For your consideration: Her last name means "slippery" in Finnish. She's puzzlingly good at pretending to smile and acting cutesy. Both are far from natural for a Finn. (Source: I'm a Finn)
Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
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Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#62The comments on this thread make me want to quit HN for good.
I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots.
I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence. It's good to know many of you can. A woman who already speaks and organizes events is writing and illustrating a children's book about programming–and some of you sit and criticize her motives, pedagogy, and presentation skills from your desks. Bravo.
I generally don't swear, but some of you are jackasses.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#63If not truly educational, it's at least great to get kids curious about programming, or more important: the mindset.
>If not truly educational, it's at least great to get kids curious about programming
Who else sees it?
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#64When I was ~9, my parents bought me a book called "Wrote your own adventure programs for your microcomputer" [1] (Well, the Spanish version [2]) I remember reading and reading and reading it, and not understanding it... I tried to replicate some of the ideas, but I think it was quite dense (and the translation was not very good).
The curious thing is that, when I properly started learning programming in college, I remembered that book, and a lot of things started make sense...
I say all this for two thing:
- I think is brilliant that there are books specifically teaching basic programming to kids, so more of them is great news
- Making a good programming book at that age is challenging, so please let it be good
This is, IMHO, an entry point, to give a taste of what programming is, so kids can try themselves later in front of a computer. Not sure what the best approach is, and I'm not convinced about the "story" approach, as I am not sure if it's interactive enough (as showing exercises). But, hey, there should be some options, and giving Linda's experience, I guess she has a better knowledge about teaching than me. So I'm sure it will be great
So, kudos to Linda... ;-)
[1] http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3384/5718165821_2ce65d26fd_z.j...
[2] http://www.paraquenoseolviden.com/gallery2/v/electronica/pro...
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#65What an incredibly important book for little boys, to normalize learning from women early on so they don't grow up to form stereotypes like "programming is for men". Bravo!
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#66The comments on this thread make me want to quit HN for good. I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots. I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine…
Thanks for this comment. I thought I was the only one feeling this.
I'd say this is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in computers. From what I've seen, a lot of women have a low tolerance for this level of overt critique, regardless of whether the critique is correct or not.
There is nothing horrible about this project that warrants a negative view, particularly one that doesn't present any alternative.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#67Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also this is a good example of why we should have diversity in the first place.
Because men would never have thought of creating a programming book for kids? http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aprog... Or maybe because men can't draw as well as women? Edit: probably I'll get downvoted for this so I'll just add that I think it's good this book is being made. Can't hurt to try different things to get kids interested. Just not sure why the gender comment was necessary.
No, because the audience is clearly unsatisfied with only having those options.
What a bigoted comment. OP is praising diversity, and you are suggesting what, exactly? That there isn't an issue if everyone in a field approaches a problem in the exact same way? Are you really that small minded?
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#69This is wonderful. I think some of the commenters here are missing the point by insisting that how they learned to code is how everyone should learn. If we're going to get to a point where coding is a basic type of literacy like math or reading (and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that goal), then you have to start small when kids are young. Really young kids need some kind of framework. You can't just throw existing programming books at them and say, "have at it". Do we throw high school level geometry books at kids to teach them shapes? No, we give them all sorts of fun story books that incorporate shapes (and colors, and numbers...) so that they get the basics. I suspect this book is trying to fill in that early gap with respect to programming.
My youngest child could count to 10 at 18 months most likely because she insists on me reading the infernal book "Deborah the Dozy Duckling" all the time. It's about a duck that falls asleep while playing hide and seek. The whole book is frankly awful and I hate reading it, but that one page where Deborah's friends count to 10 turned out to grab her for some reason. Books can be very, very powerful learning devices.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#70Cool. Clearly there's a huge demand for this, so good to see it's being done. It occurred to me that this may be just as effective (maybe more?) in promoting coding for women who have kids, rather than just the kids themselves.