[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

[Ferenc Holzhauser]

Hi,

I think this is when enthusiast and committed people are only trying to
help and find entry points to learning/teaching Erlang based on their own
experience and interest.
Nothing wrong with that at this (brainstorm) stage of the discussion
indeed. It should only be appreciated.

Important thing to consider in my opinion is the distraction factor of
these accessibility/coolness helpers from the original goal of teaching
Erlang.

e.g. you probably don't want to start your class with giving the youngsters
a LEGO Mindstorm kit to build a robot that they'll eventually program in
Erlang. You won't get there. For youngsters (and I bet most adults) the fun
factor of doing that is immensely greater than some weird programming
language some guy want to teach them. They can get a simple GUI thing from
the internet anyway that makes their robot move the way they want.

It is quite obvious that since Erlang does not really come with these cool
things, we'll need to borrow other technologies (as suggested by many) to
make it look more interesting.

These however should be abstracted away as much as possible in a way that
students will not have the slightest temptation during the class to look
into those.
Like building blocks indeed.

Ferenc





On 20 June 2014 09:22, Peer Stritzinger <peerst@REDACTED> wrote:

>  This thread would be much more interesting without all the unproven
> conjectures that Elixir is obviously the better choice to teach to children.
>
>
> I disagree.  Elixir is a much worse choice to teach to children, because
> its not a simple language anmore.  There have been several people
> teaching Prolog and also Erlang to children.  So far there is no
> experience teaching Elixir to the same group.
>
>
> Elixir is mainly appealing to either people comming from Ruby or just for
> pop culture value (as is Ruby itself).
>
>
> Why does anybody think this makes it mor suitable to teach to kids?  Why
> talk about not corrupting them with OOP ideas when teaching them
> programming and at the same time corruping them with crufty Ruby like
> syntax i.e. the syntax of a OOP language?
>
>
> What advantage does metaprogramming have for teaching kids?
>
>
> Having syntax for rebinding variables?
>
>
> This is all cruft for teaching the actual things.
>
>
> Just picked this one mention to Elixir as an example:
>
>
> On 2014-06-16 12:29:32 +0000, Darach Ennis said:
>
>
> A good introductory language is scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/)
>
>
> I agree, so why not build something Scratch like on top of Erlang?
>
>
> followed by Python (from about 7 years of age depending on the child,
> python works very well, the strict syntax is a benefit too).
>
>
> Erlang has a strict syntax too so it would have the same advantage.
>
>
> [... more stuff I agree with detelted]
>
>
> With a basic feel for logic, structure and feedback from programming tools
> (with assistance) then Erlang would be a good next step.
>
>
> Still agree.
>
>
> Torben is probably right with respect to age group by setting it
>
> to mid high school level.
>
>
> I think much too old but maybe its right
>
>
>  Elixir, also, would probably be an easier language to teach and to learn
>
> with fringe benefits (namely learning Elixir) for some of us...
>
>
> And the argument goes off the rails completely for me:
>
>
> WHY???
>
>
> This is contradictory to what you said before about Python.  Elixirs
> syntax is more barroque and why in the world is it easier to learn than
> Erlang syntax (except for Ruby programmers)??
>
>
> Where is the proof?
>
>
> Proofs by pop culture not accepted.
>
>
> BTW what languages are *in* today won't matter for these kids because all
> pop culture languages will be *out* when those kids you teach them will be
> in their twenties.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> 100% agree!
>
>
> And BTW this is the Erlang channel, why would we work on our own demise by
> teaching all these kids Elixir??  How would this help the problems Garett
> was mentioning?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Peer
>
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