4 ms·

I teach high school students introductory HTML, CSS, & JS on behalf of a non-profit so I'm somewhat familiar with the problem space. What makes languages such

by dopeboy 12y ago

I teach high school students introductory HTML, CSS, & JS on behalf of a non-profit so I'm somewhat familiar with the problem space. What makes languages such as these and Scratch beneficial is that they decouple logic from the syntax. I can't tell you how frustrating it is for high schoolers to hit the syntax wall and lose interest altogether. At this age (14-18) when you haven't necessarily built up the grit and persistence you have as an adult, tools such as these keep the student progressing and motivated. Eventually you take the training wheels off and have them engage in real coding. Languages such as these and tools such as Scratch serve as a crucial bridge to that end state.

xorcist 12y ago
On the other hand you have an enormous amount of people who grew up in the 80s/early 90s who were pretty fluent in assembly by that age. Something made it fun for them, so fun they persisted and learned it. There are many other very hard things, such as swimming or riding a bike, which most children learn. I'm not advocating that things should be boring, just that it's also important to discuss what makes things fun and rewarding, not only on removing hurdles.
- dopeboy 12y ago
  I think what's fun and rewarding varies person to person. I'm happy for the people you cite figuring out their way (I count myself as one of them - having an organic interest in programming). But not everyone has that desire and coming up / experimenting with ways to reach those people should be celebrated and critiqued. That way, we can expand the pie and ultimately produce more creators of technology.
- tokenrove 12y ago
  It's worth noting that those languages, like 6502 assembly language and early BASIC, had very little in the way of syntax, and particularly, no block structures. I remember finding details of syntax in Pascal and C incredibly cumbersome, learning them as a kid after a considerable amount of time with BASIC and assembly.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Echo that. I recall programming up a ASCII "game" of sorts using basic on a school computer years ago. Whole lot of those infamous gotos etc. But i don't know if i could produce anything even close in C or similar unless it wrote it all as one big hairball inside main(). Edit: Frankly i think we humans are inherently sequential thinkers. Especially when trying to describe how to do something in detail. So when trying to deal with non-sequential systems we sooner or later make a mess of things.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I think you're right, but you're talking about a different case than 'dopeboy is. With no offense to him, it's a school setting, which means making kids code on your own terms and schedule, whether they like it or not. It's a different case than intrinsically motivated kid, who will have more than enough persistence to master even C.

by dopeboy 12y ago

xorcist 12y ago

On the other hand you have an enormous amount of people who grew up in the 80s/early 90s who were pretty fluent in assembly by that age. Something made it fun for them, so fun they persisted and learned it. There are many other very hard things, such as swimming or riding a bike, which most children learn. I'm not advocating that things should be boring, just that it's also important to discuss what makes things fun and rewarding, not only on removing hurdles.

dopeboy 12y ago
I think what's fun and rewarding varies person to person. I'm happy for the people you cite figuring out their way (I count myself as one of them - having an organic interest in programming). But not everyone has that desire and coming up / experimenting with ways to reach those people should be celebrated and critiqued. That way, we can expand the pie and ultimately produce more creators of technology.
tokenrove 12y ago
It's worth noting that those languages, like 6502 assembly language and early BASIC, had very little in the way of syntax, and particularly, no block structures. I remember finding details of syntax in Pascal and C incredibly cumbersome, learning them as a kid after a considerable amount of time with BASIC and assembly.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Echo that. I recall programming up a ASCII "game" of sorts using basic on a school computer years ago. Whole lot of those infamous gotos etc. But i don't know if i could produce anything even close in C or similar unless it wrote it all as one big hairball inside main(). Edit: Frankly i think we humans are inherently sequential thinkers. Especially when trying to describe how to do something in detail. So when trying to deal with non-sequential systems we sooner or later make a mess of things.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I think you're right, but you're talking about a different case than 'dopeboy is. With no offense to him, it's a school setting, which means making kids code on your own terms and schedule, whether they like it or not. It's a different case than intrinsically motivated kid, who will have more than enough persistence to master even C.