I've been in the situation of being given a child and told to teach them to program. I started him off with python, using a pre-written series of lessons that introduced things like variables, functions, etc.
I think a number of people nowdays don't start off trying to program the machine infront of them. They learn scripting languages for games like Second Life, which have the advantages of being simplified and object oriented. Nothing wrong with starting people off, not on real machine code, but on an emulator, building from logic gates upwards.
And what sort of programmers is the future going to demand anyway? Will 90% of paid programming still be maintenance/extension of internal corporate software? Will they be using grids, virtual servers, jini, clusters, swarms or pastry? I think future programmers are going to have a less analytical understanding of the lower layers and more the sort of understanding a naturalist has. They'll treat their computing environment as an ecology. Something growing and fluid, to be gardened rather than frozen and perfected.
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I think a number of people nowdays don't start off trying to program the machine infront of them. They learn scripting languages for games like Second Life, which have the advantages of being simplified and object oriented. Nothing wrong with starting people off, not on real machine code, but on an emulator, building from logic gates upwards.
And what sort of programmers is the future going to demand anyway? Will 90% of paid programming still be maintenance/extension of internal corporate software? Will they be using grids, virtual servers, jini, clusters, swarms or pastry? I think future programmers are going to have a less analytical understanding of the lower layers and more the sort of understanding a naturalist has. They'll treat their computing environment as an ecology. Something growing and fluid, to be gardened rather than frozen and perfected.
Douglas - Dionysus' Adovacate