In article <················@kepler.cs.unh.edu> ···@cs.unh.edu (Brent W. Benson Jr.) writes:
>·········@titan.ksc.nasa.gov (mcroberts ) writes:
>
>mcroberts> I'd like to teach my eight year old son some programming.
>mcroberts> I've heard that logo is good for this, but two shareware
>mcroberts> implementations I tried were worthless. My second choice
>mcroberts> is lisp ... What I'd like to find is a book that teaches
>mcroberts> lisp with an approach geared to kids around 8 years old.
>
>I would recommend using Scheme rather than Common Lisp. There are
>several freely available Scheme interpreters for the PC. I would
>highly recommend "The Little Lisper" by Friedman and Felleisen (MIT
>Press) for anyone learning to program in Lisp, and it seems
>particularly suited for young people. The latest versions use a
>dialect of Lisp very similar to Scheme.
>
>--
>Brent Benson ···@cs.unh.edu
>Department of Computer Science 603-862-3786
>University of New Hampshire
>Durham, NH 03824
Don't you think that it would be a little bit difficult for an
eight year old to learn LISP programming ???
I think that it would be more likely to begin by not teaching him
a functional programming language...
What about Pascal ??
Best regards
--
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Alain FAJNER Email : ············@frlv.bull.fr
BULL CEDIAG
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······@frlv.bull.fr (Alain.Fajner) writes:
>Don't you think that it would be a little bit difficult for an
>eight year old to learn LISP programming ???
Not at all. LISP or SCHEME or LOGO are interpreted, you don't
have to teach them about compiling and execution files and such.
They don't have to learn the finer points of CLOS or DO loops or
stuff the first week or so...:-)
>I think that it would be more likely to begin by not teaching him
>a functional programming language...
There is a theory that the first programming language you learn will
have as much of an impression on you as your native tongue. What could
be better than learning a functional programming language to start off
with? Should they warp their minds learning all the syntactic
ideosyncracies of imperative programming languages? Heavens, no!
And using a language like LOGO, that includes rudimentary graphics
lets the kids have fun while learning what a function is, why it's
easier to use REPEATS than to do everything n times, to discover the
need for parameters, etc.
>What about Pascal ??
As above, you have to give a child a load of stuff and say "Just do
it like this" for variable declaration, the order of procedures
(which is only necessary to make life easier for compiler writers!!!),
the semicolon rules (or "why doesn't a ; go before an else?"), and
then explain compile-and-run. And then you're only far enough along
to write "Hello World!". To use the turtle graphics library you have
to know about a lot more details.
The ease of interpreter use is one of the reasons so many schools
still teach BASIC (yes, I got my mind warped on it as a kid!).
One more reason for teaching LOGO or SCHEME or even LISP!
--
Debora Weber-Wulff ···@inf.fu-berlin.de
Institut fuer Informatik +49 30 89691 124
Nestorstr. 8-9 (INCLUDE "standard.disclaimer")
D-W-1000 Berlin 31 (PRINTN (WITTY-MESSAGE TODAY))
The 8-year-old son of a coworker has taught himself to program in
Hypercard. This, too, is an interpreted language, albeit much more
limited in scope and extensibility than are Lisp and Scheme. It does,
however, give an introduction to a somewhat object-oriented
programming paradigm (objects with scripts, but no real inheritance),
has well-integrated editing and runtime facilities, has a fairly
intuitive syntax (please, no flames on this point), and has the
advantage of having all of the scripts be easily readable and copyable
by the curious youngster.
I do agree that the normal 8-year-old ought to be learning other
things, but those that are motivated to learn how to program should be
given the opportunity to learn. Not being an expert on either
education or cognitive development, however, I won't speculate on
which language would offer the _best_ opportunity.
--
Mark Feblowitz GTE Laboratories, Inc., 40 Sylvan Rd. Waltham, MA 02254
(617) 466-2947
CSNET: ··········@GTE.com
UUCP: ··········@bunny.UUCP old UUCP: harvard!bunny!mfeblowitz
Alain.Fajner writes:
Don't you think that it would be a little bit difficult for an
eight year old to learn LISP programming ???
Yes. Just a little bit - not the big bit they'd need for Pascal, or C, or Ada.
--
Regards, | "I can disappear without trace; just say the word,
Kers. | I'll be gone from this place." - Renaissance, "Electric Avenue".
In article <··················@cdollin.hpl.hp.com> ····@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin) writes:
>Alain.Fajner writes:
>
> Don't you think that it would be a little bit difficult for an
> eight year old to learn LISP programming ???
>
>Yes. Just a little bit - not the big bit they'd need for Pascal, or C, or Ada.
>--
>
>Regards, | "I can disappear without trace; just say the word,
>Kers. | I'll be gone from this place." - Renaissance, "Electric Avenue".
After seeing a few articles on this today I decided to voice my
own opinion and experience. Now, granted, I've never worked with
8 year olds. I was a TA for cs201 (Comp. Sci. I) here at UMBC
for a few semesters, and Pascal was the language taught. I
did run into a few problems every now and then, but for the
most part I was able (along with the teacher of course) to
help them learn the language. Now, believe it or not, my point is
not to support Pascal being taught, but rather Lisp or Scheme.
The reason being is we (CS students) are taught imperative programming
languages at the onset of the degree. If we were taught Scheme or
Lisp instead, it would enable us to handle much more advanced tasks
later on such as Parallel Processing etc. The problem with imperative
languages are that they tend to get you into a routine and leave room
for very little creativity (depending on the languague in particular).
Since I've learned lisp I really have come to hate C. However C++ is
really cool, except I'm gonna teach myself CLOS and end up hating
C++. :) So even the advancements of languages have not left lisp
behind. As for teaching it to an 8 year old, like someone said
earlier, you don't get them using do*, etc right away. But I really
think that the best idea is to stay away from imperative languages.
Oh and to whomever said to teach them hiking, math, etc. Good idea.
Only I disagree with _not_ teaching the kid about programming at
that age. I think it's a great idea.
*steps down off soapbox* Anyway, that was my .02 worth. :)
--
Robert Gottlieb
········@umbc4.umbc.edu
(setf umbc '(not my opinion mon))
Date: Tue, 19 May 1992 06:03 EDT
From: "Alain.Fajner" <······@frlv.bull.fr>
What about Pascal ??
Surely you jest. There are far too many silly details required to do
the most basic programming in Pascal.