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What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

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Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#11
[stub for offtopicness - come on you guys, please don't do this here]

Edit: perhaps I should explain what the "this" is that you shouldn't do here. It's covered by this guideline from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." (as well as this one of course: "Don't be snarky.")

The trouble with shallow dismissals, such as reflexive reactions to a title, is that they don't contain enough information to be interesting, and they spread like weeds in a thread—especially a new thread, because those are so sensitive to initial conditions. If they spread too much, they choke out good discussion altogether.

I don't favor OO either! The HN archives of yore have a lot of me arguing about it and I like a good OO bitch session as much as anyone. But for a good HN thread, we need comments that are about the specific work being posted, and this is obviously interesting work on teaching programming to kids.

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#12
post #4
post #2

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't want my kids' minds being poisoned by OO paradigms. God forbid they start using design patterns everywhere! Seriously, though - seeing how most adult programmers do OO poorly ...

I can't agree enough. What other paradigm is so regularly implemented in a way that makes doing it poorly easy(Inheritance), doing it well hard(Composition), and requires a list of caveats so large that it effectively draws down to "only use it in these specific places"? How does a paradigm like that survive? I might be a fan of functional, but I'm not even saying go that way- stay procedural! Learn your abstractions…

> doing it well hard(Composition),

suggest how this may be fixed

> and requires a list of caveats so large that it effectively draws down to "only use it in these specific places"?

I don't recognise this, can you explain please

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#14
I would hate to get kids started on OOPS.

LOGO is a functional programming language for kids and might teach a better mindset. Another more modern option is MS MakeCode Arcade, which is Typescript and Blockly. You can switch back and forth between the two views of your code.

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#15
post #11

[stub for offtopicness - come on you guys, please don't do this here] Edit: perhaps I should explain what the "this" is that you shouldn't do here. It's covered by this guideline from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : " Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " (as well as this one of course: " Don't be snarky. ") The trou…

> The visceral reactions to OOP here are interesting.

You could say it's a pattern.

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#17
post #2
post #11

[stub for offtopicness - come on you guys, please don't do this here] Edit: perhaps I should explain what the "this" is that you shouldn't do here. It's covered by this guideline from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : " Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " (as well as this one of course: " Don't be snarky. ") The trou…

But I don't want my kids' minds being poisoned by OO paradigms. God forbid they start using design patterns everywhere! Seriously, though - seeing how most adult programmers do OO poorly ...

Yet somehow Ruby, Python, Javascript, Java, C++ remain widely used languages that implement all kinds of software.

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#18
post #12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree enough. What other paradigm is so regularly implemented in a way that makes doing it poorly easy(Inheritance), doing it well hard(Composition), and requires a list of caveats so large that it effectively draws down to "only use it in these specific places"? How does a paradigm like that survive? I might be a fan of functional, but I'm not even saying go that way- stay procedural! Learn your abstractions…

> doing it well hard(Composition), suggest how this may be fixed > and requires a list of caveats so large that it effectively draws down to "only use it in these specific places"? I don't recognise this, can you explain please

Design patterns

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#19

full playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8HZ0pojM34Xkz7Yh7JxoSRyt...

Thanks! I've switched to that rather than https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3cFiJnxUBY, to try to dampen the title fever. (Submitted title was "Object-oriented programming for kids [video]" and it...did not work as a thread. I've swept the offtopic comments under the rug now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38014255.)

Edit: changed again to one suggested by a clever user who writes, I think “What are Functions?” should satisfy the object haters. ;))

Re: What are Functions? Coding for Kids [video]

#20
Refreshingly they did not talk about InternalFrameInternalFrameTitlePaneInternalFrameTitlePaneMaximizeButtonWindowNotFocusedState but tried to explain the reasons for separating code into objects and the difference between a class and an object. Could be useful for kids at a certain level.
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