Processors Under Pillows • Hacker News Board

Re: Processors Under Pillows

#31

Post by bcrl » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #22

fouc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turn off internet then. A computer with a bunch of tools to play with and documentation, and no internet.

https://xkcd.com/466/ "Moving: There are few forces more powerful than geeks desperately trying to get internet in a new apartment." If my parents turned off the internet, or just blocked youtube, my #1 mission would be to restore that service by whatever means possible.

I resemble that. Somehow the lack of internet out where I live has ended up with me building an 85km FTTH network over the past 4 years. Hopefully it will double in size this year now that it's finally bootstrapped to profitability.

Re: Processors Under Pillows

#32

Post by yarcob » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

slifin wrote: post #29

yarcob wrote: post #14

I've tried to get my kids into tinkering with computers by showing them how to write Python code (with Thonny) and installing lots of programs for drawing etc. They are curious, and they do tinker with stuff when I'm there, but about 10 minutes after I leave the room they'll find a way to watch cartoons. Somehow the internet has become this huge distraction and mostly just a replacement for a TV. I kinda miss what it…

Something I'm noticing more and more is that programming is for the most part is not fun Fun things are visual, immediate full of feedback and introspection, a sensible curve of difficulty and reward for effort A raspberry pi doesn't spark joy, in fact most computers don't I'm not exactly sure how we could do better but Bret Victor's talk inventing on principle and his other talks are always an inspiration

Thonny and the turtle package are pretty neat. Not quite as direct as Bret Victors examples, but you have immediate feedback and a debugger.

The Python arcade package is also absolutely fun. We spent a day programming a Snake-clone, and some things like the predefined color names are just hilarious. (But I realised that building a game with a run loop is probably too hard for beginners)

My main problem is the difficulty part you mention: There's a pretty big step before you can do rewarding things like moving the player with keyboard control in a fun way.

Re: Processors Under Pillows

#33

Post by dang » Thu, Feb 11, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

user-the-name wrote: post #20

fouc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turn off internet then. A computer with a bunch of tools to play with and documentation, and no internet.

Cutting your children off from their friends because you want them to copy your own hobbies is not, in any way, a healthy or sane thing to do.

Would you please not cross into personal attack? It's not allowed here, and it's particularly destructive in highly emotional areas like parenting. Please make your substantive points without that and without name-calling.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html