Best Introduction To Programming For Bright 11-14-Year-Olds? 962
firthisaword writes "I will be teaching an enrichment programming course to 11-14 year old gifted children in the Spring. It is meant as an introduction to very basic programming paradigms (conditions, variables, loops, etc.), but the kids will invariably have a mix of experience in dealing with computers and programming. The question: Which programming language would be best for starting these kids off on? I am tempted by QBasic which I remember from my early days — it is straightforward and fast, if antiquated and barely supported under XP. Others have suggested Pascal which was conceived as an instructional pseudocode language. Does anyone have experience in that age range? Anything you would recommend? And as a P.S: Out of the innumerable little puzzles/programs/tasks that novice programmers get introduced to such as Fibonacci numbers, primes or binary calculators, which was the most fun and which one taught you the most?" A few years ago, a reader asked a similar but more general question, and several questions have focused on how to introduce kids to programming. Would you do anything different in teaching kids identified as academically advanced?
Assembly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Assembly (Score:5, Funny)
It might be tough to actually solve a problem in assembly languages, but at least they're straightforward in the sense that it always does exactly what the documentation says it does. Each command is so simple that there's no chance you'll get hit with a language bug. Then again, maybe assembly just seems like a warm fuzzy bed of consistency since I have to use PHP at work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as assignments go, It always bothered me that things that made a computer fun and more interactive were never taught at the early level. For example, using the alarm escape sequence \a in conjunction with an
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why most programming courses require Algebra as a prerequisite - they don't want to spend time explaining logic and representative symbols to students, they want to teach code.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Both you and the AC GP missed the point - the problem is that of the imperative programming paradigm versus declarative or something with a single-assignment store.
i = i + 1;
This is a contradiction in algebra, but just fine in imperative languages. You'd have to do a renaming that distinguishes between the old value of i and the new one for it to work like algebra.
Re:Assembly (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm yeah ok. But if you do sum = num1 + num2, sum _does_ equal num1+num2 after the assignment. I am not sure what you're getting at. Perhaps you meant the expression x = x + 1 is counter-intuitive unless you understand the '=' operator means 'assign to x'.
No, after the assignment the symbol "sum" DOES NOT equal num1+num2.
The algebraic equation X=Y+5 is a description of reality. It does not matter what Y is, X is five more. The computer statement "X=Y+5" is an instruction to a machine to perform a certain operation once. It is not a statement of fact and if it were a true description of reality it would lose its validity as soon as the value of "Y" changes.
Algebra:
X = Y+5
Y = 5
What is X?
Y = 6
What is X now?
[pseudo]Computers: ;(possibly an error because Y isn't declared/defined yet. Depends on your language)
; Do you really expect 10 here?
; Do you really expect X to have a different value now?
X = Y+5
Y = 5
print X
Y = 6
print X
The fact that you imagine that the statement "Y=X+5" means the same in programming as in algebra indicates that you have a rather weak grasp of at least one of the two.
On the other hand "take a value; add another value to it" is an operation that is the same in both cases.
[pseudo-code; really PostScript in this case)
5 % here's a number
6 % here's another number
+ % add those two numbers.
At no point is there an expectation that this sum will change if some "variable Y" changes. This is a lot closer to the way kids learn addition: "You have five apples, you receive six more apples, how many do you have total?"
The point is not whether one uses letters to refer to numbers, it is whether one expresses what one expects the computer to do. There's no conceptual difference between
[pseudocode, vaguely scheme this time]:
(sum 5 6 7)
or
(sum a b c)
in both cases what is expressed is the sum of a number of values. Which the string "X=Y+5" doesn't necessarily express.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Algebra I (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't want to try to teach "programming" to any child who hadn't had Algebra I [and preferably Algebra II].
I suppose that "programming" could serve as an introduction to Algebra I, but my gut tells me that that's the wrong way to go about it.
Re:Algebra I (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? I taught myself BASIC at 7 with an Apple IIgs' built in interpreter- I was a good 5 years from my first Algebra I class at that point.
Algebra is relevant for the manipulation of expressions with variables, but is completely unnecessary for the *evaluation* of expressions with variables, which is what programming really is. Higher math is generally required for complex algorithm creation, but for introductory programming assignments it's really unnecessary.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bright vs. Hard Workers (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the currently accepted term is "stupidity challenged."
Re:Bright vs. Hard Workers (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, that article is dead wrong with regards to grade-skipping. Over 50 years of research has shown that in most cases students who are skipped a grade have no negative social or emotional outcomes from it, and often it's positive socially. This research is summarized in the report A Nation Deceived [accelerati...titute.org].
Yes, the educational world has... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that I am piggybacking but I thought that the educational world had moved on from the terms bright, gifted and related words.
Indeed, the educational world has moved well away from those terms.
The rest of us recognize the realize the reality that some people are in fact academically gifted and prefer to recognize talent instead of trying as hard as possible to homogenize it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Talent doesn't disappear due to a bad system, though it certainly may be wasted in such an environment. Either you're able to pick up on new concepts and ideas easily or you're not. And if you are able (as the best and brightest tend to be), you'll pick it up somewhere. With the entire knowledge of the human race seconds away, having teachers cram facts down your throat isn't the way that the gifted will be getting ahead. If they don't understand something, they'll look for the answer, and learn along t
Lua? (Score:5, Interesting)
Logo, LISP, Scala, F#, Erlang, and Haskell (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Functional programming is making a comeback- it's going to be to the 2010s what OOPs was to the 1990s."
That's rather unkind. I don't think Functional Languages are going to screw up an entire generation;)
LOGO! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The main advantage of Pascal is that it's nice and simple while still feeling leet enough the kids aren't getting the feeling they're being taught how to use a toy and I can assure you 11 year olds, let alone 14, will look at you funny when you tell them to move a turtle (that's what I remember it being
Re:LOGO! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:LOGO! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll second this. While Logo has a reputation as a limited language, it's actually as expressive as Lisp, which is to say that it's a more powerful language than most, though teachers tend not to go too far with it.
Back when I taught kids programming, I found that the best languages were the ones that supported iterative development so that users could easily try ideas. For this, Logo is perfect. Once kids learn Logo, they know about variables, scope, functions with parameters and return values, recursion, closures, etc., all of which apply to any civilized language.
There more modern instructional language options, such as Squeak/Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) and OpenStarLogoTNG (http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/) that are really fun as well. They are (IMO) a bit too complex for very young programmers (I taught 5-6 year olds simple Logo programming, as it's designed to be super-approachable for kids, but I think that a kid would have to be 7-8 to tackle those).
Re:LOGO! (Score:4, Informative)
Python (Score:5, Insightful)
See subject.
I started with QBASIC, and I would rather recommend against that. Things like real functions (as opposed to GOSUB) and such, even though you can do them in QBASIC, I didn't see for years.
Re: (Score:3)
So, I c
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I second the recommendation for Python.
Python will let you focus on the fun and interesting parts. Compare "Hello, world!" in C vs. in Python; in Python you jump right in and print something, whereas in C you need to declare your main() function and import before you can do anything.
I recommend you grab Python 3.0 and use that to teach the kids. It's Python 2.x with a few sharp corners knocked off. For example, integer division is now unsurprising:
print(1 / 2) # prints "0.5"
In older versions of Python,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Python and Ruby are pretty popular and far from weird. Logo was designed for kids, and many of us have fond memories of using it as kids, so it isn't odd that people recommend it.
Java is actually a really poor choice. Java started as a language for set-top boxes but it made it big time because it was a pretty successful attempt to address the concerns of large-scale commercial software development in the late 1990s:
DO NOT (Score:4, Insightful)
DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT do what many comp sci departments and high schools do, and that is "begin with Visual Basic".
NO! NO NO NO NO NO! Okay, so they learn about variables and shit, but, just, NO. Terrible programming practices and weird little things where commenting is done with apostrophes and other typical retarded shit is what you'll end up teaching them.
Visual Basic is OK for a quick and dirty Windows program. But if you want to teach the basics of what "real" programming is, I wouldn't recommend VB.
Re:DO NOT (Score:5, Funny)
I'll heartily second that. Visual Basic is totally inappropriate for a budding programmer.
Make them use vanilla Basic. I suggest using a C64 emulator (or, if you're feeling perverse, a VIC-20 emulator).
What? I had to use line numbers, so should they.
I'd also suggest making them use a cassette tape drive, or even a reel-to-reel drive, to ensure that they understand why bloated code is bad.
Oh, and while you are at it, make sure to supply them with a limitless supply of Tang (no, not 'tang, you'll get in trouble for that) and store-brand potato chips.
Finally, make sure that whatever they do, they need to write out their programs in pencil for review first, then enter the code verbatim once it's been signed off on.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My kingdom for a mod point, high shcool teahesr VB to get the kids to grips with the very basi (If statements, arrays etc)
This basic launguage got me started today.
VB YES (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree, and I'll tell you why.
An introductory course in programming does not have the purpose of teaching people how to program, or to learn good practices etc. It should help the students to decide whether or not programming is something they are interested in pursuing. Further, those students who decide not to go further, should walk away with some value that enriches their lives anyhow.
I've taught several introductory courses and I use VB as the vehicle. In only 3 hours of classroom work I can te
Look at POV-Ray. (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider something like POV-Ray [povray.org], since it's a programming environment with a visual payoff.
Show someone a simple program that generates 10 randomly positioned mirrored sphere over a checkered landscape then encourage them to play with the number of sphere, assign colors to them, etc.
Much more interesting to be able to *see* the output of your program than just reading "Hello World!".
G.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Look at POV-Ray. (Score:5, Funny)
Visual payoff? Luxury. We used to dream of visual payoff. When I was young, we used to be happy if the computer beeped.
Re:Look at POV-Ray. (Score:5, Funny)
... of course, to get it to beep, you had to turn the display on and off really fast, in the hope of creating an audio carrier that the TV could understand.
Ah, ZX81... how I ... well, actually I don't miss thee at all.
C# is the best alternative... (Score:5, Funny)
11-14 years old = NO CASH.
Nobody has more free resources available to the budding programmer than Microsoft; like it or not.
Anyone can download FREE IDEs, free Source code, videos, documentation up the wazoo.
Also, C# is almost syntactically identical to Java, and it is a good language for the beginner to discover whether or not they have a REAL interest and a knack for coding.
If I were 14 again, wanting to learn how to code, Microsoft would be nirvana with all the free available stuff out there. There really is no contest.
As always, I got karma to burn, so take your best shot....
My best shot (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to use C# because it's similar to Java and is freely available, why not use Java? It has awesome tools available and is just as (moreso?) free as C#. Since we're talking about free, what decent programming language exists that is not free nowadays or does not have loads of free support material available?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'll tend to agree with you, at least as far as the free IDEs go. However, I'd recommend exactly what *I* did when I was that age that got me my start.
Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days by Jesse Liberty is a fabulous book that I still (ten years later) use for reference on occasion.
C# is good, but you miss out on a few things that I think are important concepts for budding programmers to learn, the most important of which is memory management.
Re: (Score:2)
So why not Java?
It is available for Free.
IDEs for it are also available for free.
Tons of documention , books, source code, and tutorials are available for free.
And it runs on Linux, Windows, and OS/X so you are not limited to using Windows or working with Mono.
Re:C# is the best alternative... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:C# is the best alternative... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to disagree with you on MS's offerings; but you make it sound like they are an oasis of free stuff in a sea of unaffordable tools. With the exception of the various outfits that sell pro tools for various languages and scenarios, is there any major programming language(or, for that matter, many minor ones) for which you cannot get the necessary free stuff to get started?
Re:C# is the best alternative... (Score:4, Interesting)
*nods*
MSFT isn't the first place that I'd go.
I was *quite* pleased with my copy of Sam's "C++ In 21 Days", DJGPP, and EDIT.
Hell, while we're here, why not talk about Squeak? It has an absolutely *KILLER* IDE, is cross-platform, and is free and unencumbered. :D
Silly Rabbit, C Family Languages Aren't for Kids (Score:3, Informative)
I've been following along this semester's CS61A Lectures by Dr. Brian Harvey out of UC Berkeley (audio and video podcast). He devotes two lectures to a 20 some year old videotape of Alan Kay talking about the coalescing of OOP principals in SmallTalk. Kay makes an important point: at different ages we learn differently. He also shows kids doing clever things with drawing and computer animation and they do it by writing programs. Look for Sept. 12 and 15 [berkeley.edu].
I also found a book from Apress "Squeak, Learn Progr
Games! (Score:2)
The most fun things were games. There are some very simple games that you can write programs for relatively easily.
If you can get ahold of an old book that got ME interested in programming in the '70s... David Ahl's 101 Basic Computer Games... it will have a lot of examples of games that are readily implemented. Don't worry about the code, of course, but consider the games themselves as exercises.
Lego Mindstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're trying to introduce the concepts of looping, iterations, etc and don't want to get hung up on the details of the language, I highly recommend the Lego Mindstorm kits. They have a flow-chart programming interface that I had great success introducing programming to my 11-13 year old cousins, and if I remember correctly, they also have a lower level interface to let you start writing your own functions.
For kids this age, nothing is better/cooler at showing them the basics of programming than something that gives a physical response. Loops, conditions, make so much more sense when trying to figure out how to keep your robot from running off the edge of the table.
Tangible real-world feedback, and a sense of real accomplishment. If you just give them abstract languagues for the sake of language, they get disappointed they can't just whip up the next Madden game. Besides, they probably all already have Legos at home, and a Mindstorm kit is something they can easily get at home, which probably won't happen with Pascal compilers or Basic editors.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I did mine with two robots in a ring, and the interface allowed a list of operations on each robot, and the winner was the last one still in the circle when done 8)
At college (about thirteen years old) we also wrote scripts in logo, but as in my first lab I whad already gotten in early and modified the autoexec.bat file to include:
myroutine:
echo "Hamish is a dick!"
goto myroutine
I thought logo was a little dull 8)
Re:Lego Mindstorm (Score:5, Informative)
I would not recommend the default graphic programming language for 11-14 year-olds, however. There are a lot of third part languages [wikipedia.org] you can use to program it, which not only allow you to do more, but also will be more educational and feel less like a toy to the kids.
I agree with you that programming something like a robot is nice because they get to do something in the real world, but at that age, the kids should really be doing something more than sticking blocks together on a screen.
On a similar note, you may want to try Processing/Wiring. Both are based on Java, so they are pretty easy. Wiring is used in a lot of micro-controllers, so it might be interesting to try that route instead of the Lego kit if the kids are really into it.
Re:Lego Mindstorm (Score:4, Interesting)
Of the suggestions I have seen this one makes the most sense to me (with a close second being the games suggestion a bit down). Education simply works better when you are learning to DO something. The language you choose isn't as important here as what the interests of the students are. After you know the student interest you will then have a better idea of what language to write in.
Another idea would be to use Rails to design a school community website and then later design a site for a local non-profit group. Integrating programming with community outreach and provider client interaction would be great at this age.
Lego Mindstorm supports multiple languages (Score:3, Informative)
Mindstorms is far from being a dead end toy and is used in many university programs too.
Robotics is an excellent way to learn about programming. You see real stuff happen, not just pixels on screens. You see the algorithm actually working. A bug is impressive ... crashing debricking robots make you really think. My kids (and I) have two Lego NXT sets and one RCX set. We build our own
Snake Wrangling for Kids (Score:5, Informative)
I know several young people who've got hooked on programming because of this free book: http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/writing/snake-wrangling-for-kids/ [briggs.net.nz]
There are versions of the book for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Although the book targets kids as young as 8, it would still be able to speak to an 11 or 12 year old I think.
Objective C (Score:4, Informative)
UML? (Score:2, Informative)
Instead of teaching them how to write a dummy program in a particular language, it is by far better idea to lay the foundation work by teaching them how to design and formulate a solution to a particular problem in a logical, concise, and efficient practice. Being able to diagram out an idea, condense it into a formula, and then simplify will be much more useful than knowing how to write hello world in one particular language. In a sense, you would do them the favor of prepping their minds to be able to han
Alice? (Score:5, Informative)
I would judge how quickly those concepts are being integrated and then move on to an easy-ish language like BASIC.
Java, Scala, C. (Score:2)
I would start off with Java if I wanted to learn an object oriented language and the tools and documentation are abundant. There are many good IDE's out there to "help" you with the syntax and it is cross platform, so if you like Linux, Apple, or Microsoft you are covered (and many others).
I would then learn Scala, that is a functional language. I can't speak a ton for it because it is so new but if I had to pick a functional language to learn Scala wold be it.
Next I would learn C. This one could take yo
Try Python. (Score:4, Informative)
Scratch (Score:5, Informative)
PL/1 or COBOL (Score:2, Funny)
Close to natural language is best (Score:4, Funny)
When I was that age... (Score:2)
When I was 10 I learned Fortran... On cards... On a big mainframe.
And we were grateful!
Boy I feel old.
PostScript (Score:4, Informative)
I recommend PostScript.
For kids, PostScript has the advantage of nearly instant gratification, because it allows them to draw graphics quickly. It has loops and conditionals. It uses stacks and variables and functions.
All you need to get going in PostScript is a text editor and a PostScript to PDF converter. On a Mac, it's built in. On Windows, I use GhostScript in CygWin and run ps2pdf, just like I would on Linux. Alternatively, Acrobat Distiller should do the trick.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like you have a deep hate for children?
Seriously, there are valid arguments for Lego Mindstorms, Assembler, Python, heck some twisted mind may even find an argument for Java.
But how exactly do you intend to explain to a kid why it basically has to write his first program backwards, in a syntax and under semantics that can make even veteran programmers cry for mercy?
simple: use perl (Score:5, Insightful)
If these children really are the gifted ones you say, they'll already have the basic concepts of an editor: create, change, save, so they can start creating programs much sooner.
You also want them to become familiar with the basic syntax od computer languages - most of which are quite similar and look a lot like Perl's syntax.
Perl also gives those who wish, the ability to develop further, after the classes finish.The large amount of freely available documentation and examples on the internet will help then learn from properly written code from other people.
HTML (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Using HTML to teach programming is like using a French-English dictionary to try and get laid in Paris.
You might be teaching them the grammar and words, but it's not going to enable them to programmatically solve a problem.
I'd start by demonstrating a finished product that can be programmed using all the techniques you'll teach in the course, and work backwards to teach them the programming logic and constructs. By the end of the cours
JavaScript (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say this since I don't even know the language (heck I'm barely competent with HTML) and came up through GW-BASIC, Turbo Pascal, assembly, FORTRAN, C, Tcl, C++, Perl, and some others I'm sure I'm overlooking, but...
JavaScript
First, it's nominally C-like, so it gives them exposure that will help them with a large variety of other languages (e.g. C, Pascal, C++, Java).
Second, it's available to be used pretty much anywhere the kids have access to a computer. At home. At school. At a friends house where they can show off their newfound coolness. Don't underestimate this, because it's very important that they have access to the necessary programming tools in their idle time at home and elsewhere. It's also important because they don't need to learn how to use a compiler, linker, and all those other tool distractions that will get in the way of understanding programming itself.
Finally, it's useful in a context they likely already somewhat understand -- web pages. Fibonacci sequences and prime number sieves and such are all wonderful, but an environment that allows them to build something a bit more interactive and, lets face it, relevant to their day-to-day life, will inspire some portion of them to continue the pursuit. Granted, I got a lot of personal satisfaction out of writing BASIC programs to print "x" characters in a sine wave scrolling up the screen, but somehow I think the bar has been raised for today's kids' expectations of what a computer can do.
Seconded: Javascript, but also AutoIt! (Score:3, Insightful)
But I think we forget: modern computers are extremely complicated. There wasn't much that could go wrong on my old TI (OK, there wasn't much to go right, either, but I digress). How many of you out there have really written something in C? I don't m
Re:JavaScript (Score:4, Insightful)
wait, "debugging" at this level of learning should absolutely be on the order of Print Statements sprinkled throughout the code, which alert() in javascript will satisfy just fine.
i recommend javascript as the best choice here as well.
here's what i see as JS's big wins for young, potential coders:
* it runs anywhere.
this means the code you write at home is going to run identically at school.
now, other languages also do this, but:
* there's no intermediate steps between editing the source and seeing it run.
no compiler, no server, no runtime library or environment other than a browser.
* you can share your work in a web page!
pretty cool.
* it's a very forgiving language.
wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
I (and others) wrote a good wikipedia page on this topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_programming_language [wikipedia.org] . I'd look at this list
I personally love and can recommend Alice http://www.alice.org/ [alice.org] and had a great deal of success with my daughter with this.
QBasic still one of the best (Score:5, Interesting)
If only for the graphics control. It lets you draw text anywhere on the screen, and clear it, enabling quite sophisticated graphics and animations. It can also wait for user input and respond, so you can make games with it. Kids love that sort of thing.
Logo has good graphics control but poor input-response, and Python is a much better language than both Logo and QBasic, but since it can't (easily) do graphics, it appears quite boring.
Project Euler (Score:3, Interesting)
For different challenges you could put them to, I would recommend http://projecteuler.net/ [projecteuler.net]. There are a huge variety of programming challenges (most involving math concepts) across a huge range of difficulty. They also provide a good introduction to recursion and cost of complexity since the 'most efficient' algorithm is not always obvious.
You could provide prizes for who completed the most problems as well as a prize for being the first to complete a problem. Then when all or most of the class has completed a problem, you can show them an 'efficient' or 'simple' solution depending on which you want to emphasize.
Visual Basic (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I started my son off with Visual Basic at age 12. It wasn't very difficult and it may well be better to start them off with event driven programing rather than procedural. Rather than writing the answer on a command text line, put the results in a text box. Push buttons to actually execute code. The kids will really like writing a program that looks more like what they are used to than some antiquated program written for use on DecWriters. My son loved it and now at 24 he is a programming project leader for a software development company.
Why does everyone ignore C? (Score:5, Insightful)
I always wonder why colleges start out teaching Java first. Procedure based languages are easier. You learn
2 + 2 = 4
before you learn
a^2 + b^2 = c^2.
You can learn the basics in any language. The syntax is all very similar. Lets look at the difference.
in C explain a routine.
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){
return 0;
}
In java explain a class and a routine. Plus the string class is more complicated than a char * and an int.
class javaprog
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
}
}
Always start with the fundamentals.
You should know what pointers are and what memory is before you learn what a class is.
A programmer needs to know why if he allocates 2 million empty string classes why his memory gets chewed up. To a C programmer the answer is obvious.
Fundamentals! Fundamentals! Fundamentals!
The Problem With Teaching Programming (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with most introductory programming courses is that they drop you in the deep end and expect the student to eventually figure out how to stay alive based on all the tools they start throwing at you. And I'll be honest, I don't have an answer as to what programming language you should use or if it even matters. Let me explain.
I first started learning programming at the age of 14 (first year in high school). So I might have been one of these kids. Prior to that I knew how to write html and make webpages. That part was easy because there is no programming there. But when I got to my introductory programming course taught in C/C++ at the time, I didn't feel equipped as a student to tackle the problems presented. For example one of the tougher problems in the course was printing a diamond (ascii art) of stars based on a given number as input. So if they provided you with an input of 5, that meant at the widest point, the diamond would be 5 consecutive * characters with the previous and next lines being 3 consecutive * characters followed padded by one space on each end, and finally the top and bottom lines having one * with 2 spaces padding the left and right sides. Keep in mind that by this point, as a student, the most I had learned was basic algebra and perhaps a bit of geometry. The real heavy math/science courses were to be taught later in high school involving trigonometry, calculus, and physics.
Continuing on with the story, most students in the introductory programming class failed at this simple task of printing a diamond to the screen. It wasn't because of their lack of knowledge regarding programming, but their lack of knowledge regarding problem solving skills and the application of math. Had the teacher reviewed the problem at hand, by examining the necessary parts (calculations involved) on a black or whiteboard, I think all students could have implemented a solution. But the place where students were struggling was finding A solution. They would start writing 'for' loops knowing that this was a test of how well you understood 'for' loops without having a clue of why they needed the loops or what the loops were going to do.
So if you want your students to succeed, the language of choice will be the least of your problems since you are not bothering to teach high level programming paradigms (OO, functional, logic etc). The bigger problem will be how to teach the students to apply what they already know in a fashion they've never seen.
Python (Score:3, Informative)
It uses language as close to natural as I think a programming language can. It also forces proper indentation, which, as we all know, is very important for readability. It's also a scripting language that is very useful in RAD. All in all, it's a very good first language for those that don't want a C, hair pulling out, first experience. It also runs pretty much everywhere. Also, if you want to do graphics and/or games, there's Tkinter, PyOpenGL and PyGame.
Happy Hacking!
Scratch is a programming language for kids (Score:4, Informative)
GET OUT NOW!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
FOR $DIETY sake, don't do it!!! You'll end up surfing Slashdot ALL DAY like the rest of us.
If you're really bright, go into Physics or Chemistry! Better chance at girls than living in your mom's basement for the next 30 years till you're too old to program any longer!
stay far away from BASIC (Score:4, Insightful)
Whatever you do, never ever ever teach someone BASIC. Not QBASIC and not any other flavour. It was my first programming language, too, and it took almost ten years and a study of computer science to finally get all those bad habits you acquire in BASIC out of my system. DO NOT POISON INNOCENTS WITH BASIC.
You can consider Pascal, which after all was designed specifically as a teaching language. There's also Oberon if you want to go more into OO and make sure that the language they learn on will never be used in an actual real-world context. :-)
Java, Mono, C++, etc will probably all be suggested, but I wouldn't consider them suitable for beginners.
Scratch (Score:5, Insightful)
I was just looking into this recently for my nephew. Scratch [mit.edu] looks really cool. I downloaded it and played for a few minutes and e-mailed my sister to tell her to install it for her kid. She hasn't done it yet, so I don't know if it was as good of an idea as I thought, but it sure looks cool.
It has color coded, drag and drop logic stuff that interlock like a puzzle so that kids can see how it fits together. It takes seconds to get a little animated sprite "walking" and do the fancy, whiz bang, pretty stuff today's kids will be wanting to see right away.
Language (Score:3, Informative)
Something With Immediate Visual Feedback (Score:3, Informative)
The problem you're going to run in to with beginning programmers is that they have to learn the environment as much as the language. I remember back in the day we had to adapt to an assortment of editors and operating systems. To an extent the lack of choices in this arena is going to help you out here. I'm assuming kids these days have some computer experience coming in to your classroom, too. If that's not a safe assumption, you might consider covering how to operate a computer first.
You can go with a compiled language like C or... well C. No java? I've tried to explain classpaths to IT professionals with little success. Maybe it'd be easier to a 14 year old. If you do that, you should probably set up the environment and gloss over stuff like building a makefile. It was not uncommon for our professors to hand us a cheat sheet describing how to build and run the code along with the vi cheat sheet. Those languages will be visually more boring than the ones with immediate visual feedback, but they might make it easier to explain what's going on inside the computer.
Alice/Storytelling Alice or Myro/PyroRobotics (Score:3, Informative)
Alice and StoryTelling Alice [alice.org]
"Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience."
Thank you Randy Pauch. We miss you.
Or try
Myro [roboteducation.org] using Microsoft Robotics Studio
or Pyro [pyrorobotics.org] which was the non-MS precursor to Myro... program bots in Python with either real bots or simulation.
Either way, the graphical environments and real bots give kids a great way to SEE and TOUCH their results, which is more how they learn. You can cover all the important software constructs (variables, loops, events, data structs, etc) and avoid some of the abstract conceptualization required in more conventional languages/applications. They will learn the concepts through doing & using them. Then once they are hooked, they can dig into other languages.
Works great for middle school & college kids.... Pyro's got years of track record teaching intro to AI - to liberal arts majors!
Alice (Score:3, Informative)
I have found Alice (www.alice.org) to be a great introductory language for this age group. Depending on how quickly them come up on it, Ruby would be a great follow-on (assuming they have some experience with HTML, so they can use it with web apps).
Jordan
Spring! (Score:3, Funny)
I will be teaching an enrichment programming course to 11-14 year old gifted children in the Spring
Spring [springframework.org] it is!
Re:PHP? (Score:5, Insightful)
With a procedural language, you get the benefit of showing them with just a few lines of code what you can do. The basics of programming can all be taught from the outset including arrays, loops, conditionals, functions w/default parameters, etc.
As they learn more, they'll have a natural step up to OO with C++ or php's built in OO. With C, they get the benefit of compiling code and having an avenue for more sophisticated programs, graphics libraries, etc. With PHP, they'll be able to set up web servers and use that as a stepping stone to html, servers, and javascript.
Neither language needs a large investment to start programming with in terms of money or teaching, both languages are widely used, and both languages give them a clear avenue to more advanced topics.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So... You believe that they can't pay attention to whitespace but can pay attention to matching braces?
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Multicore (Score:3, Informative)
I might as well make the silly claim that "the inability of any true functional language to have any side effects whatsoever, makes FP utterly useless". You made it sound like OO can not be run in parallel and I made it sound like a fact that functional languages can never have any side effects. I do not doubt that OO languages could do with some new ideas
Re:PHP? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be honest, it's the algorithms and paradigms that are the most important thing to teach. The language is merely the tool. I would recommend some form of procedural BASIC (eg. QBasic, GWBasic) since the syntax is very clear and concise. No fancy braces or semicolons for a new person to worry about.
Which of the following examples would be more understandable for someone who's barely even heard of programming?
if foo = "bar" then print "Hello world!"
if(foo.equals("bar")) System.out.println("Hello world!");
if(foo=="bar") Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
if(strcmp(foo,"bar")==0) printf("Hello world!\n");
if($foo eq "bar") { print("Hello world!\n"); }
Re:PHP? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:PHP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. And then, if your child is reasonably bright, they will be asking why the hell you need an object if all you want to do is dump "Hello World" to the screen. OO definitely has its place, but you need to understand why it's useful. For me that came from hacking around in C and finding the need to work with more complicated data structures than you can get with int/char/float/etc. So I played with struct's. When those were worn thin, my dad brought home a couple OO/C++ books and I continued from there.
In my opinion, the best way to teach your kids to program is just to give them a couple decent reference books, a computer with a terminal, and maybe just a basic hello world kind of set up to show them how to compile their code, or work the interpreter they're using. I don't think the particular language you use is a big deal. Maybe one that you know best, so you can help them with their questions more easily. I.e., if you don't know C well, you may not be very useful the first time they encounter buffer overflow. For my case, I'd likely give them a little bit of compiled and little bit of interpreted. Some C/C++ and either Perl or Python. These are ones I'm very comfortable with. They are well supported with extensive libraries, and I already have a ton of reference material on each. They all have their problems, but to some extent part of learning to program is learning how to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the language you're working with. If your language has perfect garbage collection, will you even understand the importance of memory management when you try C for the first time?
You won't be able to force programming down their throats, so if they're naturally interested, they'll be able to take it from there. If they're not, no biggie, you gave them the opportunity.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:PHP? (Score:4, Interesting)
PHP and C are an awful lot alike, minus the notion of strict data types and the clumsy string handling. PHP is pretty darn close to C with dollar signs if you just start the file with <?php and end it with ?> and don't mix it with HTML.... So I would agree that either would be acceptable.
The way I started learning C was to start with a large code base and tweak it. I studied a piece of code, figured out how it worked, and then started making changes. I started with NUTS 2.3.0, an Internet talker, and used it for chatting with friends while I hacked on the code. By the time college was over, I had reverse-engineered the NUTS 3 NetLink protocol and expanded it, added email capabilities, added games, etc. It was a fun little project, and I'd definitely recommend doing something like that as a way to get young people interested in coding. The best thing about the NUTS 2.3.0 code base is that it is straight C---no OO to make things complicated. By the time you have worked with it for a while, though, you start to see places where data structures are essentially only used with certain functions and vice-versa. Once you reach that point in your understanding, the concept of OO basically sells itself fairly readily. :-)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with C. I self-taught myself enough to get by from working on modifying a MUD around age 12, though I'd done some QBasic several years before that even (very simple stuff, but what would you expect from a third grader?). I also got into some HTML around the same age, and as that's now my primary source of income it was probably a pretty good choice. Given how much stuff is shifting to web-based apps as compared to their former desktop equivalents (SaaS in particular), it would probably be a very
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Like anyone on Slashdot is going to take advice from someone who calls PHP a "pathetic insult to programming", then holds on VB.net as a paragon of virtue?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, VB.NET is sort of okay (it's little more than C# with a verbose syntax +/- a few extra minor features). Most of the flak that VB gets is from the days of VB6 and before, where it was indeed a monstrosity, QBASIC++ (I speak this as one who actually developed production apps in VB6).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
what other language could have done a better job in easily developping web pages for the past 10 years
Honestly, I am not too concerned with "hastily" doing anything at all. In my experience things done hastily is usually done badly. Are there better strategies for putting applications on the web than PHP. Absolutely, various Java technologies for one. Ruby (which has been available for that long, but not with Rails) is another.
The problem is that hastily done stuff usually ends up with a much longer life span than was intended when it was hastily put together, and in the long run the cost of ownership is si
Re: (Score:2)
I still have fond memories of how much love I held for finding prime numbers and just seeing all those digits roll down the screen, knowing they're all primes. It was magnificent!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get endorsing C and telling people to stay away from BASIC when its "about knowing what is going on inside computers". Unstructured, old-school BASIC is, in many ways, a lot closer conceptually to what goes on inside computers than any structured programming language, C certainly included.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)