Advice on giving a python course

[Jeff Petkau]

Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> wrote in message
news:jaln1sgaou.fsf at helix.twistedmatrix.com...
> Timothy Grant <tjg at avalongroup.net> writes:
>
> > One short anecdote about my six year old...
> >
> > I put him to bed the other night and he said "Dad I have a great idea
> > for a computer game! It would be a cross between Donkey Kong and
> > Bomberman. Can we write it next weekend?"
...
> Be careful when you say "yes" to questions like this.  When I was a
> child, I wanted to write a game, too.  (I am still trying to write the
> *same* game ^_^ and should be doing it professionally pretty soon, but
> I digress...)  Python would have had a better chance at doing what I
> wanted (I wanted to do something text-based, speed wasn't a big
> issue).  APL and LISP, the languages my father recommended, were both
> too obtuse to express the things I wanted to express easily.  BASIC
> (especially on the AMIGA) just looked dumb and it was too hard to make
> it do anything meaningful.

If you're interested in teaching little kids to make simple games, one
really interesting thing to look at might be StageCast Creator
(http://www.stagecast.com). It's an example-based learning system;
the screen is broken up into tiles, and the program is a set of rules
for transitions between tile patterns. According to an ACM article
a few months back, kids can actually make original games with this
thing. It might be less frustrating than having them jump through all
the hoops that modern systems seem to require to just get a simple
image up on the screen.

--Jeff Petkau