[Edu-sig] K-16 CS/math hybrid

[Arthur]

> Behalf Of Kirby Urner
> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] K-16 CS/math hybrid

> Children understand about conventions.  I draw an invisible line on the
> car
> seat:  sister stays on her side, I stay on mine.  But there's no electric
> fence (much as we might wish there to be).  Java provides electric fences.
> Python provides lines in the sand.  Children know the difference.

Do you give a child an option whether or not to wear a seat belt?

If someone insisted on wasting their time on designing a programming
language for children, I would strongly recommend them limiting its options
-  certainly to the extent that it would have no interest to an adult, being
adult.

Once again, if I looked forward to my child becoming a programmer - I would
probably make sure he/she got good music lessons as a child, and then take
the matter up again with them much later.

> Python is a manifestation of programming becoming easier, more accessible.
> It's still hard, as activities go, but think how many hours kids put into
> skateboarding and/or snowboarding tricks.  There's a teen around the
> corner
> working on such skills.  I encounter him several times a week, working out
> with his skateboard.  Is Python harder than that?  Hard to quantify.

What divides us is our sense of "progress", where limits lie, etc.

As it happens Apple stock prices have normalized and a share bought in
December 2004 is no longer on target to being worth $4.5 billion dollars in
ten years.

Non-euclidian geometry is as easy as it is ever going to get. 

And if Python is an asset in the study of algorythmics, it is so because it
gets out of the way well. Algorythmics remain algorythmics. And Python in
fact can't get out of way very well to the extent that it insists on being
the center of attention.

It has to accept a minor billing if it is going to fulfill this part of a
mission.


Art