Re: [seul-edu] language advocacy

[Thomas Tempé <thomas.tempe@insa-lyon.fr>]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 17:22:33 -0700 (PDT)
DraX <drax@whiplash.stampede.org> wrote:

> My suggestion is ALWAYS scheme.
> 

I don't know Scheme, but I sure wouldn't choose Logo.

I have learned Logo and Basic at about the same time (from the 7th grade
on), and Logo was such a bore to me... You can't do nothing with it,
except moving turtles!
Now, Basic also has a turtle feature, and Logo might be able to prompt
users for text and put it into a variable. But then my advocacy would be
to move away from teaching turtle-like use of computers.

What I feel is missing from those "simple" languages running on powerful
computers, is the ability to take control of the screen.
In Basic, you could change the screen color, put the cursor at position
(0, 12) and print a blue "O" there. That was fun (hint, hint, geometry
teachers: does Logo do cartesian coordinates?)
I'm not aware of any straightforward way of doing that on an Unix box.
(maybe Python with some ncurses module?). But if you manage to, I would
recommand it right away.

One of my first motivations for computing, at the age of 7, was that
program which drew a "O" that moved across the screen, and bounced on the
sides with a "beep". It took me about 1.5* my attention span to copy off of a
programming book, but what a reward to see it run... I must have stood for
hours before the screen, really.
And of course, from then on, you can modify the colors, bounce behavior,
character size, and so on...

That was my 2 cents worth.
If the thread goes on, we'll soon have a dollar;)
-- 
Thomas Tempé

Never count on other people's bicycle brakes...