scheme/macros.html#dirty-macros

lettergram 13y ago

I agree this language is easier than say Ruby or Python, but I do remember in 4th and 5th grade (8 to 10 uears old) learning a bit of BASIC from a couple books my father gave me. By the end of 5th grade I had written a calculator, a stopwatch and a couple other items in BASIC(programming exercises from the book). Then in high school I decided to learn some Ruby and had a good time tinkering with that and the things I learned from BASiC made it relatively easy. The point is, a kid can pick up on that stuff if they want to learn it and BASIC is defiantly simple enough to "start with" and I would guess so is Python and Ruby which don't have too much semantic complexity.