Why kids don't program

Post by tsuraan » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 2:24 PM UTC

swannodette wrote: post #8

Kirby wrote: post #7

In reality, I'd wager there's a _lot lot_ more kids programming today than 30 years ago. How many people had a computing device at home back then? This anecdote makes the point that a very specific kind of thinking was better suited by the tools of the late 70s, and maybe - I've never been much inclined towards it, so I dunno. And what we consider 'programming' is blurrier than it used to be. Is HTML programming? Wha…

And I disagree with you here. Writing declarative HTML and writing a simple interactive computer game are two activities that could not be more different. Like it or not, the act of programming has become much more difficult than it once was. 1988 I could reboot my Apple IIgs, hold down a couple of keys, and I could start writing a BASIC program immediately.

Post by swannodette » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 2:39 PM UTC

tsuraan wrote: post #11

swannodette wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I disagree with you here. Writing declarative HTML and writing a simple interactive computer game are two activities that could not be more different. Like it or not, the act of programming has become much more difficult than it once was. 1988 I could reboot my Apple IIgs, hold down a couple of keys, and I could start writing a BASIC program immediately.

And in 1995, I could write interactive (quasi) graphical games on my TI-81. Without rebooting. At the time, a TI-81 was pretty fancy, but I've seen plenty that leads me to believe that nearly every kid today has a TI-83 for their math class. It's not quite basic, but it's certainly programming, and it's just as easy and accessible as an Apple used to be.

Post by pxlpshr » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 2:43 PM UTC

Post by swannodette » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 2:46 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #14

swannodette wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should build a social and pedagogical programming environment for kids on the web. The main problem here is the frustrating fact that one stupid browser doesn't support an HTML tag that's now 4 1/2 years old.

There are some very nice programming environments for kids. MIT Scratch ( http://scratch.mit.edu/ ) immediately springs to mind, for example. Any particular reason it needs to be web-based?

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 2:53 PM UTC

    ipython -pylab 

    [...boilerplate...]

    In [1]: n = arange(255)

    In [2]: plot(n, 88+80*sin(n*pi/128))

    from pylab import *
    from numpy.fft import *

    def freeSchrodingerSolver(input, dx, dt):
        np = input.shape[0]
        k = arange(np)*2*pi/dx   #Coordinate system in k-space
        k[np/2:] -= np*2*pi/dx   #FFT puts negative frequencies
                                 #on right side of array
        return ifft(exp(complex(0,-dt)*(k**2)/2)*fft(input)) / np