From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,71d1fdde81c072f8
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: "Robert I. Eachus" <eachus@mitre.org>
Subject: Re: Computer Programming for Everybody?
Date: 1999/09/14
Message-ID: <37DED9FE.9A882C2C@mitre.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 525184372
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <7rbkm4$pn6$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <7rikv9$ibg3@ftp.kvaerner.com>
 <7rjceh$92t@dfw-ixnews15.ix.netcom.com>
X-Accept-Language: en
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.mitre.org
X-Trace: top.mitre.org 937351412 13035 129.83.41.77 (14 Sep 1999 23:23:32 GMT)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Mime-Version: 1.0
NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Sep 1999 23:23:32 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-09-14T23:23:32+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Richard D Riehle wrote:
  
> The important thing is not the choice of language.
 
    I seriously disagree.  There are two very valid reasons for teaching
a second language to young children.  The first is to insure that they
are (at least) bilingual.  The second is to "break the mold" of
believing that the map is the territory.  This requires that there are
concepts that are (easily) expressible in the second language and not
the first.

    By this standard, APL, Scheme, Ada, and Python are all good choices,
BASIC and LOGO are very bad.  (My daughter learned APL and French as a
child, and Ada later.  My son learned Ada as a child.)

>                                                       Rather, it is
> that these young students learn something about problem solving with
> software abstraction. We all learn to "put away childish things"
> as we grow older and these students will adopt more sophisticated
> tools as they progress through their education.  I am not convinced
> that Ada is appropriate at this level of learning. I am absolutely
> certain that languages such as C, C++, and Java are not suitable.

-- 

                                        Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...