[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

Mon Jun 16 21:14:32 CEST 2014

Not sure how much it helps but I am more then happy to have an unending
(and publicly visible) coupon to get my book for free for kids. It is not
specifically targeted to kids but does have a very high example driven
approach. I.e. together we build stuff. Will make one tonight.

http://gettingfunctionalwitherlang.com (btw not yet done).

-Mark
On Jun 16, 2014 8:58 PM, <lloyd@REDACTED> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> So many great ideas. So many talented contributors. A fantasy---
>
> One or more of...
>
> - a website
> - hosting platform
> - an e-book - free for download
> - a hard-cover book - royalties kick back to help kids
> - a hardware platform - profits kick back to help kids
>
> Projects
>
> - build your own website
> - chat with friends
> - organize your collections
> - build a multi-player game
> - control a robot
> - control your house
> - build your own supercomputer
> ????
>
> Contest for project submissions
>
> Team
>
> - dedicated Erlang volunteers
> - perhaps formalize with a foundation ala Raspberry Pi
>
> Process
>
> - Dream
> - Brainstorm
> - Set goals
> - Organize
> - Delegate
> - Produce
>
> Platform
>
> - Software projects can be done on Windows assuming easy peasy Erlang
> install
>
> - How can we get youngsters into Linux?
>
> - A hardware platform would open up robotics and control applications:
>
> Cheap (under $100) ARM boards
>
> -- Arduino etc.
>
> -- Raspberry Pi
>
> -- I have an Odroid U3 on my desk. No time to fire it up yet; but very
> compact, quiet, low power, plenty of computing power, runs Linux. Total of
> $90 for board, pwr supply, HDMI cable, wi-fi module, and case. Would need
> an MicroSD card with Linux and Erlang installed.
>
> Over the past year there have been a slew of such devices hitting the
> market and more coming.
>
> Can we get /software/hardware cos to help sponsor the effort?
>
> Best,
>
> Lloyd
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Ferenc Holzhauser" <ferenc.holzhauser@REDACTED>
> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 1:30pm
> To: "Tony Rogvall" <tony@REDACTED>
> Cc: "erlang-questions@REDACTED" <erlang-questions@REDACTED>
> Subject: Re: [erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters
>
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
> Robotics is really nice but in this case accessibility is even nicer. It is
> great if kids can play after class too with interesting things without
> having to put items of fairly significant value (for some) on their
> <whatever present giving thing comes up next> wishlist. These days a
> computer with internet access can be a fascinatingly accessible way of
> creativity. An idea could be to make a simple game backend to compete with
> their friends and fellow students (e.g. a 2d tank shooting game or
> something). Eventually with chat and similar functions to add. Then the
> teacher could make things go wrong on the server(s) that they'd need to fix
> (distribute/scale/fail over) depending on their progress. You could lure
> them into AI like things too if you fancy. I'm sure someone with the skills
> (e.g. SVG/ezwebframe) and time could make some simple client "building
> blocks" work for something like this.
>
>
> On 16 June 2014 18:12, Tony Rogvall <tony@REDACTED> wrote:
>
> >
> > On 16 jun 2014, at 13:55, Mark Nijhof <mark.nijhof@REDACTED>
> > wrote:
> >
> > +1 on this, this rings very true to home. But I also believe that it
> needs
> > to return results quickly. I.e. building a game is great, but if they
> have
> > to "code" for days before they see something happen then they loose
> > interest (assumption). So preparing "building blocks" might be a good
> > approach and have them first implement higher level stuff and then step
> by
> > step dig deeper and implement the building blocks you prepared.
> >
> > An other exercise I planned is to program a drone (not sure about the
> > language there yet) to fly an obstacle course. So they see it is not just
> > something that happens on their iPads ;)
> >
> > You program drone in Erlang of course :-)
> >
> > https://github.com/tonyrog/edrone
> >
> > /Tony
> >
> > -Mark
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya <
> > mahesh@REDACTED> wrote:
> >
> >> The most important thing here I believe is to have a nice collection of
> >>> simple tasks/problems that are appealing to the target audience and
> best
> >>> (easiest/nicest) solved in Erlang.
> >>
> >> Amen!
> >> The least relevant part of teaching kids programming is the syntax, or
> >> the choice of language - they don't, and won't, give a s**t about it.
> >> As a simple thought experiment, just look at how you raised your kids in
> >> a multi-lingual environment (yes my American brethren, this is hard.
> >> Pretend :-)  )  Notice how they - fluidly - bounce across languages,
> >> massacring every grammar rule ever, but quite happily making sure that
> you
> >> understand that "I amn't going to eat pea, ನಾನು ತಿನ್ನಲ್ಲ, ನಾನು ತಿನ್ನಲ್ಲ,
> >> odio odio odio la piselli, i don't wanna, where is my red truck?"
> >> Mind you, they will pick up the rules over time, but the key here is the
> >> importance of the problem at hand ("How To Avoid Eating Peas") - the
> more
> >> immediately relevant it is to the young 'uns, the more rapidly they will
> >> pick up the tools, the specifics of the language be damned.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 6:55 AM, Ferenc Holzhauser <
> >> ferenc.holzhauser@REDACTED> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The most important thing here I believe is to have a nice collection of
> >>> simple tasks/problems that are appealing to the target audience and
> best
> >>> (easiest/nicest) solved in Erlang. That's a bit of a challenge
> considering
> >>> that Erlang is created to solve problems that are rather "industrial"
> and
> >>> most people "from outside" can't really relate to. If the audience is
> not
> >>> comfortable with understanding the problem itself then it is tricky to
> make
> >>> them understand/like the solution too.
> >>>
> >>> This we can see with many new people getting into Erlang: The problems
> >>> they are given are new and difficult to understand. So they often just
> go
> >>> off and eagerly try to solve all sort of issues they are familiar with
> >>> (even when they are not relevant in the particular case) before even
> trying
> >>> to understand what the real challenge is. Then they start complaining
> that
> >>> Erlang is not very good for some/many of those issues they are busy
> with.
> >>>
> >>> And other way around: people coming to Erlang with the right
> >>> understanding of the problem area it is made for find it amazingly
> simple
> >>> to learn.
> >>>
> >>> Coming from the wrong (or right ?) background my imagination fails to
> >>> come up with these appealing challenges for the youngster target
> group, but
> >>> I'm sure many of you can do much better.
> >>>
> >>> Ferenc
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 16 June 2014 11:31, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@REDACTED>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Garrett Smith wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 9:51 AM, Torben Hoffmann
> >>>>> <torben.hoffmann@REDACTED> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -snip-
> >>>>>
> >>>>>  I think that a learning resource focused on teaching people the
> >>>>>> Erlang model from the
> >>>>>> ground up would be a great improvement. A clear narrative around how
> >>>>>> do we solve a
> >>>>>> problem the Erlang way. Teaching the basic constructs is not the
> >>>>>> problem.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> My initial target for such a learning resources would be young
> people
> >>>>>> in the higher
> >>>>>> grades of elementary school, say 12-15 years. Why? Because I want to
> >>>>>> influence them
> >>>>>> before their minds are totally corrupted by other programming
> models.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I don't think we would have to dumb anything down in particular for
> >>>>>> this group - we
> >>>>>> just have to find a cool example and organise the learning around
> how
> >>>>>> to become so
> >>>>>> good that one can solve such a problem.
> >>>>>> Some sort of game will probably be the best candidate, say, some
> sort
> >>>>>> of Transport
> >>>>>> Tycoon clone?!?!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> I don't have enough experience teaching programming to this age group
> >>>>> to provide anything more than a hunch. But I suspect that the Erlang
> >>>>> way, which is hard enough for very seasoned programmers to grok,
> might
> >>>>> be a bit ambitious for these young learners.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'm speaking in particular about the model that emerges when you
> >>>>> isolate processes. It changes everything: your approach to building
> >>>>> software (move from state oriented to activity oriented), error
> >>>>> handling (move from defensive measures to assertive/let-it-crash),
> >>>>> program structure (from monolith to system), and so on. The benefits
> >>>>> of this shift are hard to get across, in my experience anyway. I wish
> >>>>> it wasn't, or I wish I was better at communicating.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> I'm with the folks who suggest that this group has fewer
> >>>> pre-conceptions to unlearn.
> >>>>
> >>>> It strikes me that the actor model is far more natural for certain
> >>>> classes of problems - network code, simulation, and gaming come to
> mind.
> >>>>  It's simply conceptually easier to think in terms of LOTS of
> independent
> >>>> processes.
> >>>>
> >>>> Miles Fidelman
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> >>>> In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> erlang-questions mailing list
> >>>> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> >>>> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> erlang-questions mailing list
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> >>> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> * Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
> >> <http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/204a87f81a0d9764c1f3364f53e8facf.png>
> That
> >> tall bald Indian guy..*
> >> * Google+ <https://plus.google.com/u/0/108074935470209044442/posts>
> >> | Blog <http://dieswaytoofast.blogspot.com/>   | Twitter
> >> <https://twitter.com/dieswaytoofast>  | LinkedIn
> >> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/dieswaytoofast> *
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mark Nijhof
> > t:   @MarkNijhof <https://twitter.com/MarkNijhof>
> > s:  marknijhof
> >
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> >
> >
> > "Installing applications can lead to corruption over time. Applications
> > gradually write over each other's libraries, partial upgrades occur, user
> > and system errors happen, and minute changes may be unnoticeable and
> > difficult to fix"
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
>
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