Asp Forum - Ruby for Kids?

John Doe

12/12/2006 2:25:00 AM

I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
syntax.

24 Answers

Sebastia

12/12/2006 2:35:00 AM

On 2006-12-11 20:24:37 -0600, Kerry Stevenson <nobody@nowhere.com> said:

> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
> syntax.

"Learn To Progam"[1] from the Pragmatic Programmers might be a good
fit. While not specifically a Ruby book per se, it uses Ruby examples
to teach programming basics.

Sebastian

[1] http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_ltp/...

Jeff_M

12/12/2006 3:28:00 AM

Kerry Stevenson wrote:
> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
> syntax.

You know, to be honest with you, I would start them off with something
more like PHP. It seems like younger kids like to do stuff with web
pages, and it might be fun.

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

12/12/2006 5:28:00 AM

Sebastian wrote:
> On 2006-12-11 20:24:37 -0600, Kerry Stevenson <nobody@nowhere.com> said:
>
>> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
>> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
>> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
>> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
>> syntax.
>
> "Learn To Progam"[1] from the Pragmatic Programmers might be a good
> fit. While not specifically a Ruby book per se, it uses Ruby examples
> to teach programming basics.
>
> Sebastian
>
> [1] http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_ltp/...
How young are we talking here? I'm sure we've covered this adequately,
but for elementary school "kids" I'd recommend Logo over Ruby. But once
we are talking early teens, Ruby is probably a good choice, and "Learn
To Program" is probably not going to tax them too badly. I think I could
have handled "Learn To Program" at 13. Of course, I was earning my
living as a programmer when I was 19, so I may have been atypical. :)

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blo...

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.

Mike Shock

12/12/2006 5:41:00 AM

Jeff_M wrote:
> You know, to be honest with you, I would start them off with something
> more like PHP. It seems like younger kids like to do stuff with web
> pages, and it might be fun.
>
IMHO, even if i'ts suggested to start playing with web pages, it's still
better for children to get used to a general-purpose and OOP language,
not a specialised one like PHP. Ruby (or even Java) can easily serve as
a toy tool for web-page-playing but later it'll be the solid a nd
"proper" ground for a deeper study of programing.

Mike Shock

James Britt

12/12/2006 5:55:00 AM

Jeff_M wrote:
> Kerry Stevenson wrote:
>> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
>> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
>> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
>> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
>> syntax.
>
> You know, to be honest with you, I would start them off with something
> more like PHP. It seems like younger kids like to do stuff with web
> pages, and it might be fun.

Be careful: Many locales have laws against just this sort of child abuse.

--
James Britt

"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing."
- A. Perlis

Keith Nicholas

12/12/2006 7:16:00 AM

what would be good is something like KPL
(http://www.kidsprogramminglan...) but built around ruby

On 12/12/06, James Britt <james.britt@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jeff_M wrote:
> > Kerry Stevenson wrote:
> >> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> >> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> >> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
> >> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
> >> syntax.
> >
> > You know, to be honest with you, I would start them off with something
> > more like PHP. It seems like younger kids like to do stuff with web
> > pages, and it might be fun.
>
> Be careful: Many locales have laws against just this sort of child abuse.
>
> --
> James Britt
>
> "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
> not worth knowing."
> - A. Perlis
>
>

Bil Kleb

12/12/2006 3:41:00 PM

Kerry Stevenson wrote:
> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> anything before.

My 7 year old is enjoying /Learn to Program/,

http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titl...

See also, http://pine.fm/Learn...

Later,
--
Bil Kleb
http://fun3d.lar...

Richard Conroy

12/12/2006 6:00:00 PM

On 12/12/06, Bil Kleb <Bil.Kleb@nasa.gov> wrote:
> Kerry Stevenson wrote:
> > I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> > that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> > anything before.
>
> My 7 year old is enjoying /Learn to Program/,
>
> http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titl...
>
> See also, http://pine.fm/Learn...

I had a flick through Chris Pine's book and I do like it. (Girlfriend & Dad have
expressed interests in programming - they didn't see that Christmas
present coming)

I have one thing to say though - you could be setting their expectations
artificially high. Some of the pleasure I get from writing Ruby is because
my background is in the commercial languages. I can appreciate what
Ruby gives me.

Christian Neukirchen

12/13/2006 9:43:00 PM

"Keith Nicholas" <keith.nicholas@gmail.com> writes:

> what would be good is something like KPL
> (http://www.kidsprogramminglan...) but built around ruby
>
[...]
>> "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
>> not worth knowing."
>> - A. Perlis

=> "Gah! Programming sucks!" }:-)

--
Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com> http://chneuk...

gga

12/13/2006 11:10:00 PM

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky ha escrito:

> Sebastian wrote:
> > On 2006-12-11 20:24:37 -0600, Kerry Stevenson <nobody@nowhere.com> said:
> >
> >> I am wondering if there is a Ruby resource (book, web pages, whatever)
> >> that would be suitable to teach a child who has never programmed
> >> anything before. The pickaxe book, while a terrific resource, seems to
> >> assume at least some basic knowledge of programming and language
> >> syntax.
> >
> > "Learn To Progam"[1] from the Pragmatic Programmers might be a good
> > fit. While not specifically a Ruby book per se, it uses Ruby examples
> > to teach programming basics.
> >
> > Sebastian
> >
> > [1] http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_ltp/...
> How young are we talking here? I'm sure we've covered this adequately,
> but for elementary school "kids" I'd recommend Logo over Ruby. But once
> we are talking early teens, Ruby is probably a good choice, and "Learn
> To Program" is probably not going to tax them too badly. I think I could
> have handled "Learn To Program" at 13. Of course, I was earning my
> living as a programmer when I was 19, so I may have been atypical. :)
>

For what it is worth, I'd recommend just Ruby and "Learn to Program" as
excellent from the excerpts I just read.
As a background: I learned programming as a kid and I *DID* try Logo
which I found extremely frustrating and limiting (this was in primary
school, age 8 or so) compared to BASIC, which I had already learned on
my own. The kidslanguage someone else suggested is BASIC, done
Microsoft style, which is WAY too verbose compared to ruby.

Now, one of the most boring things about programming books is that they
have exercises and those exercises are usually plainly boring.

To keep a kid interesting in programming.... one sure thing will do it:
games. The cooler, the better.

My suggestion:

Download SDL/OpenGL for ruby. I'm sure you'll be able to find some
games for them somewhere. Do NOT show the game to your kid. Now, I'll
tell what to do with it. But I'll tell you why first...

The way I learned how to code was by typing in code taken from
magazines which contained games written in BASIC (there, I just dated
myself :), as you could not buy software in my time where I lived, but
you could buy magazines that had code in them.
You can obviously not do that now, but you CAN download some games, go
through their source code and introduce some bugs in them. Then give
them to your kid to fix the code.
Not only will he learn how to debug code (and learn how to program in
the process), but he'll love it, as in the end he'll have a working
game to entertain himself with.

As for web stuff... ruby can do it and WAY better than PHP. Your kid
won't miss it.

comp.lang.ruby

Ruby for Kids?