
Kirby writes -
You've taken aim at bloated, graphics-intensive environments (like Alice) that insulate students from learning any real programming, giving them instead some dumbed down command set and a lot of gee whiz razzle-dazzle. No real maturity develops.
Yes and no, in terms of what motivates my hysterias. My objection to projects like Alice is nothing more specific, really, than my subjective sense of where it is coming from, what motivates it, and its level of sincerity and integrity. It is difficult both to defend such subjective assessments, and to back away from them. When the stakes are as I imagine them to be - that is. There are plenty of areas in which I am willing to be kind. Or at least silent. This area - education, technology, and children - ain't one of them. Art

On 6/27/05, Arthur <ajsiegel@optonline.net> wrote:
Kirby writes -
You've taken aim at bloated, graphics-intensive environments (like Alice) that insulate students from learning any real programming, giving them instead some dumbed down command set and a lot of gee whiz razzle-dazzle. No real maturity develops.
Yes and no, in terms of what motivates my hysterias.
My objection to projects like Alice is nothing more specific, really, than my subjective sense of where it is coming from, what motivates it, and its level of sincerity and integrity.
It is difficult both to defend such subjective assessments, and to back away from them.
When the stakes are as I imagine them to be - that is. There are plenty of areas in which I am willing to be kind. Or at least silent. This area - education, technology, and children - ain't one of them.
I have second thoughts about Alice too (and not just because Pausch apparently rewrote it in Java :-). See for yourself about Pausch's IMO cocky, self-serving attitude: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v6i20_pausch.html -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

-----Original Message----- From: Guido van Rossum [mailto:gvanrossum@gmail.com]
See for yourself about Pausch's IMO cocky, self-serving attitude:
I am usually not much one for statistics, but one statistic it would be fun to see would be the funding per productive user of Python vs. Alice. My Alice guesstimate:
2250000.00 /11 204545.45454545456
I've sensed that the key to Pausch is exactly as he says: "I love the creation of illusion" Art

On 6/27/05, Guido van Rossum <gvanrossum@gmail.com> wrote:
I have second thoughts about Alice too (and not just because Pausch apparently rewrote it in Java :-).
See for yourself about Pausch's IMO cocky, self-serving attitude:
Carnegie Mellon University\ Entertainment Technology Center \ Design Director Randy Pausch: "( . The essence of a being a researcher is knowing the answer to a question that nobody else has even asked yet . It's really a kind of illusion, and I love the creation of illusion, which is why as a kid I was fascinated by theme parks, particularly the stuff that Imagineering has built, because they they're so much better at creating an illusion than almost anybody else ... I don't focus as much on entertainment as you might think . So, for example, ... . The longest-running research project I have is called Alice, ... that is able to provide a better, first exposure to computer programming ... . But this is much more advanced than Logo was, to the point where it can be used for a full semester course at the college level. ... We've demonstrated that with at-risk students we can both improve retention and grade point average . And so, when people say, well, how do you feel having a career doing all this frivolity, I hasten to point out that the number of computer science majors in America last year declined by 23 percent . { educators call Alice frivolous if students can't type Java by the end of the 14 weeks } But what I find fascinating is that, { if a business's profits were down 23 percent, that be all they could think about, wouldn't it ? } [ Alice is not so trivial ] )-Paush . it is obvious from that interview, that Paush is not telling us what he is really feeling critical toward; his concern about low enrollments in CS just doesnt make sense: . a field like computer science is not something one goes into for it's value as a liberal arts education: you get a technical skill for a particular vocation; thus, CS enrollment is naturally going to be a function of the market's perceived need for programmers and system analysts . indeed, it is a tribute to the RAD technologies such as Pausch's own Alice system -- serving the same cp4e spirit as van Rossum's Python language -- that programming is seen as something that all employees are expected to do; because, machines are getting intelligent enough to be treated like fellow employees ! . I imagine that part of Pausch's frustration has to do with the hurt feelings that were generated when he moved Alice's scripting language from Python to Java; ironically, this is just the niche that Alice needs to prove it's [/]unique value: while Python is the Basic language of the new age, and is so easy to write that Alice's enforced menu interface would only slow a student down Java, on the other hand, is that most-favored assembly language of the new age, having such a quarrelsome syntax, that Alice's menu interface can provide most of us with a much-needed relief from semicolon-itis ! . when I read that Pausch had trouble with Python's case-sensitivity; [@] http://www.alice.org/advancedtutorial/ConwayDissertation.PDF I wondered why he did not see this as a hint to complete his system: . the obvious goal of a menu system is to help you find the syntax by building the command string as you compose by pointing . after that, Alice should be inserting command strings into a normal text window thereby allowing us to use both keyboard-typing and menu-pointing at either the command line or the current project window . it could further assist us by throwing in the usual RAD perks: structuring our code with an outliner mode, and running a syntax checker in the background Pausch: "( . we had to wrap a textbook around it, because one of the things I learned painfully is that you can have the best software in the world, but if there isn't the educational infrastructure called the textbook, no one will start using the software . Once the textbook was in beta we were in 25 schools. )-Pausch . if Pausch wants respect for a system without a textbook, he should should put more effort into a robotic tutor that actually shows you how it would use the system to solve an example problem . a robotic system could have a cartoon's message bubble giving the robot's rationale for each activity, along with an overview window of the robot's plans . most importantly, the robot's tutorial should give me the same power as that provided by a book: the tutor's pace is controlled by a page-turning button; and I can stop a tutorial at any time, (use bookmarks to come back to it), and ask the robot with a table of contents [/][whatever questions I have, at the time I have them] . now, [/]that would be creating the illusion of zero gravity! on the hand, being dragged around by programmed intructing, is far worse than frivolous -- it.s a penmanship lesson in Sanskrit ! . it is my hope that the Alice system as I envision it, can teach all normal preschoolers to program in Python . -- American Dream Documents "(real opportunity starts with real documentation)

_____ From: adDoc's networker Phil [mailto:dr.addn@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 2:21 AM To: guido@python.org Cc: Arthur; edu-sig@python.org; Torrance Art Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26
. it is my hope that the Alice system as I envision it, can teach all normal preschoolers to program in Python .
Why wait to preschool? A clear lack of Vision. Seems to me that the manual crib toy is an artifact of the past, and does not properly prepare the child for what will be expected of him at pre-school. Seems to be the Behaviorists had the right idea about early programming education. Let the infant learn how to push the right buttons in the right order when he/she expects to me fed. It's early training for the world they will inhabit, and therefore for their own good. Art.
participants (3)
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adDoc's networker Phil
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Arthur
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Guido van Rossum