Re: [seul-edu] Long, long ago...

[Rakis <rakis@wt.net>]

	If you're looking for an easy programming language, I suggest you give
Python serious consideration. It has several advantages over other languages
that make it ideal for this kind of situation. The main one being a remarkably
clean syntax. 
	Perl may be a good alternative but it has (IMO) absolutely awful
syntax. Most of the perl scripts I've seen ( and even many of my own :(  ) look
like random key presses. Anyway, give it a look.

	Rakis



On Tue, 04 Apr 2000, you wrote:
> Back when I was a kid, our middle school purchased one (count em') Apple IIc. I
> started playing around with it and got to know a little Basic programming. I
> work in an all Mac school now, but have long since lost touch with the Apple
> platform. I'm just now getting into Linux and I have a question.
> 
> Is there something like the old Basic that I could use in my math classroom to
> teach kids about basic algorithms?
> 
> I got to thinking of this last week when a friend and I were trying to remember
> what the summation of 1/x evaluated from x=0 to x=infinity is. I remember
> writing a very simple loop in middle school to figure this out--I remember
> because a friend and I tricked the librarian into thinking we had shut down the
> computer and let it run the process all night. We each served a one-hour
> detention for risking the destruction of the device.
> 
> I want to get started with this sort of thing with my middle school students
> now. I imagine that something like perl or some such would do the trick. Do
> people have specific suggestions of free software that I could begin learning
> and resources to help me learn it? 
> 
> I sure hope so. Thanks.
> 
> -- 
> Brian G. Fay on Linux
> UCAP: http://www.ucap.org