<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi,</div><div><br></div>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. <div>Nothing wrong with that at this (brainstorm) stage of the discussion indeed. It should only be appreciated.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Important thing to consider in my opinion is the distraction factor of these accessibility/coolness helpers from the original goal of teaching Erlang. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div>
<div>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. </div><div>Like building blocks indeed.</div><div><br></div>
<div>Ferenc</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><br></div></div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 20 June 2014 09:22, Peer Stritzinger <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:peerst@gmail.com" target="_blank">peerst@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<u></u>
<div>
<p>This thread would be much more interesting without all the unproven conjectures that Elixir is obviously the better choice to teach to children.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>I disagree.<span> </span>Elixir is a much worse choice to teach to children, because its not a simple language anmore.<span> </span>There have been several people teaching Prolog and also Erlang to children.<span> </span>So far there is no experience teaching Elixir to the same group.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Elixir is mainly appealing to either people comming from Ruby or just for pop culture value (as is Ruby itself).</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Why does anybody think this makes it mor suitable to teach to kids?<span> </span>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? <span> </span></p>
<p><br></p>
<p>What advantage does metaprogramming have for teaching kids?</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Having syntax for rebinding variables?</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>This is all cruft for teaching the actual things.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Just picked this one mention to Elixir as an example:</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p>On 2014-06-16 12:29:32 +0000, Darach Ennis said:</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>A good introductory language is scratch (<a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank"><span>http://scratch.mit.edu/</span></a>)</p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>I agree, so why not build something Scratch like on top of Erlang?</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p>followed by Python (from about 7 years of age depending on the child, python works very well, the strict syntax is a benefit too).</p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>Erlang has a strict syntax too so it would have the same advantage.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>[... more stuff I agree with detelted]</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p>With a basic feel for logic, structure and feedback from programming tools (with assistance) then Erlang would be a good next step.<span> </span></p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>Still agree.</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p>Torben is probably right with respect to age group by setting it</p>
<p>to mid high school level.</p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>I think much too old but maybe its right</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p><span> </span>Elixir, also, would probably be an easier language to teach and to learn</p>
<p>with fringe benefits (namely learning Elixir) for some of us...</p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>And the argument goes off the rails completely for me:</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>WHY???</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>This is contradictory to what you said before about Python.<span> </span>Elixirs syntax is more barroque and why in the world is it easier to learn than Erlang syntax (except for Ruby programmers)??</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Where is the proof?</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Proofs by pop culture not accepted.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>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.</p><div class="">
<p><br></p>
<p>On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya <span><<a href="mailto:mahesh@dieswaytoofast.com" target="_blank"><span>mahesh@dieswaytoofast.com</span></a>></span> wrote:</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>Amen!</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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, <span>ನಾನು</span> <span>ತಿನ್ನಲ್ಲ</span>, <span>ನಾನು</span> <span>ತಿನ್ನಲ್ಲ</span>, odio odio odio la piselli, i don't wanna, where is my red truck?"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><br></p>
</div><p>100% agree!</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>And BTW this is the Erlang channel, why would we work on our own demise by teaching all these kids Elixir??<span> </span>How would this help the problems Garett was mentioning?</p>
<p><br></p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>-- Peer</p>
</div>
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