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Re: [LUG] Summary Todays Holsworthy Meeting - June 17th

 

On Sun, 2010-07-18 at 10:46 +0100, Paul Sutton wrote:

> > 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. 

> 
> If two or more people want to learn the same language it really does
> help esp when you start off at the same level,

Pretty much my thoughts, its incentive and more interesting for us both.

So far, I didn't fancy any of the choices as a starting off point.
scratch and etoys have too much to fiddle with to really start off with.
I understand they are for beginners but having everything there in front
of you, choosing commands and such seems like a lot to take in, and much
to tempting to just mess around.

So I dug out my old C64, it powers up but I can't find an RF lead and I
think the keyboard was b0rked last time I tried it. So I turned to VICE
emulator, I have to say its been a rip roaring success.

I started showing it to him and he really did get excited by it, it
didn't even occur to him this was a 25yr old computer essentially. He
was genuinely excited at just learning things like

10 Print "Aaron is great!!"
20 goto 10

We then quickly moved on using input to get user input, and how to
display that input. He understands the difference between strings and
integer variables, how to do some mathematics with the input and other
numbers.  We have now started onto for/next loops and he has grasped
them very quickly. I will touch on arrays next, then conditions.

I can see us moving onto something more up to date in very short order.
I'll be happy that he has an understanding of what happens in a program
at a little deeper level than clicking around on a gui.

Perhaps there is a lesson from this, in that you do not need all singing
ad dancing environments like Scratch or Etoys to capture the imagination
of a 9yr old.  

Thanks for the input so far to everyone, PHP was mentioned and I hadn't
thought of that one. I do think Gambas would be good to move onto, get
into that then perhaps also start on php or I am still tempted by
Python.



-- 
John Williams
My linux blog of notes and guides
http://subbass.blogspot.com/


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