4 ms·

firstly, the posix SHELL is not at all unfriendly (terminal != shell), and introducing it earlier can only be beneficial. If you get scared by a shell, you prob

firstly, the posix SHELL is not at all unfriendly (terminal != shell), and introducing it earlier can only be beneficial. If you get scared by a shell, you probably shouldn't be in programming.

seanflyon 12y ago
If a 7 year old gets scared of a shell that does not mean they should not be learning programming. It seams reasonable to introduce shells early, but we should be aware of the risk of scaring off children with unintuitive interfaces.
- bad_user 12y ago
  Is that a real risk? I mean, we aren't talking about breaking a leg. In my experience, as a father, the husband of a wife that works at a kindergarten and as an ex-child ... the best thing about being a kid is the courage you have in exploring new things. Take the opportunity of exploration away, in the name of safety and the effect may be the opposite of what you want. And actually, for better or worse, many of us as kids learned programming in "unsafe" environments. So the onus is on you to prove that the alternative is better. Surely a study could be made.
- e12e 12y ago
  If we managed to load games from cassette tape on a c64 (or a vic20), a modern posix shell should be a walk in the park. In my experience, a kid will learn any number of rote actions required to launch a game. And then later work out what those actions meant.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    1) This shell is not required to play games, so that motivation is not relevant to this discussion. 2) survivorship bias. I think starting with something approachable like Scratch then advancing on to a posix shell in Ubuntu is a great idea, but I take issue with the attitude that if a child is scared by a shell they should not learn to program.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Sure, I agree with both 1) and 2) -- I just don't see how "being scared of a shell" is a valid point. If the kid is given the thing and told to go wild, I doubt most kids would be "scared". Adults, maybe. But not kids. Anyway, the kid doesn't have to know that the shell isn't prerequisite to play games -- until they figure it out on their own. My point was more that children are adept at overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of play.
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        > My point was more that children are adept at overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of play. I agree with that point entirely, but that does not mean that all children will overcome all challenges. My point is that we should not give up on a child just because they struggle with a shell. The reason I think shells are not the best introduction is that they cannot be figured out by exploration. They require specific knowledge that cannot be deduced because it is fundamentally arbitrary. That information can still be found online, so it is not impossible to discover, but I think it is ridiculous to give up on a 7 year old because they did not like exploring a shell.
  - sprite 12y ago
    Completely agree. I got a commodore 64 and a 286 when I was 6. My dad taught me how to start my games in DOS so I could start those up by myself when I woke up early in the morning and they slept in. I started working through the BASIC manual that came with my C64 when I was 7 and if/then/else were some of my first English words that I learned. No need to dumb it down too much, kids will figure it out.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

firstly, the posix SHELL is not at all unfriendly (terminal != shell), and introducing it earlier can only be beneficial. If you get scared by a shell, you probably shouldn't be in programming.

seanflyon 12y ago

If a 7 year old gets scared of a shell that does not mean they should not be learning programming. It seams reasonable to introduce shells early, but we should be aware of the risk of scaring off children with unintuitive interfaces.

bad_user 12y ago
Is that a real risk? I mean, we aren't talking about breaking a leg. In my experience, as a father, the husband of a wife that works at a kindergarten and as an ex-child ... the best thing about being a kid is the courage you have in exploring new things. Take the opportunity of exploration away, in the name of safety and the effect may be the opposite of what you want. And actually, for better or worse, many of us as kids learned programming in "unsafe" environments. So the onus is on you to prove that the alternative is better. Surely a study could be made.
e12e 12y ago
If we managed to load games from cassette tape on a c64 (or a vic20), a modern posix shell should be a walk in the park. In my experience, a kid will learn any number of rote actions required to launch a game. And then later work out what those actions meant.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  1) This shell is not required to play games, so that motivation is not relevant to this discussion. 2) survivorship bias. I think starting with something approachable like Scratch then advancing on to a posix shell in Ubuntu is a great idea, but I take issue with the attitude that if a child is scared by a shell they should not learn to program.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Sure, I agree with both 1) and 2) -- I just don't see how "being scared of a shell" is a valid point. If the kid is given the thing and told to go wild, I doubt most kids would be "scared". Adults, maybe. But not kids. Anyway, the kid doesn't have to know that the shell isn't prerequisite to play games -- until they figure it out on their own. My point was more that children are adept at overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of play.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      > My point was more that children are adept at overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of play. I agree with that point entirely, but that does not mean that all children will overcome all challenges. My point is that we should not give up on a child just because they struggle with a shell. The reason I think shells are not the best introduction is that they cannot be figured out by exploration. They require specific knowledge that cannot be deduced because it is fundamentally arbitrary. That information can still be found online, so it is not impossible to discover, but I think it is ridiculous to give up on a 7 year old because they did not like exploring a shell.
- sprite 12y ago
  Completely agree. I got a commodore 64 and a 286 when I was 6. My dad taught me how to start my games in DOS so I could start those up by myself when I woke up early in the morning and they slept in. I started working through the BASIC manual that came with my C64 when I was 7 and if/then/else were some of my first English words that I learned. No need to dumb it down too much, kids will figure it out.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]