I'm surprised there aren't many books like that already in English. It was a Russian children's book that spiked my interest in programming when I was a kid. I didn't even have a computer, and neither did my school at that point. I don't remember the details too well, but it was basically about some boy in some imaginary land learning about algorithms, computer viruses, etc. in a really fun way. There were tons of very clear analogies, like algorithm and a cooking recipe.
Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
161–170 of 224 posts
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The old Usborne computer programming books got a lot done in about 50 pages. But then they were quite textually dense, and by no means perfect as teaching tools either https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110676 .
Yeah, 50 pages of text might get you something. 32 pages of mostly drawings gets you... The Gruffalo ( http://www.amazon.com/Gruffalo-Julia-Donaldson/dp/0142403873... ), a popular book for kids that we also own. So there's nothing wrong with the format, but just don't over promise in terms of what it is.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 f…
Wow, what a disgusting comment.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#164What 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!
Note: author is being sincere. It's easy to read the comment as ugly sarcasm, inspired by whatever -ism comes to mind.
that's not how i read it. i read it as a sarcastic comment berating the author for allegedly creating a book that perpetuates gender stereotypes. to be fair, if i re-read it after having had my morning coffee, i can see how, if sincere, it's actually a good comment. if that's the case, i retract my comment.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#165Cynic hat on . . . I'm not sure I get this. Looks like an effort to promote an illustrator more than actually achieve the stated aims. The reasoning is simple: Alan Kay and others have repeatedly demonstrated kids have a far greater aptitude for this stuff than is generally accepted. The packaging in this manner isn't the problem, the problem is the programming environments around today don't tend to do anything the…
>So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now. Yes. The the alarms bells are far too numerous when the co-founder of Rails Girls ("Our aim is to give tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas."), and community manager at Codeacademy expands her mission of education and inspiration to children via a book tailored to them. Alarm bells everywhere. Thankfu…
The last thing needed in these comments is sarcasm.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#166This 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 int…
Thanks for introducing me to профессор фортран! I'd never heard of him before. Looks fantastic.
I agree - the Usborne computer books made a huge impression on me as a youngster. I'm all for Hello Ruby.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#167The 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…
WTF is this crap? Have we gotten so deep into the PC weeds that any criticism of something a woman does is de-facto sexist/incorrect?! If the (rather mild) contents of this thread are what you're hemming and hawing about, please make good on your threat, leave and take the horse you rode in on with you.
Whenever a woman is criticized in a remotely harsh tone, you will find men who instinctively rush to her aid. Men who will pat her on the head, compliment her, and apologize on behalf of everyone.
Don't blame women for this phenomenon (and I'm not saying you are); blame those men who view women as fragile children in need of protection.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should only do that if you have a very good reason, such as noting the same behavior multiple times on multiple topics A top level comment seems to be the only appropriate place to discuss the overall tone or tenor of a conversation. Responding to each dismissive/negative/unconstructive comment seems redundant and annoying.
How about you don't respond to tone or tenor at all? It's a bad argument on the best of days (PG's hierarchy has that near the bottom, one step above straight up ad hominem.) It's a diversion at best . If you feel someone is being unpleasant, deal with it. You needn't be pleasant to be right. If they're being unpleasant and wrong, reply with why they're wrong, or alternatively downvote and move on. No need for meta n…
I respectfully disagree with the idea that we should simply ignore unpleasantness in the community. A healthy ecosystem is determined by a lot more than mere factual correctness.
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#169This 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 int…
For me personally it was a book about William Pasteur and his development of the rabies vaccine. That book lit a fire in my mind for molecular biology (though that was not a well known "thing" at the time). To this day I can vividly recall the pictures of the "invisible army" marching through a sick kid's blood vessels. They were drawn as soldiers with bayonets and they stabbed the amorphous black blobby germs. A few years ago I located the book on Amazon. Interesting to see I'm not the only one whose career was influenced by this book: http://amzn.com/0916392066
Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been thinking about the doing the exact same thing but have been afraid that the kids would ignore it and go back to playing Minecraft.
Minecraft, at least on Raspberry Pi, has a full API. It's likely a bit complex to get going with, but you might find you can build a layer your kids would find "useful". http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2013/04/minecraft-pi-edition-a...
I've been thinking about that, especially as my son keeps trying to do things that the game doesn't support out of the box.
He set up an "honor system" store where people were expected to asynchronously trade (by dropping) some commodity for some other commodity and got upset at people "stealing".
Either this generation of kids will be the best citizens the world has ever seen, or the worst.