Hi,
Really nice to see this talks here. My two cents would be around
supporting a model that can grow with the user and trying to create a
connected experience. I have been previously teaching Introduction to
Informatics to young (17-21 years old) newbies and they include
introductory programming. For that I have taught with Scheme, Python,
Scratch/Etoys/Bots Inc and recently I been creating some data narratives
on health with IPython. From this two experience (newbies teaching and
data narratives) separated like ten years between them, I think that the
idea of a continuous environment one that not only is connected across
time (supporting your learning in time) but also in space, connecting
several ways of programming and other environments. The idea of
programming as a kind of literacy has point me to visual data narratives
as a practical way to build this two axes continuum, of course, video
games and (web) app building are others, but I think they're more
specialized.
I think that Pharo now with Roassal and Moose can be vehicles for this
visual data narratives, with the advantage that once you learn the
language to tell this stories, you can also change the tools for
build/express your understanding of the world, making use of the turtles
all the way down metaphor, but for that we need exploring the say that
Pharo can play better with others (for example pharo/python bridges).
Cheers,
Offray
On 09/07/2014 05:29 AM, kilon alios wrote:
Python has no competition. Sure there are languages that are more popular than
Python for their own reasons. There have been simpler languages before python,
there have been more popular languages, more cross platform languages etc etc
but Python fills a gap that no language was able to fill before it , easy to use
very powerful well documented libraries. Python is a language that you can teach
to a kid now and make a living later on using until his or her old age. Its not
because the language is simple , its simple enough but not the simplest. Its
because the culture surrounding the creation of libraries . That culture has a
name its called "pythonic"
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
this kind of ideology is why Python has been so successful. It has also
inspired jokes like this
http://xkcd.com/353/
it may look funny and it says thinks about overestimating the simplicity of
those libraries but python does feel at times as simple as this, as simple as
importing antigravity.
So if a kid comes to me and ask me "what language should I learn" , I will
recommend a language that is fairly easy to learn , has powerful library , easy to use
libraries , well documented and its a language that will able to keep using even if his
or her needs change, forever. For that only Python is the language that has been able to
succeed and I think its adoption will continue to progress in educational institutions
pretty much everywhere on the planet.
Referring to the rest of your post I dont agree that we need to separate Data
from Code, I think quite opossite that a kid needs to be taught why Code and
Data are one and what that means in practice. I also don't agree that OO or
functional programming or any other programming paradigm I am aware of are the
future. They are simple solutions for simpler times. The coding community at
large the way I see it is in denial hoping to apply simple recipes to solve
complex problems. We need very complex solutions to very complex problems , we
need tools that can interact with the user in many diffirent ways.
Pharo is definitely showing the future, the close integration of IDE , language
and environment. But thats is just the start, the next step is powerful tools
that can deeply interact with code and solve automagically logical coding
problems. Obviously all that has to be wrapped to an easy enough interface for
the user even if the solutions is very complex.
Fortunately this where the rest of the coding world is heading. For example
iPython is one of the most popular python projects right and it offers a highly
interactive environment for python coders that shares a lot of similarities
with Pharo though the implementation is very different.
So the future is no longer languages , is no longer IDEs , its not even
environments but tools that are produced in these environments that can vastly
automate coding and hide the increasing complexity of coding solutions. Maybe
one day a child will be able to describe to a computer what kind of software he
or she needs and the computer automatically generate the code for it. That day
is not close enough but is where we are heading.
On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Trygve Reenskaug <tryg...@ifi.uio.no
<mailto:tryg...@ifi.uio.no>> wrote:
I have for some time been pondering two problems. One is to identify the
fourth R in *R*eading, w*R*iting, a*R*ithmetic, and p*R*ogramming. There
are many contenders for the kids' first step. I believe the English
government has chosen Phyton as a first language. Scratch has a certain
popularity, there are many others. My concern is "what comes next"? I want
the kid to gradually build a mental model of what computing is all about.
Learn a little, do a little, lean more, do more, etc. up do old age. This
goes much deeper than any programming language. It's a bit as learning to
read. Personally, I "broke the reading code"at an early age. Since then, I
have been learning more and more. What I read today would have been
incomprehensible to me 75 years ago. But my basic mental model of what
reading is all about has remained unchanged. I have never had to unlearn
anything.
I suggest that true object orientation (not class orientation) can form the
foundation for the human mental model of computing. Internalize it and live
with it forever.
-------------------------------------
The other problem is to find a better example for DCI presentations. It
should
1. Be executable and have a cool demo effect.
2. Its domain model should be obvious from the demo.
3. It should have very few and very simple Data classes.
4. It should have a Context that is clearly and obviously separate
from the Data.
5. It should scale to any number of Contexts (use cases) without
changing the Data classes.
-----------------------------------------
/Last night I got an idea for an example: A waltzing couple. (See the
attached for a picture and Wikipedia for a movie of the use case)./
The program needs one simple class for a moveable shape and a DCI Context
for each dance (waltz, foxtrot, tango, ... for two role, polonaise for
more.) The example will clearly demonstrate the wisdom in separating what
the system IS from what the system DOES since the simple Shape class would
be overloaded with instance methods for all dances.
What do you think?
--Trygve
--
Trygve Reenskaug mailto: tryg...@ifi.uio.no
<mailto:tryg...@ifi.uio.no>
Morgedalsvn. 5A http://folk.uio.no/trygver/
N-0378 Oslo http://fullOO.info
Norway Tel: (+47) 22 49 57 27
<tel:%28%2B47%29%2022%2049%2057%2027>
