I am expecting a baby soon, and dream about homeschooling (probably not
realistic, but anyways)...
I was thinking when I should introduce lisp.
The youngest two programmers i know of were at age 8 and 10.
I recently asked a friend, and she said age 6.
then i was thinking, maybe if there was a spoken version of lisp...
maybe its no good for communicating with people in real time, but it
maybe good for communicating on the internet in blogs or google, where
you can use the computer to assist in converting higher level
abstractions not in common use.
tinku99 wrote:
> I am expecting a baby soon, and dream about homeschooling (probably not
> realistic, but anyways)...
It may be hard for you to believe as an expectant mother, but it is
unrealistic to expect serious prenatal progress with programming, or
violin, or piano. Relax. You have a number of years before your
question gains urgency.
> I was thinking when I should introduce lisp.
When the time comes you might consider Logo, which was designed for
teaching programming to children. It _is_ a Lisp dialect, most agree,
despite the fact that it doesn't use prefix notation.
Last time I looked free implementations were available. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29
so, i was browsing the wikipedia and found this article on sanskrit
being a turing complete language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panini
But i was disparaged because sanskrit wasn't a big hit as a spoken
language. People like efficiency and its hard to be efficient if
you're always formal and consistent.
hehe, i agree prenatal progress in education is silly...
by the way, i'm the father...
we still haven't picked a name, any suggestions for a lispy name for a
boy, just for fun to think about...
On Nov 26, 11:35 pm, "tinku99" <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> so, i was browsing the wikipedia and found this article on sanskrit
> being a turing complete language.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panini
> But i was disparaged because sanskrit wasn't a big hit as a spoken
> language. People like efficiency and its hard to be efficient if
> you're always formal and consistent.
>
> hehe, i agree prenatal progress in education is silly...
> by the way, i'm the father...
>
> we still haven't picked a name, any suggestions for a lispy name for a
> boy, just for fun to think about...
well.. obviously, there's John.
--thu
tinku99 wrote:
> I am expecting a baby soon, and dream about homeschooling (probably not
> realistic, but anyways)...
>
> I was thinking when I should introduce lisp.
I just wanted to say, that's SO COOL!!! I wish every mother had the
same ambitions :)
I'd say, you can start teaching Lisp as soon as your little one starts
to learn arithmetic. Then you can present it as an alternative
mathematical notation: "Instead of saying '2 + 3', we can say '(+ 2
3)'." Then maybe you can start to talk about functions: "There's this
machine f that takes what you give it and spits out something." Once
you have enough examples of functions built up, then maybe you can talk
about EVAL / APPLY, i.e. how a Lisp interpreter would work. That's
totally going to blow the kid's mind (in a good way :) ).
I guess the trick is to make it seem natural, just like a spoken human
language, and to make it a kind of ritual in the home to spend time
every day learning Lisp. Then it will be just like a bedtime story :)
You're AWESOME, keep up the good mothering!!!
mfh
> I guess the trick is to make it seem natural, just like a spoken human
> language, and to make it a kind of ritual in the home to spend time
> every day learning Lisp. Then it will be just like a bedtime story :)
I agree. but I think it'll have to be more then a story, it'll have to
be a game...
logo can be one way for them to implement some of the ideas of lisp.
Another thing I'd like to try, that i think will blow away other
parents and guests, and not bore or wierd them out, is programming
really simple robots.
so maybe a toy car instead of a virtual turtle that interprets the
child's voice and makes the car move. If voice recognition is not
adanced enough by then, i can do the voice recognition and type in my
childs commands or programs, so it doesn't have to worry about
debugging and typos and stuff.
the next step could be a programmable talking doll, that the child
teaches what to say and in response to what.
And then I can bring in the abstract concepts of functional
programming, group theory, objects, and then start pointing out these
concepts at work everywhere in life, and in its toys.
> You're AWESOME, keep up the good mothering!!!
not that it matters on the internet, but i am xy, but i guess fathering
sounds different, but i've always preferred brain washing.
> also start the kid bodybuilding at age 3
so, when I was growing up, people said you shouldn't work out too young
because it will stunt your growth. Well I went through medical school
without ever hearing that again...
anyways, i'm not interested in body building all that much, but I would
like to create a version of basketball that's safer on the ankles and
knees, a version of tennis that's safer for the elbow, etc...
i'd like to take away risk of injury from my perceived definition of
sports, since I've been sprained my ankles too many times playing
basketball.
> and learning 14 languages
nah, they'll just use google translator, but maybe i'll teach lojban...
anyone have a recommendation on a constructed language ?
tinku99 wrote:
> i'd like to take away risk of injury from my perceived definition of
> sports, since I've been sprained my ankles too many times playing
> basketball.
Yeah, you don't want them thinking sports = injuries unless you want
them to be neurotic little freaks who think cities = crime, sex =
disease, dirt = germs = disease, golden retrievers = vicious predators,
etc :-)
Back on topic, I think you can have lots of fun with Lisp writing DSLs
that let your kids do fun things. Here's a fun example (not written in
Lisp AFAIK):
http://contextfreeart.org/
Little open-ended games like this will keep them from getting bored or
thinking "God, they never stop with this Lisp stuff." It might be
better if they don't see your grand design :-)
(That grand design being, of course, that when the kids want to modify
your DSL toys or create their own, they'll have to learn Lisp for real,
muwahahaha!)
-David
"tinku99" <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>> I guess the trick is to make it seem natural, just like a spoken human
>> language, and to make it a kind of ritual in the home to spend time
>> every day learning Lisp. Then it will be just like a bedtime story :)
>
> I agree. but I think it'll have to be more then a story, it'll have to
> be a game...
> logo can be one way for them to implement some of the ideas of lisp.
Well, the interesting thing of logo for the children is the graphical
feed-back of the turtle.
It's rather trivial to implement turtle graphics in any programming
language, and therefore to be able to introduce (graphical)
programming with any programming language.
> Another thing I'd like to try, that i think will blow away other
> parents and guests, and not bore or wierd them out, is programming
> really simple robots.
Of course. That's why MIT 6.001 is being replaced by a robotics course.
> so maybe a toy car instead of a virtual turtle that interprets the
> child's voice and makes the car move.
LOGO has been hooked to robotic turtles too, with a real pen able to
move up or down as the real "turtle" oved over the paper sheet.
On Mac+ there was a nice little game where you could program (virtual)
robots with a graphical (iconic) programming language.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
ATTENTION: Despite any other listing of product contents found
herein, the consumer is advised that, in actuality, this product
consists of 99.9999999999% empty space.
> > Another thing I'd like to try, that i think will blow away other
> > parents and guests, and not bore or wierd them out, is programming
> > really simple robots.
>
> Of course. That's why MIT 6.001 is being replaced by a robotics course.
>
>
> > so maybe a toy car instead of a virtual turtle that interprets the
> > child's voice and makes the car move.
>
> LOGO has been hooked to robotic turtles too, with a real pen able to
> move up or down as the real "turtle" oved over the paper sheet.
so in the end do you agree or disagree with teaching with robotics vs.
sicp to children?
regardless i'll do both...
i think i learnt logo when i was in 5th grade, but i wasn't impressed.
even with turtles crawling on paper, i wouldn't have been impressed
unless, there was an element of competetion in it.
maybe the turtles can race through a maze, and the child has to program
against me.
maybe we can program a real version of pacman... the child programs
pacman while i create the ghosts...
"tinku99" <···········@gmail.com> writes:
>> > Another thing I'd like to try, that i think will blow away other
>> > parents and guests, and not bore or wierd them out, is programming
>> > really simple robots.
>>
>> Of course. That's why MIT 6.001 is being replaced by a robotics course.
>>
>>
>> > so maybe a toy car instead of a virtual turtle that interprets the
>> > child's voice and makes the car move.
>>
>> LOGO has been hooked to robotic turtles too, with a real pen able to
>> move up or down as the real "turtle" oved over the paper sheet.
>
> so in the end do you agree or disagree with teaching with robotics vs.
> sicp to children?
Yes, robotics are really funny, and should appeal to any child.
> regardless i'll do both...
Definitely, both.
> i think i learnt logo when i was in 5th grade, but i wasn't impressed.
> even with turtles crawling on paper, i wouldn't have been impressed
> unless, there was an element of competetion in it.
>
> maybe the turtles can race through a maze, and the child has to program
> against me.
>
> maybe we can program a real version of pacman... the child programs
> pacman while i create the ghosts...
Better if they can really "eat" themselves! :-)
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE: According to certain suggested
versions of the Grand Unified Theory, the primary particles
constituting this product may decay to nothingness within the next
four hundred million years.
> LOGO has been hooked to robotic turtles too, with a real pen able to
> move up or down as the real "turtle" oved over the paper sheet.
I found this site on using lisp with lego robots:
http://www.yuasa.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yuasa/xs/
tinku99 wrote:
> I am expecting a baby soon, and dream about homeschooling (probably not
> realistic, but anyways)...
>
> I was thinking when I should introduce lisp.
>
> The youngest two programmers i know of were at age 8 and 10.
> I recently asked a friend, and she said age 6.
>
> then i was thinking, maybe if there was a spoken version of lisp...
>
> maybe its no good for communicating with people in real time, but it
> maybe good for communicating on the internet in blogs or google, where
> you can use the computer to assist in converting higher level
> abstractions not in common use.
Take a look at:
Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S.
Touretzky
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/index.html
My 10-year-old found the pace to be a little slow; both because it is
very gentle and because he didn't have a working Halo 4 at the end of
the day. However, it does include a simple text adventure and that did
hold his attention. He is now 13 and writes the occasional function to
verify his math homework.
You might want to consider a MUD. This would cover several areas
including writing, programming, and creating puzzles. If he can get
his friends to play, you just hired a pack of editors for nothing.
As for when to start, I would recommend soon after he can touch-type at
a reasonable pace. Programming is no fun if you have to focus on
finding the keys. You could try the Lego Mindstorms graphical
programming before that but it might spoil him when he has to spell
things out later. Logic puzzles are good for getting him thinking.
In the end, don't be in too much of a hurry. You didn't learn that
early and you still turned out fine. Spend your time reading to him.
--
Ed Symanzik
Home-brainwashing Father
"zik" <·········@gmail.com> writes:
> Logic puzzles are good for getting him thinking.
Yes, including Boole algebra, this can be taught as soon as he knows
his multiplication tables, and it is pleasing that the "addition" and
"multiplication" tables of Boole algebra are so simple :-) And it can
be practiced with electronic components, let the kid build a binary
adder!
> In the end, don't be in too much of a hurry. You didn't learn that
> early and you still turned out fine. Spend your time reading to him.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Logiciels libres : nourris au code source sans farine animale."