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