[TriLUG] Teaching Kids to Program

[Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG]

Actually a language I debated putting on the list was Ruby.  For a lot of
the reasons as well.  But I have done even less with Ruby myself.

Ken

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Nikolas Everett via TriLUG <
trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> Python is a great choice:
> 1. No compile, link, Makefile, or Maven style woes.
> 2. Reasonably good set of batteries included. No hunting down external
> libraries. When you have to do so life gets harder.
> 3. Actually used in industry. Its "real" programming. Not a "toy".
> 4. Language itself is comparatively intuitive.
>
> The only other option I'd recommend is JavaScript. Its less intuitive to
> learn but it has the advantage of being available to run on any modern
> browser. And its external libraries story is better than python's (no
> fighting with os packaged version of libraries or messing around with
> virtual env). But I think its more difficult to reason about. I imagine
> that choice is between which one the teacher knows better and whether the
> learner wants to "do things in their computer" or "do things in web pages".
>
> Nik
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Mike Viscount via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org
> > wrote:
>
> > While I have not done Python to date I'll just toss out that it's the
> first
> > mentioned way to go with Raspberry PI so if you were to go that route it
> > would open up the ready to go next step if you were interested in that.
> > Lot's of projects and easy to do teaching stuff avail in that regard as
> > well.
> >
> > Just a thought... hope it helps....
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Joseph Mack NA3T via TriLUG <
> > trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 17 Aug 2015, Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG wrote:
> > >
> > > So if you were going to teach your kids some starter programming, what
> > >>>> language and/or ide would you use?
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > > I taught a 12yr old python for about 2yrs.
> > >
> > > http://www.austintek.com/#computer_class
> > >
> > > Alice is a gui oriented way of teaching programming. It was designed
> for
> > > teaching girls as mostly you're manipulating images of people in daily
> > life.
> > > Susan Roger at Duke teaches it in summer courses (or she used to).
> > >
> > > Joe
> > >
> > > --
> > > Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
> > > jmack (at) austintek (dot) com - azimuthal equidistant
> > > map generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
> > > Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
> > >
> > > --
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> > --
> > This message was sent to: Nik Everett <nik9000 at gmail.com>
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> --
> This message was sent to: Ken M. <ken at mack-z.com>
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