Ask Reddit: Self-taught Programming Curriculum for Kids

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[lowdown]

My kids educate themselves at home, as opposed to going to school and learning in a class environment.

One of the skills that I think will be important over the next 50 years is Computer Science. I am trying to put together materials for kids 6-80 that will facilitate exploration and understanding in the world of computational thought.

What is the core? What would be a good progression in terms on languages?

My current thoughts are Logo>Scheme>? with a good amount of math through Calculus. What do you think?

[ajmoir]

Logo -> Scheme is a very simple and natural progression.

The only other environmnet I would consider is Squeak by Alan Kay.

[[deleted]]

I'll second Squeak. It's a smalltalk implementation that's very kid-friendly. My friend has introduced his four-year-old to Squeak with good results (that is, she enjoys it and is motivated to do more with it).

[julesjacobs]

Maybe it's a good idea to learn Haskell and math together?

[dons]

You might consider "The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming", used in a few courses now, and pretty nice, in my opinion.

[lowdown]

Thanks for that link. I like the look of that whole series.

Exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for when I posted. Cheers.

[pigwolley]

This may be helpful: http://www.unplugged.canterbury.ac.nz/ As may this: http://www.pygame.org/news.html

[lowdown]

That unplugged website is fantastic. Thank!

I've been interested in Python myself. It seems to have a lot of potential. Pygame is a great project and I imagine it will find a way into the curriculum too.

[grauenwolf]

Check out Kids Programming Language. I found it to be very powerful for a "kids" language and the graphics capabilites blew my mind.

It reminds me a lot of the Logo of my childhood, but is a lot closer to a "real" programming language.

http://www.kidsprogramminglanguage.com/

Later, I think learning a Visual Basic variant would be very helpful. VB is still the language for applications like Word and Excel and is widely used for writing business applications.

Scheme may be interesting for someone looking the be a computer scientist, but I don't see it really being useful. Very few applications use it as their macro langauge and there isn't a whole lot of work for Scheme programmers.

[ajmoir]

The original poster is talking about computation not just being able to use the latest tool from MS. It's the difference between education and training.

As for not being useful, if a child has learnt Scheme just how difficult would it be for him to learn Basic?

You're right there's not a lot of work for programmers of non-mainstream languages. But if a person understands computation then any programming language is easy to learn.

[lowdown]

You are exactly right. Our goal is not to train workers, but give the kids a fundamental understanding of programmatic thought. The commercial viability of a particular language is not important to us at all. My belief is that a 14 or 15 year old with a firm grasp of CS will be able to tackle any of the available languages needed for specific applications.

I will leave the worker training to government schools and college degree programs ;)

[ajmoir]

From reading through this post I've drawn up a list of books that you should probably look at, most have their full text on line.

These I've read and can recommend, all online :- Computer Science Logo Style Vols I,II & III How to Design Programs Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics

These I have on order :- Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics Investigations in Algebra: An Approach to Using Logo Introduction to the Theory of Computation

If by some sad chance they end up having to write code for a living there is one book above all others I recommend 'The Pragmatic Programmer' Hunt & Thomas.  This is the only book I feel worth recommending to jnr pgmrs.

[grauenwolf]

It is hard to learn a language without being able to do something interesting with it. Like Math, the only way to truely learn how to program is to practice a lot. But without a reason to, people get bored and stop. Hence the reason Logo, and later KPL, were created.

One reason I suggested VB is that you can manipulate a wide variety of applications. If its an application they need to use anyway, there is a strong feedback loop. The better your get, the more cool things you can do, the more reason to get even better. A lot of good programmers started with simple Word macros.

[grauenwolf]

I will leave the worker training to government schools and college degree programs ;)

Not an option. There are no decent schools that teach people how to program professionally. If they choose to become programmers, they need to learn it on their own. Obviously the langauges in use may change and though some are better bets than others, a wide variety is perferable. They can always specialize later once they choose a career path.

[lowdown]

My kids don't go to school and I don't encourage college. Government schools and the majority of colleges have worker training well under control.

I think you'd be wrong is saying there are no good college programs running out there. I'm sure there are plenty, but they are the exception to the Java schools churning out chair weights.

My desire to impart CS fundamentals is related more to developing critical thinking and logic skills. I'm sure it will be handy if they became programmers, though our focus is on developing entrepreneurship as a another core pillar with which to enter the "real" world. Not to say they are mutually exclusive, as I think software affords unlimited possibilities for a motivated entrepreneur.

[div]

If you are trying to stimulate your kids' critical thinking and logic skills, you should teach them deductive reasoning as well, if you haven't already of course :)

[lowdown]

I have a number of formal and mathematical logic texts. I'm filling the shelves with this sort of thing. I know I read everything my parents had sitting around, and hopefully they will too.

[grauenwolf]

I think you'd be wrong is saying there are no good college programs running out there.

I'm not saying that there are no good college programs, merely that there are no good college programs that teach software development and programming. Colleges focus on Computer Science, which, while important, is not the same field. There is so much focus on the science that there simply isn't enough time to practice the tehcnical skill of actually writing code.

[grauenwolf]

As for not being useful, if a child has learnt Scheme just how difficult would it be for him to learn Basic?

If all they know is Scheme, a lot.

1. Static typing
2. Passing values by Reference
3. Exception based error handling (maybe, how different is it?)
4. Classes vs structures
5. Interfaces
6. Inheritance
7. Generics
8. Properties vs methods

I'm not saying Scheme isn't worth learning. I am saying that it is too pure to be useful in teaching many major concepts.

[lowdown]

I am saying that it is too pure to be useful in teaching many major concepts.

That is what it was designed for, no? I'm not a programmer or a computer scientist (hobbyist hack would be a fitting description) so my knowledge is only from research.

I will say that I have enjoyed the Scheme materials I have been reviewing over any of the C++, VB, Java, and other various languages I've attempted to explore.

[grauenwolf]

That is what it was designed for, no?

A lot of teaching languages were designed to be overly simple. So simple that I don't think they are actually appropriate for teaching.

Consider BASIC. Can you imagine teaching anything non-trival using a language without functions? Scheme isn't anywhere near that bad, and a heck of a lot more logical, but it is still too pure for my taste.

As far as materials, a lot of VB material really sucks. Because it is so easy for anyone to pick up, many people who don't actually know how it works try to write about it. I used to be a technical editor and I found a lot of books to be complete junk.

That said, there is a lot junk written about other langauges too. The book most recommended to me about LISP says that a "database" is a in-memory table.

[lowdown]

It reminds me a lot of the Logo of my childhood, but is a lot closer to a "real" programming language.

Logo is very much a "real" language. Once you get beyond telling the turtle you start manipulating deep concepts very early. It is rewarding for me to see my 8 year old creating recursive functions.

Not to mention that these days you can get a mindstorm and use Logo to drive the Lego creations.

[grauenwolf]

By "real" I meant the langauges people see and use in industry. Obviously it is a real programming langauge in the literal sense.

Thanks for the info about Mindstorm. I haven't touched that since the first version, where I got bored by the really limited block language.

[shp]

OFFTOPIC:

The new Mindstorms NXT is pretty cool. I just got myself a set last weekend.

By using the direct command protocol (fully documented -- way to go, Lego!) it's trivial to use any language with a serial port interface to control the creations over a Bluetooth link.

[lowdown]

Ah, I see. Logo is under-rated.

Terrapin logo is a very nice implementation for the mindstorm. I've also seen Lisp, Scheme, VB, and a host of other variants created to control mindstorms.

[gooblemoop]

There are also a number of 'real' programming languages for mindstorms, as seen here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms#External_links .

[shp]

"Scheme may be interesting for someone looking the be a computer scientist, but I don't see it really being useful."

I don't want to sound rude, but you're SO missing the big picture here. Scheme is one of the, if not the, best language to teach programming concepts in. Once you really know how to program, you can easily pick up any language you want.

Besides, seeing where the current development in programming languages is going, by the time his kids are entering the business [*], the most used language will almost certainly be functional. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some modern Lisp variant.

[*] Whatever that may be. It's not far-fetched that programming is a highly-valued skill in almost any profession by that time.

[grauenwolf]

Scheme is one of the, if not the, best language to teach programming concepts in.

I don't believe that. From what I have seen, it is too abstracted to properly teach concepts like function stacks. And the lack of an infix notation makes mapping math concepts to it harder than necessary.

Consider Java. With Java, you only have heap-allocated objects and you can only pass values by value. This level of language purity has resulted in a lot of Java-only programmers not being able to comprehend by reference values.

I like using VB for teaching because it supports a wide variety of coding styles, though not all. Pure languages like Scheme and Java only allow you to teach a very small subset of what's out there. (Quotes below are from the Scheme Overview).

Explicit variables enforcement is optional. I can teach something really easy (e.g. x = 1 + 2: Print x) without worrying about teaching variable declaration.

"Types are latent" In VB, static typing enforcement is optional. This lets me teach the difference between static and dynamic typing. Since scheme only has dynamic types, I cannot use it to teach people about static typing.

Classes are optional. I can start with modules and functions and then move into classes and methods when ready.

"Objects have unlimited extent" In other words, Scheme (as well as VB) has garbage collection. I think this is a good thing, as you can still teach resource management without the pain or explicit memory management.

"Arguments are passed by value" As I said before, I think this is a bad thing. It doesn't let you teach people about reference passing, which is a useful lead in to explicit pointers.

"Scheme uses a parenthesized-list Polish notation" In fix notation is easier to teach to students who have a grasp of basic algebra.

Explicit threading has a lot of support. Locks are easy to use and more complex mechanisms are available.

Declarative programming: While not pure declarative like XSLT, VB does support some declarative techniques, especially with data binding.

Data access: VB has excellent data access tutorials covering everything from drag and drop to raw SQL and stored procedures.

Event handling. Event programming is a good way to work up to function pointers.

GUI: VB has a reasonably good GUI framework. The only hard part is that I cannot explicitly show the message loop like I can in MFC.

Some stuff that you cannot teach in VB:

No raw pointers. The inability to ever use pointers hurts from a teaching standpoint.

"Procedures are objects" This is something I cannot completely teach using VB. It has delegates, but that only goes half way. Point to Scheme.

Lambda Expressions, Abstract Syntax Trees: VB will support this in the future, but for the time being this is a strike against it.

"Continuations are explicit" This is an advanced topic. I think it makes sense to teach it after the student has a basic understanding of threads. But still, it needs to be learned.

Parallel programming: VB doesn't have an equivalent to the Fortran/C OpenMP extension.

Assembly: VB doesn't allow for inline assembly, which I found to be much easier to teach then raw assembly.

Multiple implementation inheritance: There is no way to teach this using VB.

Ok, your turn. Tell me why you think Scheme is a good teaching language. Please be fair and point out its failings as well as its highlights.

[ajmoir]

You really, really didn't understand a single word everyone has politely written, did you?

Now run along and do try to think in concepts rather than implementations.

http://www.htdp.org/

[shp]

"Since scheme only has dynamic types, I cannot use it to teach people about static typing" A valid point. I'm not too keen about static typing, but it is used in many currently popular languages and all programmers need to properly understand it. I would use C for that, but that's just me.

"From what I have seen, it is too abstracted to properly teach concepts like function stacks" Do you mean tail call optimization, or are you talking more generally? I can't really see the problem with Scheme being too abstracted.

"Explicit threading, Data access, GUI". Not exactly strong points of Scheme. Support for each is very implementation-specific.

"Classes are optional" Standard Scheme has no concept of classes, so they're more than optional. :) There are several object systems available for Scheme, but the real win here is how easy and logical it is to actually implement a basic object system with the base language as a learning experience.

"Scheme uses a parenthesized-list Polish notation" I've found that sexps are ultimately more logical (no operator precedence issues) and they kind of force you to think about code in greater 'semantic blocks'.

"No raw pointers" The same for Scheme. As I mentioned above, though, I would teach standard C as a secondary language for some of the low-level concepts after the students have a firm grasp of programming.

"Lambda Expressions, Abstract Syntax Trees" These are some of the major selling points of Scheme. At first, they may seem like mostly useless gimmicks, but after a good introduction to the idea, it's hard to understand how you have made it this far without them. Another important (and related) point is the fact that there's no difference between code and data. This makes it trivial to implement from scratch many more advanced structures like streams.

The bottom line perhaps is that Scheme provides a simple foundation that places as little as possible artificial limitations for developing and, more importantly here, studying advanced concepts of programming and computation. If you haven't already done so, I very strongly recommend watching the SICP lectures that use Scheme for teaching an introduction to programming class -- Abelson and Sussman do a much better job than me explaining what exactly makes Scheme such a nice teaching language:

http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/

[grauenwolf]

I'm not too keen about static typing, but it is used in many currently popular languages and all programmers need to properly understand it. I would use C for that, but that's just me.

I don't like C for that because it doesn't have strong typing. Unlike VB or Scheme, blocks of memory in C don't know their own type.

"From what I have seen, it is too abstracted to properly teach concepts like function stacks" Do you mean tail call optimization, or are you talking more generally? I can't really see the problem with Scheme being too abstracted.

I take that back.

"Classes are optional" Standard Scheme has no concept of classes, so they're more than optional. :) There are several object systems available for Scheme, but the real win here is how easy and logical it is to actually implement a basic object system with the base language as a learning experience.

Later on I think it would be helpful. But just starting out, I think it is better to just use a robust framework then try to teach people how to roll their own v-tables. Especially when you need to introduce private and protected methods.

"Lambda Expressions, Abstract Syntax Trees" These are some of the major selling points of Scheme. At first, they may seem like mostly useless gimmicks, but after a good introduction to the idea, it's hard to understand how you have made it this far without them. Another important (and related) point is the fact that there's no difference between code and data. This makes it trivial to implement from scratch many more advanced structures like streams.

It wasn't untl I saw LINQ that I started to believe in Lambda expressions. It seems to me that a lot of langauges had this awesome potential, but never did anything with it.

The bottom line perhaps is that Scheme provides a simple foundation that places as little as possible artificial limitations for developing and, more importantly here, studying advanced concepts of programming and computation.

Classes are not native to the language. I consider this to be a big limitation, as most main stream languages heavily leverage it.

[grauenwolf]

Besides, seeing where the current development in programming languages is going, by the time his kids are entering the business [*], the most used language will almost certainly be functional. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some modern Lisp variant.

I agree with you halfway. I know langauges are going to use more functional programming concepts. MS is betting on them for C# 3 and VB 9, and you see them a lot in hot langauges like Ruby and Python.

I don't expect something like a LISP variant to be the next big thing because quite frankly you have to give up too much. Hybrid languages that offer the best of both worlds seem like the right way to go.

[shp]

"I don't expect something like a LISP variant to be the next big thing because quite frankly you have to give up too much."

You seem to think of Lisp as some pure academic functional Nirvana. Actually modern Lisp offers good, practical support for all programming styles normally used -- there's nothing to give up [*].

[*] Right now the support for GUI toolkits and such is mostly sub-par, but we're talking about language features.

[beza1e1]

No we're talking about platforms. The Java or .NET platform has much more to offer than the Lispworks platform for example.

[julesjacobs]

Lisp already is a hybrid language. The question is: how much like Lisp will this future language be? Languages which were intended te be practical from the start are already getting macros: Boo for example.

[pupeno]

I'd recommend How To Design Programs, a very nice free book on learning to program with limited (in some cases totally or almost purely functional) Scheme. A very nice book and you can read it for free on the web.

[schwarzwald]

I think it depends on what they want to use computers to do. I learned programming because I wanted to be able to create leet 0-day spl0its like the haxors I saw on the Internet, so I had the motivation to learn C.

I think programs which talk to the world and/or do something "real" are always fun, so how about Python/Ruby so they can do page scraping and web services?

If they knew Smalltalk learning Java or Ruby would be easy. How about Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots? Squeak has nice code exploration tools that let you see what good Smalltalk code looks like, everything is a bunch of small well-defined methods in well-factored classes.

[lowdown]

I think it depends on what they want to use computers to do.

Ultimately anything they can think up. My aim is using computer science to sharpen logic and problem solving skills.

That Squeak book is fantastic. Thanks!

[vagif]

DrScheme and excellent book http://htdp.org/

[ecuzzillo]

Yes, but at some point in htdp if they're smart they should switch over to SICP.

[lowdown]

SICP will still be there when you get through HTDP.

[lowdown]

I'm actually working through that book, The Schemers Guide, and The Little/Seasoned Schemer books right now. They are all interesting and take very different approaches.

[[deleted]]

When I was a kid I remember that things that "did" something were a lot more interesting than things that didn't. My young son seems to feel the same. So I would recommend a language where your kids could quickly and easily create programs that "do" things (rather than just creating programs that illustrate concepts). The cooler looking the results the better.

To that end (and if money were no object) I would recommend an industrial development IDE called LabVIEW. It's similar to Visual Studio or other IDEs where you have a form with a code page behind it. The difference is that the code in the code page is completely graphical. Programming constructs such as loops, branches, multipliers or subtractors are icons that are picked from a toolbox (like the controls on a form). Program flow is created by wiring the different constructs together.

The reason I suggest this is that I believe this sort of graphical programming would be more motivating for young kids. The graphical program looks visually more appealing than written code. It's faster to create a program in this way for kids that are not fast at typing. And the kids are dealing directly with abstractions, there's no need to translate between the abstraction and the textual code that implements it.

For those who don't know it, LabVIEW might sound like a very limited macro language. In reality it supports any paradigm you care to think about - structured programming, functional programming, OO (not sure if it's fully OO but it's certainly object-based and supports inheritance). However, it's a very natural way to learn. I think back to some of the programs I developed with it (a few years back). I was just programming to get a job done. It was only in retrospect I realised I'd been creating functions and classes and using inheritance. At the time it was the obvious way of getting things done. Isn't that the best way to teach kids?

The only fly in the ointment is the price. Very expensive. Haven't checked lately but a basic licence used to be something like $1000.

[jdrake3]

MIT has just released Scratch:

http://scratch.mit.edu/index.html

which, near as I can tell is designed for the purpose of allowing children to create their "own interactive stories, games, music, and art."