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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">12.07.2018 23:48, Chris Smith wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">This is a good question, and I think it depends on
your goals.
<div><br>
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<div>If your goal is to inspire interest and attract children to
programming, then you are best served by making it obvious
what can and can't be done, and making it very difficult to
make a mistake. Some visual languages are very good at this,
and Scratch, for example, is a good example. Going even
further, Scratch and similar languages are often used in
situations where the students can do literally anything, and
*something* interesting happens, inspiring that spark of
excitement and feeling of "I did that!" This is a magical
moment, and it can change lives.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On the other hand, building new skills is the point of
educating. Avoiding the need for new skills means avoiding
the opportunity to learn. Children often still struggle with
precise perception. I've seen plenty of students as old as 12
to 13 who literally cannot see whether there's a comma in an
expression, or whether a word is spelled "ie" or "ei", without
extreme measures like covering the surrounding text. Their
brain just skips over these concerns. Of course, they
struggle in mathematics, and also basic language and
communication. Once again, one can avoid the problem and try
to help them to be successful </div>
</div>
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<br>
Yes! Even more, mature brain has such selectivity too :)<br>
We can miss something totally, because most people are thinking in
traditional, standard ways (something like good known roads) and
will not take new knowledge but will dispute with new knowledge and
to try to ignore it or "destroy it mentally", but this is a slightly
different disease ;)<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAPq5PvLSBQ0K7J-9Qqc_q6_3FFnGc=-6GVfsJMNEYG3et_q22g@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>without needing that skill, which a visual language is
great at. But of course, they ultimately do need the skill in
order to communicate in the first place! So there's also
value in placing them in an environment where they need to
learn it. When making this decision, though, it's important
to focus on skills that are truly necessary, and not (for
example) remembering what order to write "public static void
main" in their Java programs.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 2:16 PM Paul <<a
href="mailto:aquagnu@gmail.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">aquagnu@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
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<div
class="m_6443889947064198720m_719094224839084040gmail-m_1117928639085754737WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Wooow! Yes!!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But today
there is serious competition (Smalltalk, Python; I
planned Scratch – but it’s for children of 7-9
years). I thing you are good teacher </span><span
style="font-family:"Segoe UI
Emoji",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB">😊</span><span
lang="EN-GB"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Btw, what do
you think: what is better – textual programming or
visual programming for children? For me, Labview/G
was insight in 90s </span><span
style="font-family:"Segoe UI
Emoji",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB">😊</span><span
lang="EN-GB"> Today there is Luna language – it’s
visual too. IMHO visual programming better
illustrates ideas/concepts, or?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;padding:0cm"><b>From:
</b><a href="mailto:cdsmith@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Chris
Smith</a><br>
<b>Sent: </b>12 июля 2018 г. 21:00<br>
<b>To: </b><a href="mailto:aquagnu@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">aquagnu@gmail.com</a><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Haskell-cafe] Investing in
languages (Was: What is yourfavouriteHaskell "aha"
moment?)</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps you mean something fun
and visual like this? <a
href="https://code.world/#PhFFj32Bx0FcpQvvoVJW0xw"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://code.world/#PhFFj32Bx0FcpQvvoVJW0xw</a></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or this? <a
href="https://code.world/#PO1BKCj-kA9ztKKnE7rOueA"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://code.world/#PO1BKCj-kA9ztKKnE7rOueA</a></p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are written in the
simplified variant of Haskell that I teach,
which uses a custom Prelude that skips type
classes and other advanced features, uses
rebindable syntax to simplify types (for
example, you'll see Number instead of Int,
Double, etc.), and automatically provides
graphics functions that work in the browser.</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 1:54
PM Paul <<a href="mailto:aquagnu@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">aquagnu@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hmm,
Chris, thanks for answer. Interesting. I
was surprised when I first learned that
someone somewhere is teaching the children
to Haskell, but if you say so – then it’s
possible and may be it’s good! </span><span
style="font-family:"Segoe UI
Emoji",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB">😊</span><span
lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Sometimes
children don’t like right things, but like
fun. So, I though that more preferable to
show them some bright demo: UI, graphics,
some simple games, databases, to rise the
interest, you know – this feeling of first
code. First “wooow! It works!!!” </span><span
style="font-family:"Segoe UI
Emoji",sans-serif" lang="EN-GB">😊</span><span
lang="EN-GB"> Haskell, for me, looks
pedantic, not for fun. May be I’m not
right, I have not such experience. </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From: </b><a
href="mailto:cdsmith@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Chris
Smith</a><br>
<b>Sent: </b>12 июля 2018 г. 19:59<br>
<b>To: </b><a
href="mailto:aquagnu@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">aquagnu@gmail.com</a><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Haskell-cafe]
Investing in languages (Was: What is
yourfavourite Haskell "aha" moment?)</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I'll answer this, since
I have been teaching Haskell to children
for six years or so. :)</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think it's
important to distinguish between Haskell
AS USED in most of the community, and
Haskell as it COULD be used. I agree
that you don't want to teach the first
of those to children. But Haskell is
still a great teaching choice, mainly
because GHC is so configurable that you
can create the environment you want, and
just build it with a Haskell compiler.
With GHC plugins, this is becoming even
more true, but it already arises from a
combination of (a) very lightweight and
intuitive core syntax in the first
place, (b) great support for custom
preludes, and (c) the RebindableSyntax
extension, and the fact that so much
syntax is defined in terms of
desugaring.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">If you're seriously
talking about teaching children, then
your concerns about web frameworks and
such are a bit silly. (Unless by
"children" you meant mid to late teens
and after, in which case this becomes
relevant.) "Advanced" type features are
also not particularly relevant (though
there's some fuzziness about what counts
as "advanced"; for instance, I've
recently decided it's better to teach
GADT syntax as the only option for
defining algebraic data types, even
though I never expect most students to
take advantage of the extra power of
GADTs.)</p>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">The main concern I
have with F#, though, is that the
semantics are far too complex. It has
all the power of a functional language,
but none of the semantic simplicity. If
students already struggle with
compositional programming (and they do),
they struggle even more when the
simplest way to understand what's going
on -- namely, substitution -- is taken
away from them. If you're going to
teach a computational model based on
sequencing actions on a global state
(the state being the screen, network,
etc.), then you might as well include
mutable variables in that global state,
and you might as well teach Python,
which will at least be more intuitive,
if not simpler.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Thu, Jul 12, 2018
at 7:46 AM PY <<a
href="mailto:aquagnu@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">aquagnu@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</p>
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<p>I am afraid that it can lead to flame
again, but F# has super-capacity: you
can check measuring units, type
providers, computation expressions,
active patterns, static/dynamic types
constraints, constraints on existing
method, etc... It's clean, borrows
some ideas from Haskell, some are
original and Haskell borrows them (but
with worse implementation). IMHO for
children teaching to FP F# is the
best. Even more, currently C# also has
a lot of FP features (<a
href="https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/blob/master/proposals/patterns.md#arithmetic-simplification"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/blob/master/proposals/patterns.md#arithmetic-simplification</a>
-- is not it super easy and beauty?).
Rust is more low level: you should
think about memory "management", OOP
has some problems... And serious
argument for children teaching: salary
trends (joke sure) :-) But you can
compare salary in F# and Haskell, for
example - people often choice language
after check current salaries in the
market. Also F# is more focused on
realistic tasks and business value. It
lacks performance, UWP yet (but in
progress)... To feel how F# is sexy
compare Web application written in
Websharper and in any Haskell
framework. Haskell is beauty but I'm
afraid its fate unfortunately will be
the same as one of Common Lisp,
NetBSD, etc - it's ground for ideas
and experiments and has disputable
design. Also it's more-more difficult
to teach children to Haskell than to
F#...</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="margin-bottom:12pt">IMHO is
general to teach FP is more easy than
to teach OOP if FP is not Haskell
(some language which targets more
eager/efficient/dynamic/real goals
instead of abstract types playing).</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">12.07.2018 13:28,
Vanessa McHale wrote:</p>
</div>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>I wouldn't say Rust has a large capacity for FP. I am not familiar with</pre>
<pre>F#. The thing that makes FP infeasible in Rust is not the lack of purity</pre>
<pre>but rather the fact that affine types make it difficult to treat</pre>
<pre>functions as first-class values.</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>On 07/12/2018 01:40 AM, Brett Gilio wrote:</pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>Tony,</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>I am curious on your attitude towards multi-paradigm and ML-like</pre>
<pre>languages. I agree that functional programming is easily the better of</pre>
<pre>the bundle in many forms of application logic and elegance (which is</pre>
<pre>why I have come to love Scheme and Haskell), but do you see any room</pre>
<pre>for those languages like F# or Rust which have large capacities for FP</pre>
<pre>but are either functional-first (but not pure) or a hybrid?</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>Brett Gilio</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>On 07/12/2018 01:35 AM, Tony Morris wrote:</pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre> I used to teach undergrad OOP nonsense. I have been teaching FP for 15</pre>
<pre>years. [^1]</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>The latter is *way* easier. Existing programmers are more difficult than</pre>
<pre>children, but still way easier to teach FP than all the other stuff.</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>[^1]: Canberra anyone? <a href="https://qfpl.io/posts/2018-canberra-intro-to-fp/" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://qfpl.io/posts/2018-canberra-intro-to-fp/</a></pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>On 07/12/2018 04:23 PM, Joachim Durchholz wrote:</pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>Am 11.07.2018 um 16:36 schrieb Damian Nadales:</pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre> </pre>
<pre>I speak only from my own narrow perspective. I'd say programming is</pre>
<pre>hard, but functional programming is harder.</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>Actually it's pretty much the opposite, I hear from teachers.</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>Maybe that's why Java replaced Haskell in some universities</pre>
<pre>curricula</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>The considerations are marketable skills.</pre>
<pre>A considerable fraction of students is looking at the curriculum and</pre>
<pre>at job offers, and if they find that the lists don't match, they will</pre>
<pre>go to another university.</pre>
<pre>Also, industry keeps lobbying for teaching skills that they can use.</pre>
<pre>Industry can give money to universities so this gives them influence</pre>
<pre>on the curriculum (and only if they get time to talk the topic over</pre>
<pre>with the dean). This aspect can vary considerably between countries,</pre>
<pre>depending on how much money the universities tend to acquire from</pre>
<pre>industry.</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre><a href="https://chrisdone.com/posts/dijkstra-haskell-java" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://chrisdone.com/posts/dijkstra-haskell-java</a>. For some reason</pre>
<pre>most programmers I know are not scared of learning OO, but they fear</pre>
<pre>functional programming.</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>Programmers were *very* scared of OO in the nineties. It took roughly</pre>
<pre>a decade or two (depending on where you put the starting point) to get</pre>
<pre>comfortable with OO.</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre> </pre>
</blockquote>
<pre> I think the reason might be that OO concepts</pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>like inheritance and passing messages between objects are a bit more</pre>
<pre>concrete and easier to grasp (when you present toy examples at least).</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>OO is about how to deal with having to pack everything into its own</pre>
<pre>class (and how to arrange stuff into classes).</pre>
<pre>Functional is about how to deal with the inability to update. Here,</pre>
<pre>the functional camp actually has the easier job, because you can just</pre>
<pre>tell people to just write code that creates new data objects and get</pre>
<pre>over with it. Performance concerns can be handwaved away by saying</pre>
<pre>that the compiler is hyper-aggressive, and "you can look at the</pre>
<pre>intermediate code if you suspect the compiler is the issue".</pre>
<pre>(Functional is a bit similar to SQL here, but the SQL optimizers are</pre>
<pre>much less competent than GHC at detecting optimization opportunities.)</pre>
<pre> </pre>
<blockquote
style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt">
<pre>Then you have design patterns, which have intuitive names and give</pre>
<pre>some very general guidelines that one can try after reading them (and</pre>
<pre>add his/her own personal twist). I doubt people can read the Monad</pre>
<pre>laws and make any sense out of them at the first try.</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre> </pre>
<pre>That's true, but much of the misconceptions around monads from the</pre>
<pre>first days have been cleared up.</pre>
<pre>But yes the monad laws are too hard to read. OTOH you won't be able to</pre>
<pre>read the Tree code in the JDK without the explanations either.</pre>
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