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Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

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Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#201

Post by zhemao »

guscost wrote: post #151

A children's book about programming is a great idea and it's very nice to see the market encouraging this kind of work. That said, I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable giving this particular book to a young child. From the sketches it seems as if it will be light on fundamentals like logic and data structures, and a bit heavy on Ruby-specific abstractions and borderline political value judgements. I don't want to tell…

How on earth did you get any of that from the illustrations? I got the "Snow Leopard is a loner" reference (hah), but I don't see anything deprecatory towards Python or anything suggesting the book will actually teach Ruby syntax or idioms as opposed to general programming concepts. Anyway, the references to operating systems and programming languages are clearly meant for the adults who are reading alongside their kids. I very much doubt a young child with no prior exposure to computer programming will pick up on the jokes.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#202

Post by SaneMethod »

callmeed wrote: post #62

The 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…

Must we really always find something to be critical of? Upvote the comments you think are worthy, ignore the rest (or indeed, just read the articles and ignore the comments altogether).

Comments about comments are an all too common contribution to noise in the SNR of the internet (and my apologies for contributing thereto! An effort at future signal clarity).

To all: Please avoid posting comments critical of critical comments, which in turn attract critical comments - down that road lies madness (and stack overflows).

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#203

Post by dsarle »

danabramov wrote: post #135
JunkDNA wrote: post #69

This 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 so much for the link! The whole day I was trying to remember this book because it was also this exact book that helped me get interested in computing!

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#204

Post by scotty79 »

MartinCron wrote: post #170
fidotron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Either this generation of kids will be the best citizens the world has ever seen, or the worst.

Both. Exactly as every past generation.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#205

Post by 14113 »

Crito wrote: post #181
MartinCron wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with voicing concern about the state of a community that you care about.

A 'collapse thread' function would go a long way to eliminating the damage meta-threads and troll/flame-threads do to discussions. Yeah, I know there are extensions/userscripts that do it. And yeah, I get the concern PG has about community fragmentation, but when I see a comment "leave HN" that has half a dozen replies under it, I really don't think I need to go down that thread of discussion any further.

If you install Hacker News Enhancement suite, it gives you the ability to collapse threads, as well a browse HN using keyboard shortcuts.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#206

Post by idProQuo »

Keyframe wrote: post #104

Here 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…

I thought the same for a moment, until I realized I was basically watching a kids show. The colors, the enthusiasm, the fast cuts, this video was made by someone who knows how to get kids (we're talking 4-6 here) interested in something. If that's the sensibility she brings to her storytelling and illustrating, this book is going to be a wild success.

If it was a Kickstarter for an invention or a software product, I'd expect the presenters to be a bit more sedate. But given what she's selling, I think showcasing her personality helped make it clear that she's the right person for this job.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#207

Post by Confusion »

throwawaycoder wrote: post #184
Confusion wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't dodge criticism by retroactively changing the meaning of what you said. We all know damned well the major lack of diversity in programming is the lack of women. Rather affirm that this is exactly part of what you were saying [1]. I'll one-up you: indeed, the chance of a male writing such a book is much smaller than the chance of a female writing such a book. Acting as if gender wouldn't influence choice of cont…

"I'll one-up you: indeed, the chance of a male writing such a book is much smaller than the chance of a female writing such a book. Acting as if gender wouldn't influence choice of content and style is ridiculous." So what aspects of it are female specific? Because women would be more likely to worry about educating children? Seriously, answer the question instead of relying on prejudice, please. I'd consent that fem…

  Of course the odds of a woman writing such a book are 
  significantly smaller, simply because there are much fewer 
  female programmers than male programmers.
If you are talking about P(book written by female|book written by programmer). I was talking about P(such a book written by female|such a book written by programmer).

Which implies I assume P(female programmer writing such a book) / P(male programmer writing such a book) > P(male programmer writing book) / P(female programmer writing book). Also P(female programmer writing such a book|female programmer writing book) > P(male programmer writing such a book|male programmer writing book)

  So what aspects of it are female specific?
None. There are aspects more likely to originate from a female. As you say: female heroine. As you say: caring about education of children. You only need to look at the gender ratio in primary school teachers to affirm the latter.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#208

Post by throwawaycoder »

idProQuo wrote: post #206
Keyframe wrote: post #104

Here 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…

I thought the same for a moment, until I realized I was basically watching a kids show. The colors, the enthusiasm, the fast cuts, this video was made by someone who knows how to get kids (we're talking 4-6 here) interested in something. If that's the sensibility she brings to her storytelling and illustrating, this book is going to be a wild success. If it was a Kickstarter for an invention or a software product, I'…

I have nothing against it, although it wasn't my personal taste. I just want to point out that being exaggerated and semi-crazy is not the only way to get kids excited. It is maybe the "TV show for kids" way. I often cringe inside when I witness that way of dealing with kids, because to me it seems not very genuine.

Again, if people like it, and kids like it, fine. I just wanted to comment because I think it would be sad if everything for kids would be converted into that kind of format.

Actually the whole premise of "getting kids interested" already points to a problem. Kids are naturally interested. You don't have to go into manic mode to get them interested.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#209

Post by denizozger »

Just donated. Programming should be thought as early as possible and should be in the curriculums. This project servers the same vision. I don't know if the book will be structured properly or will have a great impact on kids, and I don't care, I support this vision.

Re: Linda Liukas' Programming book for Children has Huge First Day on Kickstarter

#210

Post by lotsofcows »

rimantas wrote: post #87
run4_too wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do you find that uncomfortable? A lot of women do. So do a lot of men. Computer science is filled with people on the poor side of "social skill set", and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. That's why there are less women in the field - they simply aren't going to tolerate a default reaction that is insulting first and helpful only if you ignore the attitude. Don't get me wrong, we turn off a lot of people…

You know, I think that socials skills are lacking those who are easily offended by anything.

Social skills are those we develop to be able to function in a world of different weltanschauung. They are skills developed specifically to avoid offending anyone. Social skills can be taught but a thick skin can only be developed through experience.
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