Just a Thought

Just a Thought

[Georg Maubach]

Hi All,

in the last years efforts have been made to make programming easier and 
understandble by kids.

What if we would apply this approach to the Ada programming language? 
This means that we could write programs using icons and put together the 
commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to easier programming, 
faster bug fixing and better programs.

What do you think?

Best regards

Georg Maubach

References:
(English)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/About_Scratch
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/articleimages.php?
id=11403&iframe=true&width=378&height=378
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/images/article_images/
tn/200908311112544914.jpg
http://mindstorms.lego.com/overview/NXT_Software.aspx
(German)
http://www.nxt-in-der-schule.de/lego-mindstorms-education-nxt-system/nxt-
software/nxt-education-software
http://www.clt-st.de/produkte-losungen/dialogos/ubersicht/
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(Programmiersprache)

Re: Just a Thought

[tmoran]

> This means that we could write programs using icons and put together the
> commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to easier programming,
> faster bug fixing and better programs.
  Sort of like WYSIWYG editors have led to faster writing, fewer errors,
and better literature?

Re: Just a Thought

[Rick]

On Nov 13, 4:07 pm, tmo...@acm.org wrote:

>   Sort of like WYSIWYG editors have led to faster writing, fewer errors,
> and better literature?

Don't you mean, "fasta ritin, fuer erras, und beta litritcha"?

Programming is done in the head, not on a computer.

Re: Just a Thought

[jpwoodruff]

On Nov 13, 12:07 am, tmo...@acm.org wrote:
> > This means that we could write programs using icons and put together the
> > commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to easier programming,
> > faster bug fixing and better programs.
>
>   Sort of like WYSIWYG editors have led to faster writing, fewer errors,
> and better literature?

Well, two out of three ain't bad
faster:  certainly faster than *my* pencil;
fewer :  superior to white-out;
better:  still working on that...

John

Re: Just a Thought

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Georg Maubach wrote:

> in the last years efforts have been made to make programming easier
> and understandble by kids.
>
> What if we would apply this approach to the Ada programming
> language?  This means that we could write programs using icons and
> put together the commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to
> easier programming, faster bug fixing and better programs.

If it should make sense, it should be possible to convert programs
both ways.  Typical tools of this kind are just ordinary one-way
compilers.

My experience with these "easier" and "understandable" programming
tools (Labview and NXT) is that they are neither.  Or rather; they
only make a _very_ limited subset of programming easier and
understandable.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
Rent-a-Minion Inc. Because good help is so hard to find.

Re: Just a Thought

[Peter Hermann]

something like

http://www.processing.org/learning/

?

Re: Just a Thought

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 13 Nov 2009 06:35:25 GMT, Georg Maubach wrote:

> What if we would apply this approach to the Ada programming language? 
> This means that we could write programs using icons and put together the 
> commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to easier programming, 
> faster bug fixing and better programs.

This wouldn't. Graphical interfaces lack precision, clarity and safety. Try
to hit a pixel with the mouse. Try to formalize "two images are same". 

Being graphic is not an advantage, it is a disadvantage. Raw visual input
is just too much to handle for any computing system, human brain included.
This is why certain forms of noise reduction evolved, starting from
primitive pictogram and ending with highly specialized scripts. Ada is such
a script.

The point is, it is a novel form of expression, which may justify the
interface being graphic. (E.g. to show the package specification and body
in two separate windows.) Not the reverse.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Just a Thought

[sjw]

On Nov 13, 6:35 am, Georg Maubach <nob...@nowhere.org> wrote:

> in the last years efforts have been made to make programming easier and
> understandble by kids.
>
> What if we would apply this approach to the Ada programming language?
> This means that we could write programs using icons and put together the
> commands in a graphical manner. This would lead to easier programming,
> faster bug fixing and better programs.

Most of the children in the classes I hear of (girls about 10)
consider they've done OK if they can get Mindstorms to drive a robot
fron one side of the room to another while playing a merry tune.

Personally I think the school are to be congratulated on running a
class with real physical models; it'd be so easy to use virtual models
instead, and the children'd lose all that peskiness of real stuff.