[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

[Garrett Smith]

This feels healthy to me.

I would like to test this, personally. I think we can all learn from
trying to teach -- first hand experience is better than... what was
that word again? Conject...

I'll see if the Chicago User Group can put together a meeting
specifically to look at this topic. While it's not kids in the room,
our community in Chicago is very thoughtful and very polyglot. We'll
get some data.

I have a nine year old whose life exists almost exclusively of
Minecraft. It's disturbing. But I think I can get him to learn some
programming skills through this. I'll be interested to see what he
thinks of this stuff. Somehow I see him getting scarred for life, but
I'll at least learn something from it.

But back to this topic of languages... Elixir and its community
represent a great opportunity to learn. I agree whole heartedly with
Peer that Erlang itself should take important steps to improve its
rate of adoption. I agree that we should not concede usability,
grokability, awesomeness to Elixir. But Darach's point on diversity
trumps all of this. IMO we need to try stuff, even if that stuff is
wrong. Rejecting something is just as valuable as accepting something,
assuming you understand clearly why you reject.

I'll personally be crushed if "def ... end" turns out to be more
understandable for young learners. Crushed. But I don't see the harm
in measuring.

On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 6:51 AM, Peer Stritzinger <peerst@REDACTED> wrote:
> Oh I fully admit I just wrote conjectures myself.  Thats what I intended to.
>
>
> Also I don't say that the Elixir community should try out teaching Elixir to
> children.
>
>
> I just don't see any value for the Erlang community in this and I personally
> have the opinion that Erlang is easier to learn as first language than
> Elixir.   The thread started triggered by Garetts talk about what needs to
> be improved about Erlang and its community.
>
>
> To get more inflow into the Erlang community one way was suggested be to
> teach kids Erlang or something more kid friendly based on Erlang.
>
>
> Then all kinds of opinion is stated that we should teach kids Elixir because
> somehow people think its clear to be easier learnt by children than Erlang
> which kind of irks me because I totally don't get why that shoud be true.
> But somehow its thought "obvious".
>
>
> So moving back to the initial questions Garett looked at in his talk.
>
>
> If teaching Elixir to kids is the solution to rescue the Erlang community,
> can anyone please explain to me how that is going to work out for Erlang?
> For me its say, ok Erlang is screwed anyway and we should just give up and
> hand over anything to Elixir.  Which probably wouldn't do so well if Erlang
> dies off and the VM is no longer actively developed.
>
>
> Fortunately this is not going to happen soon since Ericson and a bunch of
> others are busy making money from using Erlang.
>
>
> But what does this make of Garetts findings?
>
>
> Look at them, shrug and teach kids Elixir?
>
>
> Maybe one of the problems of the Erlang community is that we have low self
> esteem?  If all solutions we can think of is moving away from Erlang.
>
>
> On 2014-06-20 10:28:47 +0000, José Valim said:
>
>
> This thread would be much more interesting without all the unproven
> conjectures that Elixir is obviously the better choice to teach to children.
>
> Peer, why not hold your e-mails to the same criteria you expect from the
> whole thread? Btw, a conjecture is by definition unproven.
>
> I disagree.  Elixir is a much worse choice to teach to children, because its
> not a simple language anmore.
>
> Conjecture.
>
>
> No not a conjecure even: opinion I would rather say, clearly indicated by
> the intro "I disagree"
>
>
> Experience comes with time and trying. If nobody tries, we will never know.
>
>
> By all means do!
>
>
> Also if you are saying Elixir is "just Ruby" then why not count all the
> initiatives that actually teach Ruby to children in its favor?
>
>
> Didn' say "Elixir is just Ruby" and won't ever because it clearly isn't.
>
>
> I said I see it easier to learn for someone comming from a Ruby background.
>
>
>
> * http://ruby4kids.com/ruby4kids
>
> * http://www.kidsruby.com
>
>
> I have been to Ruby conferences where we had rooms full of children being
> taught Ruby. Or should they all be considered the devil's work and the
> teachers burned at the stake?
>
>
> Of course not and I don't see what this has to do with the discussion.
>
>
> Except ask ourself: where are those rooms full of children at the Erlang
> conferences?
>
>
> Elixir is mainly appealing to either people comming from Ruby or just for
> pop culture value (as is Ruby itself).
>
> Conjecture(s).
>
>
> No, opinion.
>
>
> What advantage does metaprogramming have for teaching kids?
>
> Yes, I bet the second chapter of a future "Elixir for Kids" book is about
> meta-programming.
>
>
> Well besides the different syntax, metaprogramming is whats sold as one
> Elixirs advantages isn't it?
>
>
> So if we ignore metaprogramming because it woun't be taught in this "Elixir
> for Kids" book all that remains as difference is the syntax.
>
>
> So the question is which syntax is easier to teach to someone with no
> background in other programming language syntax and why do people think
> Elixirs is easier for kids than Erlang?
>
>
> ========
>
>
> Note I am not saying at any point that Elixir is better or worse. I would be
> glad to see people trying and kids playing with it.
>
>
> I won't mind whatever language my kid chooses when learning to program, I'll
> just be happy he's doing it. I got really interested in programming with
> ActionScript because at the time I was playing with creating animations in
> Macromedia Flash and then I found out I could really do a lot of interesting
> stuff by using a programming language instead of relying on the GUI. I
> didn't care if the language was functional, OO, the syntax it used for
> defining functions, or whatever.
>
>
> The worst we could do to future programmers is to actually ingrain the idea
> there is one true solution in software.
>
>
> There we definitely agree.
>
>
> Its hypothetical anyway because who in the Erlang community would actually
> build this Erlang for Kids thing?  Who wants to put in the resources?  Where
> is our Lifelong Kindergarden with Erlang MIT Media lab like thing?
>
>
>
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