Scheme as a virtual machine?

[toby]

On Nov 22, 12:28 pm, namekuseijin <namekusei... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22 nov, 14:47, Howard Brazee <how... at brazee.net> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:14:40 -0800 (PST), toby
>
> > <t... at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
> > >This is a good (if familiar) observation. Teaching children (or young
> > >people with little exposure to computers) how to program in various
> > >paradigms could produce interesting primary evidence. Pity that this
> > >isn't examined widely and systematically. We could learn something
> > >about how to teach programming and design languages this way, don't
> > >you agree?
>
> > I do.
>
> > A study such as that would be more useful than how to teach languages
> > - it could be useful in teaching other stuff as well.
>
> yes, pity most children are (used to be) taught Basic first.
>
> Also, with a study like this, it's likely some children would be
> taught some lame language and others would be taught some "industrial
> strength" language and still others would be taught some esoteric
> language.

This is not worse than the status quo, which does exactly that, but
without paying attention to outcomes.

What I am proposing is doing it systematically, with observation. Then
we can learn something.

> I'm not sure it'd prove as much as we are hoping for -- as
> they are all Turing equivalent and the kids would be able to
> eventually do the task asked for in any of them -- but I'm sure some
> of those children would be mentally hurt for all their life.  Poor
> pioneers :p
>
> JH, nice to have you back! :)