Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Teaching Programming to an 11-year-old
Author: Robert Cassidy Posted: 5/26/2000; 10:24:20 PM Topic: Teaching Programming to an 11-year-old Msg #: 17437 (In response to 17427) Prev/Next: 17436 / 17438
There's a pretty sizable discussion of this very topic over on slashdot.org started just today. Go check it out.Personally I'd lean toward Mindstorm - it provides the most immediate and stimulating feedback to the student and introduces other areas such as engineering - something which a great number of students (especially girls) don't get exposed to in k-12. Students in her age range will make a decision right now whether science is a viable career option or not (math, physics, chemistry, CS, bio). You want to head that off right now. Make sure she leaves these fields open as possibilities down the road.
But I'd focus more on concepts than on syntax - use an interpreted language that doesn't bog the student down with construction points - something that really can't crash for unknown reasons. BASIC is very good at this, Applescript and VB aren't (their construction and execution is often very mysterious even to experienced programmers). Filemaker scripting in fact is very, very easy to start, though limited (maybe no more than the BASIC or FORTRAN that we started on, however). UI issues are a snap in FM.
Smalltalk never did catch on for beginners, but Squeak is a Smalltalk derivative specifically designed for novices. Python might be a good intermediate language. It has Pascal influences and isn't as screwy as Perl or AS.
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