This looks like a great project!
I'd also remind people about HN user aristus' Lauren Ipsum book (http://www.laurenipsum.org/) for kids. Every one you buy he donates one to schools, etc.
Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
131–140 of 224 posts
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
this comment is asinine. please leave HN.
I believe the point he was making was essentially that because this book eschews traditional stereotypes and cultural messaging about disciplines like science and math being the purview of males, not only do girls benefit, but boys do as well by virtue of the fact that the values they are being taught are less selectively biased. Not only do young women win (obvious), but young men do as well as they are less likely…
I agree with the sentiment here, but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed and disagreed. It's not healthy to be permanently offended, but presenting an idea and being told that it isn't good (by someone presenting no alternative) or that you have ulterior motives (by readers of a website directed to startups of all things) isn't something someone should need to deal with.
> presenting an idea and being told that it isn't good (by someone presenting no alternative) ... isn't something someone should need to deal with. I might be visualizing a different conversational domain than you are, but I'm not sure about this. For example, when you build a bridge, there's a clear, objective line of quality somewhere above "the bridge stays standing." If I know enough about physics to see that you…
>For example, when you build a bridge, there's a clear, objective line of quality somewhere above
She isn't building a bridge, she's writing a story for children. The failure point is that nobody likes her story and therefore it doesn't sell. That's the absolute worst thing that can happen. Not a single child will be so critically scarred from her story that they never learn programming. Yet it may resonate for some.
There is no point to critique when the downside is so unbelievably inconsequential and the plus side is beneficial to a person, other than simply being an ass.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, I'm very glad that HN is as critical as it is. Is it the Only Correct Worldview? Absolutely not, and if you rely primarily on HN to forge your opinion of tech and startups and programming, you're going to be very cynical and blasé. I'm sure that if Donald Knuth posted a "Show HN: I've been writing a book called The Art of Computer Programming", half of the comments would be negative (a fair lot of th…
I'm all for criticism that involves actual analysis and attempts to be constructive. That's not what I saw/see here. "Show HN" posts are specifically for criticism because (a) the OP asks for it and (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question. This is a Kickstarter page for a product that hasn't even shipped yet . Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a came…
No. The truth is that you're being overly defensive.
> I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence.
So we should all make smiley faces and exclamation marks and ZOMG children will learn coding because "nothing bad can come out of its existence"?
> (a) the OP asks for it
Oh I'm sorry, I'll never criticise anything ever again if OP doesn't ask for it!
> (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question.
Dude/Dudette, that is literally the Kickstarter model. Are you saying a page explaining things about the book, with a video is just there for fun? Maybe I should give every kickstarter some money because hey, nothing bad/wrong can come out of their existence and I'm not allowed to criticise it since I can't put my ears/fingers on the product in question.
> Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
It'll be a pretty boring Maths book if all they cover are integers, strings and variables.
And yes, she did look odd in front of the camera. And I'm allowed to say that in this comment. Because she created it and put it up on Kickstarter. You want universal acceptance and love? I got some bad news for you...
And btw, the video was actually bad. Sorry.
> And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.
I see a lot of pompousness in this post too. Lets be reasonable. It's a freaking children's book. The author is a well established member of the development community and works for one of the most well known programming tutorial website. One can presume that they would have the time and money to start working on a book which has lots of drawings. People were writing books before Kickstarter existed you know.
But of course, how dare I criticise anything about those cute drawings. Think of the Children!
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#135This 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…
Exactly!
I had a 1991-issued book called “Professor Fortran's Encyclopaedia“ in my childhood. It introduced me to computers, modems, viruses and even several BASIC commands in the form of a comic book with funny characters:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Энциклопедия_профессора_Фортран...
I did not learn programming from it (it contained no actual code other than a “hello world”), but it fired up my imagination and introduced me to computery things. I didn't get to have an actual computer until five years later, but when I finally got it, I got into programming immediately.
This kind of books is extremely underrepresented and I believe very valuable.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#136When 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 re…
Those old Usborne programming books were very nicely presented. /Adventure Programs/ http://www.worldcat.org/title/adventure-programs/oclc/104011... and /Fantasy Games/ http://www.worldcat.org/title/fantasy-games/oclc/12824029 had a nice balance between luring you with the game and its setting, and drawing you into how it was implemented as a BASIC program. The high-quality art supported both goals too. (You can see a zipped PDF of /Adventure Games/ here: http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/books/pdf/Write_your_own_A... at this site for computer-book abandonware http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/books-generic.htm .) Still, there was a big old gulf between reading the colour section describing the program and actually trying to understand the big program listing at the back. /Introduction to Computer Programing/ http://www.worldcat.org/title/introduction-to-computer-progr... is better in that respect, but unlike /Fantasy Games/ and /Adventure Games/ it stopped short of presenting any program as complex as a full interactive simulation.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the point he was making was essentially that because this book eschews traditional stereotypes and cultural messaging about disciplines like science and math being the purview of males, not only do girls benefit, but boys do as well by virtue of the fact that the values they are being taught are less selectively biased. Not only do young women win (obvious), but young men do as well as they are less likely…
I agree with the sentiment here, but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities.
>but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities.
I wasn't arguing anything, merely clarifying the point of that poster.
But since you brought it up, the argument that boys benefit from being exposed to values like acceptance of diversity, and stand to gain by not being exposed to gender prejudice as they learn about the world around them...well it is an argument I not only accept, but embrace.
What a cynical and devious re-framing of the poster's argument btw. Aren't you something.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#138Here I was open-minded as ever, prepared to see something great, also prepared to scold at misogynistic crowd because there were hints in some comments that there is such crowd here... and then I watched the video. Everything that can go in other direction related to stereotypes and gender roles - DID. It went so overboard that I think it's a part of marketing strategy for it. This is just sad, because I think the pr…
No idea what you mean there.
She was being playful. As a former kid, I appreciate that.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#139The 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…
I believe the critiques are just a more vocal minority, most of us that think this is awesome, will simply upvote the topic without leaving a comment. This is even more common on HN where one-line comments like +1, awesome, great is frowned on.
To be fair the comments were pretty grim for the first hour. Positive comments seem to take more time? I'd hate to be the author and see that kind of response.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#140The 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…
As the father of a nearly 6 year old girl, my first reaction when seeing the nice drawings and "programming for kids" was "COOOL! How much? Let me get my wallet out!". But then I saw "32 pages", and... yeah, that flipped my skeptic bit too. 32 pages is fine, but what am I getting there? An extremely broad but shallow overview? A few concepts explained... how? A neat story about how cool computers are? I don't really get a good sense of what all is covered in the book. Any of those things might make a fine book that I would buy - I really like the art shown - but "computer programming for kids" in such a short book just doesn't sound realistic.