Comments on Comments (Score 2)

Having read over many of these comments, several key themes have emerged. I've added my comments in italics.

1. Unix is hard to start programming, due to lack of IDEs, learning resources, and classes. comment: actually, all those things are available, but they are not well promoted or accessible to young people without lots of free cash.
2. Microsoft isn't doing anything wrong. They should be commended for teaching programming. comment: I suppose you could say the same about Mormon missionaries, Wycliffe Bible translators, or Communist revolutionaries using their resources to teach writing to peasants. They indoctrinate. In order to get what you need (literacy), you need to accept the ideology being taught. I'll concede that *I'm a Linux partisan* and would use indoctrination to push for free software, so I'm not pure. The point is that we need to recognize MS's goals with this program are motivated primarily by profit and market share, and can have an impact on open source and free software.
3. Programming is not just doing VB. There's this great language XXXXXX which teaches concepts better. comment: Concepts are vital, but nearly all programming jobs, programming tasks, and even programming goals like getting widespread acceptance by people, are dependent on a platform. Most people, myself included, are motivated as much by successful deployment and project longevity as much as by the art of writing code. I'd argue that the majority of working programmers are in it for the money, and will do whatever it takes to make the paycheck.
4. They teach VB and C++ at my school. I use Linux, but almost nobody else does. They make fun of me.
5. I have no money, my school doesn't have computer science, so I used Linux because it is cheap, and I'm teaching myself. comment: I'm surprised, by what posts here indicate, that so many schools have good CS programming courses. I'm assuming that many kids here are going to pretty good schools, because the schools I've come across barely have anything going, and some rely on tech access centers.
6. I started out on MS stuff, but got religion after I installed Linux and started programming on it. comment: kinda makes you wonder why people don't *start* on Linux

Ideas/Memes
There is a need for a network of "getting started" resources, and a need for a way to get this information in something that teachers can use. Some schools support programming in MS or Borland. Generally, advanced programming is not taught outside the context of writing things for a GUI.

There is a need for IDEs and information on getting IDEs. Unfortunately once you get used to Makefiles and build scripts, you start to drift from using an IDE, and the IDE market languishes. Also, there's no common IDE and debugging system for scripting languages, and that's an impediment to competing with VB.

There seems to be two clear perspectives: one says that programming is an intellectual exercise, the other says that you need to teach sellable skills. This former attitude reflected in the multitude of "teaching" programming environments out there. Most people on /., though, seem to have started out on real dev tools (or at least QBasic, which is pretty real), and have basically used the practical tools like C, VC++, VB, python, and perl. I think the real-world tools win out, because you really end up writing a *lot* of code to write tools for yourself. Perhaps the "teaching" should be performed in the framework of a real tool. I'm thinking of tools like email filters, web page screen scraping, image processing apps, Javascript in a browser, scripting video editing tools, etc. (BTW - I mean this is for high school students, not college students. The assumption is that most of the students will not pursue computer science, and probably won't become professional programmers.)

These are just a few ideas. If you're reading them, thanks. If you're pissed off at me, sorry, and sorry you feel that way. If you take the ideas seriously, please consider making them part of your worldview. Personally, I don't have the time to work on any of these projects this year, but I'm up for helping out if someone is inspired by this discussion to make an educational project happen.

John Kawakami, johnk _ cyberjava _ com