[Edu-sig] re: CP4E-2002

[Arthur]

> Art, have you actually *read* the CP4E proposal?  Or are you basing
> your rejection still on the article I wrote for LJ?

Certainly yes. though I haven't reread it recently, and I can't say its
fresh in
specifcs.
>
> I am not so naive to expect that most children of 7-8 years old can
> learn to program -- though there definitely have been unusually
> talented children that young who *have* used Python (and everything
> else from Basic to assembler) successfully to create what can only be
> called computer programs.

All I'm lobbying for really is some precision in language (and that request
coming from someone yet to get through a three line newsgroup post without a
misspelling).

A newbie in discussion is anyone from an MIT grad with six languages under
his belt looking at Python as a
7th, to a 7th grader who comes to Python as a typical 7th grader. A
non-progammer is either a Phd physicist
working with Python at the frontiers of science doing, say, molecular
modeling, to back to our 7th grader. "Programming" is I don't what,
depending on who is using the word, in what context, for what effect. I
think *that* has been the source of confusion, misunderstanding, and a few
blow-ups along the way.  All I am pleading for is some clearer definition of
terms, at least when you or others or I are discussing, for example, a
language change possibility addressing, for example, the needs of newbies.
The MIT grad, or the 7th grader? If we are talking about non-programmers  -
are they content to be non-progammers? It they are, I make the suggestion we
be content to let them stay non-progammers.  You, it seems to me, have
enough to do to worry about with folks who *want* to understand programming,
are willing to work at it, and are looking for a way in. Again, the point
being the semantics have been all over the place, and it has been hard to
acutally *discuss* much of anything in this area, as far as I am concerned.

Other than that - we are actually in agreement about a lot. Obviously, for
example, I agree with your statement that Python is wonderfully configured
as a first language (except for this damn problem of having to import copy
:) ).

We may disagree as to when it is realistic to introduce it, but there I am
really just pulling a gut opinion out of my posterior - which happens, BTW,
to be where my Zen intuition hangs out..

Art