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<p>So I'm trying to figure out how much Smalltalk we want <br>to try teaching in the Squeak and eToys units pre Python. <br>My concern is the former may be harder to learn, but some <br>precocious youngsters are going to want to anyway, but
<br>then will this make Python "harder" for them, simply <br>because it's "close but different" which could be confusing?</p>
<p>I might just be overgeneralizing from my own experience, of <br>living in Italy, picking up some Italian, while taking French <br>in a British then Americanish school, and later Spanish. <br>I found it hard to keep all these Romance languages from
<br>fusing in my head. Arabic came later (probably a lost cause <br>in my case).</p>
<p>My leaning is towards developing a "Python for Smalltalkers" <br>set of units, which assumes some familiarity with Smalltalk <br>jargon and concepts, such as messages to receivers, complete <br>encapsulation of data, a 'self' keyword, and compares these
<br>with Python's, where data is not necessarily so private, and <br>'self', though used as a placeholder, is *not* a keyword per <br>se (I've seen some Japanese using 'ghost' (smile)).</p>
<p>For most middle schoolers, the previous paragraph might read <br>as gibberish, as they're still in Immersion Phase and just <br>like floating around in a fish tank or whatever Alice in <br>Wonderland dream world, interacting with the many exhibits,
<br>learning Physics or whatever. They're not yet into the cold <br>hard world of 100% lexical coding where "left brain" is king <br>(just kidding about the king part). But those few who are, <br>like their adult counterparts, might appreciate the bridge
<br>literature (screencasts included).</p>
<p>Such a literature already exists bridging Python and Scheme for <br>example, down to a Scheme interpreter written in Python (wasn't <br>that Danny Yoo's project?), plus discussions of Scheme's hyper <br>powerful lambda, versus Python's "little lambda" (as in "Mary
<br>had a"), not intended for much more than an anonymous inline <br>expression (name your anonymous function Anon if you want it <br>longer?).</p>
<p>And of course Python for C programmers was more the original <br>context of the language in the first place (Guido's target <br>demographic was never "children" per se) -- that literature <br>is pretty much complete.
</p>
<p>Perl coders tend to see Python as a dialect (so similar, yet <br>alien enough to still be considered "a different language"), <br>while Java coders tend to see it as their possible salvation, <br>from a lot of mindless overhead (Bruce Eckel in this category**).
</p>
<p>But I'm taking my cues from the many Logo -> Squeak -> Python <br>cave paintings I've been exposed to, a well documented sequence, <br>complete with lesson plans database, for ages 8 to 18. So it's
<br>the Logo (which Logo?) -> Squeak and Squeak -> Python bridges <br>which most interest me, in terms of collecting citations and/or <br>developing new content. My impression is there're still lots of <br>holes in the Squeak -> Python literature, ready to be filled
<br>with new lesson plan filings.</p>
<p>Kirby</p>
<p>** <a href="http://www.mindview.net/Books/Python/ThinkingInPython.html">http://www.mindview.net/Books/Python/ThinkingInPython.html</a><br></p></div>