Why kids don't program • Hacker News Board

Re: Why kids don't program

#71

Post by AlSweigart » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 8:45 PM UTC

I don't agree that programming has gotten harder, I think it has become easier. What is harder now is finding material to learn programming that is simple for kids but also still "real" programming (not just game creation kits).

I wrote a freely available book called "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" and released it under a Creative Commons license. It's available at http://inventwithpython.com

I think Python makes a great (even superior) replacement for BASIC. Adding in Pygame, and it is much easier and fun to learn programming.

Re: Why kids don't program

#72

Post by camccann » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 9:10 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #69

camccann wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackety Hack, like all of _why's projects, got adopted by someone else after his departure: http://github.com/steveklabnik/hacketyhack/ Alas, it doesn't seem to be getting much activity.

It's true. A crazy series of events took lots of my time recently... including the launch of my startup. I'm planning on getting back into the swing of things with Hackety, though, as my local Ruby Brigade just started up, and I feel like I could get a decent helping hand from some of those guys. I'd love to not be the only guy doing something with it. I have one other core contributer, but again, he's busy as well.…

Hey, that's awesome, I hope it didn't sound like I was bashing you for neglecting it or anything. _why seemed to be superhumanly productive, so I wouldn't expect any one person to keep up his pace. I'm just happy to see that his projects weren't abandoned, thanks to you and everyone else who took up the torch.

Re: Why kids don't program

#73

Post by neilk » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 9:28 PM UTC

Probably tangential... I learned what sin() and cos() did experimentally.

There was a BASIC program in Creative Computing that used sin() to make a long snake of text scroll down the screen. So, in my mind, sin() and cos() were things that made wavy lines.

A little while later I was puzzling over how to draw a circle. I had this epiphany that the X component was drawing a wave, just like sin(), and the Y component was drawing a wave that was just out of phase. I went home and programmed it and it worked instantly.

We had a Britannica at home, so I finally looked up what sin() and cos() were, and the diagrams made it all obvious.

It's good that we now have Wikipedia and all, but kids today are still deprived of a computer that comes with a decent programming environment, that makes fun stuff like graphics dead simple.

Re: Why kids don't program

#74

Post by axod » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 9:30 PM UTC

Javascript is pretty much the new BASIC for kids these days.

  10 print "BAH"
  20 GOTO 10

  
  for(i=0;i

Re: Why kids don't program

#75

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 9:32 PM UTC

camccann wrote: post #72

steveklabnik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. A crazy series of events took lots of my time recently... including the launch of my startup. I'm planning on getting back into the swing of things with Hackety, though, as my local Ruby Brigade just started up, and I feel like I could get a decent helping hand from some of those guys. I'd love to not be the only guy doing something with it. I have one other core contributer, but again, he's busy as well.…

Hey, that's awesome, I hope it didn't sound like I was bashing you for neglecting it or anything. _why seemed to be superhumanly productive, so I wouldn't expect any one person to keep up his pace. I'm just happy to see that his projects weren't abandoned, thanks to you and everyone else who took up the torch.

None taken. We actually had a discussion about this a week or two ago. I'm just glad that you linked to my GitHub. Thanks for still talking about Hackety.

Re: Why kids don't program

#76

Post by astine » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 9:56 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #69

camccann wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackety Hack, like all of _why's projects, got adopted by someone else after his departure: http://github.com/steveklabnik/hacketyhack/ Alas, it doesn't seem to be getting much activity.

It's true. A crazy series of events took lots of my time recently... including the launch of my startup. I'm planning on getting back into the swing of things with Hackety, though, as my local Ruby Brigade just started up, and I feel like I could get a decent helping hand from some of those guys. I'd love to not be the only guy doing something with it. I have one other core contributer, but again, he's busy as well.…

I recently sparked my little brother's interest in programming by installing a Ruby interpreter on his computer. I told him I would install things like Shoes and HacketyHack so that he could do fun things at his level. I hope that this begins to pick up speed again as it is such an awesome project.

Re: Why kids don't program

#77

Post by jsz0 » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 10:14 PM UTC

I tried a few times to get into programming but the amount of institutional knowledge required was so off putting. Learning the languages and APIs isn't too hard but I found all the reference material didn't teach me how to actually solve problems. I suppose this is something you need a mentor or at least a strong background in legitimate computer science to understand.

Re: Why kids don't program

#78

Post by benwr » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 10:44 PM UTC

About 5 years ago, in 7th grade, almost the exact same thing happened to me, but with a TI-83 graphing calculator. I would estimate that there are approximately the same number of kid programmers as there were. Modern PCs and macs don't come with compilers or interpreters, and there is no "command mode". Why would the ordinary kid ever open up cmd.exe, when everything you could ever want to do on a computer is on the web? I only learned TI-BASIC because a friend's dad is a hacker. He inspired me to check out the only book on programming at our school, which happened to be about BASIC. The truth is that, while kids are closer to computers than they were 30 years ago, they're not much closer to programming.

Re: Why kids don't program

#79

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 10:55 PM UTC

astine wrote: post #76

steveklabnik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true. A crazy series of events took lots of my time recently... including the launch of my startup. I'm planning on getting back into the swing of things with Hackety, though, as my local Ruby Brigade just started up, and I feel like I could get a decent helping hand from some of those guys. I'd love to not be the only guy doing something with it. I have one other core contributer, but again, he's busy as well.…

I recently sparked my little brother's interest in programming by installing a Ruby interpreter on his computer. I told him I would install things like Shoes and HacketyHack so that he could do fun things at his level. I hope that this begins to pick up speed again as it is such an awesome project.

Excellent. Just be warned, the only part of HH that doesn't work right now is the website integration, since _why killed hackety.org.

Let me know what he thinks, and any feedback that you might have. Positive comments are a great motivator. My email is in my profile.

Re: Why kids don't program

#80

Post by megaduck » Mon, Nov 09, 2009, 10:56 PM UTC

erikwiffin wrote: post #47

The crazy thing is, he just told the exact same story about beginning programming as I would tell. The only difference, is that I'm 21, and my first experience was drawing circles on a TI-83 graphing calculator in high school. It has a graphing mode, where you can put in functions and it'll draw them for you. And it has a programming mode, with a very BASIC-like syntax that I wrote simple graphing programs, ridiculou…

You're right, they're pretty similar. The ZX Spectrum was a little personal computer, sold in Britain through the 80's. It was pretty cheap, probably the equivalent of $750-$1000 today. Certainly cheap enough for parents to buy for a bright young boy.

Since the ZX ran BASIC, programming for the spectrum and your TI-83 is pretty comparable, although your TI-83 was a bit more powerful. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum