I would rather kids jump straight to the programming.
A Modern Programming Operating System
31–34 of 34 posts
Re: A Modern Programming Operating System
#32Any recommendation other than plan 9 is seriously considered harmful.
In that family, Inferno is a small complete OS, which runs as a virtual machine on a Windows/Linux/MacOS host. All source code is included, so it's hackable, and it improves (wrt the basics) on the Linux state of the art. Acme, especially with the plumber, is more friendly user interface than the terminal command line. http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/
Re: A Modern Programming Operating System
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with learning kids Shell scripting? Assuming you mean bash-like shells on Unix boxes, quite a few things: 1. Commands have arbitrary, hard-to-remember names. 2. Destructive commands tend not to issue warnings. 3. Mass destructive commands still tend not to issue warnings. 4. Did I mention that destructive commands don't tend to issue warnings? 5. Destructive commands typically can't be undone. A system w…
I meant that you should setup a simple environment, setting up a partition and chroot into it. Learn the kid to use man(1) and ed(1) and after that let him/her play around. I heard someone doing this with his 5 year old kid on the OpenBSD mailing-list, that kid will probably be able to write quite useful scripts in a few years.
Why should you teach a child ed(1), instead of any other text editors?
In my opinion , it is one of the most sadistic common text editors in existence, and has been for several decades.
Re: A Modern Programming Operating System
#34What's wrong with learning kids Shell scripting? I think most Unix-like OS's are good for learning, behind the complex layers of abstractions lay the simple command line. Excellent for programming without any distraction.
What's wrong with learning kids Shell scripting? Assuming you mean bash-like shells on Unix boxes, quite a few things: 1. Commands have arbitrary, hard-to-remember names. 2. Destructive commands tend not to issue warnings. 3. Mass destructive commands still tend not to issue warnings. 4. Did I mention that destructive commands don't tend to issue warnings? 5. Destructive commands typically can't be undone. A system w…
all of the above are great for well supported kids to learn about firsthand. resillience and perseverance are great traits to acquire young, especially when coupled with a healthy awareness of your own fallibility.