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On 17/07/10 23:29, John Williams wrote:
On Sat, 2010-07-17 at 23:11 +0100, Simon Waters wrote:There are plenty of native BASIC interpreters for educational purposes for GNU/Linux, no need to touch WINE. Why you would teach a child BASIC is another question.I had considered it as one of the simplest ways to get a basic understanding of programming, line numbering to show order, input data, print data, use of variables. BASIC just seems to me one of the clearest languages to get your head around the ideas.
I agree. I found that learning Basic really helped with algebra at school (in fact I really enjoyed algebra, it reminded me of Basic programming in a way).
I learnt Basic on the old Amstrad CPC with line numbers. At first going from that to Quick Basic with no line numbers seemed a bit strange, but then I got the hang of it, and then moved on to Visual Basic. Alas it's been ages since I sat down and did any real programming.
The real games programmers are mostly C++ junkie - probably not the best place to start - most seem to suggest Java or C# and gentle introductions. Of course the best way to learn programming concepts is to learn lots of different languages, but I'm not sure it helps.After he can write basic little programs I would then be after something to move onto, I've been meaning to learn Python myself so that might be something we do together. I'll probably show him some BASH coding in between anyway. He wants to learn to program, so I just need to nurture that and help him get going. Fingers crossed he'll stick with it and learn many languages just like his ol' Dad (me) did ;)
That's good, one of my step-daughters who's quite bright took a bit of an interest in learning how to program. She enjoyed it when I got an old Acorn Electron from a car boot sale, she sat there for ages typing in some of the programs from the manual and was chuffed that she was able to make the computer do things. Took me back to when I was typing in example programs on the Amstrad CPC from the manual or magazines and making changes to see what happened.
Rob -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq