Comment Mistake or what (Score 1, Insightful) 222
Probably a mistake considering the "new" one is next to impossible to use.
Or maybe Evil Google just felt like making it hard for people to look shit up.
Probably a mistake considering the "new" one is next to impossible to use.
Or maybe Evil Google just felt like making it hard for people to look shit up.
and i'm not suggesting that C wouldn't make a good first language, in fact I already suggested that in another comment. but it's not "an educational language".
whereas logo actually was conceived of as an educational programming language
the fact that LOGO is not on the list the author linked to kind of makes me feel a little perturbed. like, wtf is wrong with people? there's a mention of "brick logo" as a footnote in some other language's paragraph, and "c" is mentioned as "educational" (wtf?) but not one shout out to LOGO.
did anybody else feel any sort of reaction to that? or did everybody just not even notice it?
Also, I took a look at that list and: no.
Don't teach him a useless joke / toy language like these ones on this list. It'll build a bad habit and the kid will be one of these losers saying "I don't know how to program but I got code::blocks and here's my console emulator, shouts out to the one guy who gave me that voo doo asm to build in line and make it work real fast, everybody please stop sending me e-mails about getting root kitted, this thing totally passes a virus scan."
If you want something that has a strong visual appeal but teaches actual programming practices and has been actually used in industry, I suggest you teach LOGO. LOGO is super-super-super simple easy shit, and you can learn it yourself as you're going. Most LOGO primers and tutorials are practically on a child level any ways because the language is so simplistic. Of course, if you don't know a single thing about trigonometry or geometry you'll probably see it as a useless language.
Over any single one of the weird "robots" and "kids oriented" languages on that list you linked to, I would recommend LOGO.
I bet you can even find a "LOGO for kids" or some shit if you looked for it. For decades, LOGO has often been used as a first language for youngster so I'm kind of scratching my head how it passed you by.
I think 7 is too early. The kid should be outside playing and using his imagination with real world objects at that time.
I also recommend using C. It's simple and C-derived compilers typically support some version of it.
I learned to program in BASIC for the Atari and the Sinclair ZX-80 when I was 8 and a half. I don't recommend using numbered line BASIC or any BASIC, at all. If I could go back and somehow influence how I was taught, I would tell my parents to find something that supports parameterized function calls instead of GOSUBS. C would be best. But if you're really intent on using BASIC for some reason, if you're on the PC I recommend Microsoft's QuickBasic as it allowed you to get away from the rather intimidating edifice of Visual Studio. You'll also have to sandbox it inside of something like DOSBox to get it to run on a Windows environment so there's a plus.
If you opt to just get an old clunker instead of emulating DOS, I recommend a 486 dx4/100. The architecture is simple enough for a kid to learn into adolescence but powerful enough to show how impressively computers can complete some tasks very quickly. I also recommend an ATI "all-in-wonder" graphics card, because it features CGA, EGA and VGA so your kid can learn about legacy graphics as well as switching modes. You shouldn't use a CRT if you can help it, if the kid wants to get into the inner workings of the screen you'll have an armful of stuff to teach him about electricity safety first. So get a modern flatscreen and get a VGA/EGA plug adapter if you have to, to keep on the side for EGA projects. As long as the flat screen is unplugged he shouldn't die of electric shock touching anything inside of it.
The great thing about older machines is that a lot of the components are visible on a macro-scale. It's a lot easier to differentiate between the resistors, capacitors, and inductors in older machinery. Now a days they'll all tiny little squares with little print designating what they are. It's also easier to work on older boards in terms of soldering and other "circuit bending".
All that being said, I recall some hobbyists telling me back in the day that the Apple computers made the best projects. One guy said he had obtained a dozen Apple IIe's on the cheap and because apple computers are made to network easily, he was able to use a later Apple model to organize all the IIe's into parallel computing. An exercise like that could be fun, albeit space-consuming.
If you're going this sort of computer-engineering route involving getting to know the hardware, I recommend also teaching the kid assembly. On older machines like the ones I mentioned, and using older operating systems, this is less of a headache. By comparison, I was looking into "high level assembly" for windows systems and the skeleton just to have a window open with a button to close it again was large enough to dissuade me from going much further. ASM in DOS was far more elegant, which is why these days if you mention writing something in assembly most people think you're crazy. Even though once again many popular compilers support inline ASM.
When I was fiddling with old Sinclair or Atari machines the latest hardware was stuff like the 80286. And when I finally got an 80286 the latest hardware was the Pentium, and so on. Getting things done with older hardware gives you two special perspectives on everything: (1) getting to know how everything works because the machines and operating system aren't so enormous and bloated that it's overwhelming, and (2) having to make do with less memory and processing power forces you to learn things like optimization and paging. People use memory like it's crack today and talk all tough like their memory is infinite, but little do they know RAM is paging quite often in Windows because of programming practices like that. And those same people speak about memory management in their favorite object oriented languages like it's impossible to perform. Trust me, you would much prefer that your kid is one of those people who can do their own memory management. If you give them a shiny brand new computer to learn on, they'll have no incentive to do better than use it like crack like everybody else does.
They should keep the original melody and syncopation, but they should play it in really whacked-out "80's b-movie" style metal guitar.
I forgot the photo shoots FHM did of Anderson, as well.
Also, considering the stars basically stated publicly that they had some romance going on and had considered marriage, what does it matter if Mulder is getting any action with Scully? Duchovny was (maybe is) getting action with Anderson. The best thing the show could do is keep the tension high by not having the characters hook up.
There is a "new McGyver" project going, involving the original producer (or was it the original writer?)
A new Quantum Leap would be cool. There's a pretty cool John Maus song by the same title that's kind of about the same subject.
If it's wanking you're concerned with, maybe you should do a google search for the images of Anderson (and Duchovny perhaps) that Rolling Stone did.
Well then. Unless your figures are wrong (who knows?) then I guess I stand corrected.
"What are you trying to do, destroy us all?!"
-- Zac Hobbes, The Quiet Earth
Who bears the risk of junior spilling a juice cup all over the current heating furnace?
Obviously the server should be kept in the utility room (or basement) where junior doesn't usually play, and protected within some housing that doubles as a means of keeping the hot air collected so it can be ventilated at specific places throughout the home.
I think this idea sounds like a bunch of
*takes of glasses*
* YAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH *
Applying the same explosive force required to blow up the Moon to blowing up a portion of the Earth instead would only be "more devastating" if you are purely measuring devastation potential in terms of forces of impact or explosive forces.
Don't forget that by and large, the opinion of the Moon in its relationship with life on Earth is more or less "vital". We have no idea what would happen to our weather and atmosphere, our oceans and water tables, or our life cycles if the Moon were obliterated.
"Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger