Programming language for children

Gilles Gravier ggravier at
Tue Jun 16 10:29:19 UTC 2009


Knapp wrote:
> As a kid, I was subjected to C64 basic, 6502 assembly, LOGO, Pilot,
> Pascal, Forth and then C and Modulus 2.
> My take as a kid.
> Basic, slow, sort of stupid.
> 6502, really FAST and thus cool but why do you have to shift bits to multiply?
> Pilot, stupid.
> Cobalt, I don't like to type THAT MUCH.
COBOL, you mean?
> LOGO, cool turtle but then what?
It's a LEARNING language. To teach the basics. It's targetted for little
kids. Even not requiring to know how to write... just to teach the
concepts of instructions and actions as a consequence.

Then what? Well... pick your choice. I like handcuffs (pink with fur, in
bed - no seriously - Pascal teaches you coding DISCIPLINE - if you want
to call that handcuffs, fine with me).
> Pascal, like basic but with handcuffs.
See above.
> Forth, are you nuts?
Yes. :)
> C really cool but why can't I get it for my C64?
Try SmallC.

Seriously, you're actually looking for this :
> Lisp, what a dumb name. Can someone please tell me how to read this ->
> ((((((((((5+((((-8))((8))((/3))(((#))#((#)))))))))))))))))))
Is this is LeLISP, Scheme, Common LISP?

At least in Scheme it's not a valid statement... :)

LISP : Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parenthesis.

Seriously, probably my favorite language of all times. Check out one of
the multiple "Scheme" implementations (Scheme is common LISP derived).
It is ported to just about any hardware you can imagine. :)

> Modules 2, starting to look  a bit like star Trek but no one ever used it.
MODULA 2, you mean?
> I invented my own psudo code having never heard of it before at the time.
> A bit later, Prolog, really cool for writing Zork games but you can't
> do graphics with it. :-(
Wrong :
> C++, What the HECK is OOP? Why would I need that?
> Some time later, OOP is cool but it really tends to clouds things up,
> still it gives me god like powers so I will use it.
Simplifies lots of applications, prevents mistakes, makes code
reusability much better in large (I mean LARGE) development environments.
> PHP, yawn, can't they make something that is not C or pascal?
> Java, yawn again, cool network stuff. C but slower? Why? (THE language
> to learn if you want a job in Germany and maybe else where.)
Actually, the FTP implementation written in Java is faster than C. Java
slow is a myth. The fastest P2P transfer apps on the planet are written
in Java. Check Vuze/Azureus (professional Torrent library based),
Limewire... and many online games written in Java... nobody ever
complains about performance in Java anymore. :)
> Visual Basic, Oooh, the dark side plus basic?? Must be invented by the
> Devil. Cool IDE!!! Microsoft Access is the best software that I
> have ever seen, to date. To bad it is not open source.
> Perl, you are out to confuse me right? This guy must be an out of work
> APL programmer.
> JavaScript, yawn. Make it faster. You guys really could have done better here.
> Back to Psudo code, It just developed out of a need for short hand,
> come to find out later that they try and teach it to people, LOL. Poor
> kids. Then I found Python, cool, it looks like my psudo code but why
> does it have to run so slowly?
> To this day the only languages that I have learned that make me sit up
> and clap are, 6502 assembly, Prolog, C, OOP, Python. All the rest is
> rehash. (lisp might be ok but never went deep enough, perhaps I should
> say the same for LOGO)
Again... We're not talking languages to write real-world application.

I'd like to reiterate the title here "Programming language for children".


As an implied (I hope) consequence : LEARNING.

LOGO is very much targetted for that. CHILDREN who want to LEARN


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