Reply to post: Re: Author comment -- could you lot miss the point any more widely?

From Zero to hero: Why mini 'puter Oberon should grab Pi's crown

alcalde

Re: Author comment -- could you lot miss the point any more widely?

Wow. This is like a doctor blaming his patients because he administered the right treatment and they simply refused to get better.

If none one got the point of the article, the fault rests with the author who failed to convey it.

Virtually none of the argument made here is present anywhere in the article originally posted.

>We should start over, using the lessons we have learned.

No one's clamoring for a new operating system, so once again, you're going to need to make a case for that.

> We should give kids something small, fast, simple, clean, efficient.

We do... Linux on Raspberry Pi. Young kids are not going to be dissecting the operating system of any equipment they're running and they've been using computers since they could walk anyway. My nephew taught me how to launch applications on an Android phone when he was between 2 and 3.

If kids do want to learn about the operating system they can go as far as "Linux From Scratch" and compile their entire operating system themselves from source code, and then eventually use "Beyond Linux From Scratch" to really make it their own. There are plenty of nice, tiny Linux distros such as Puppy if you want something simple and graphical for kids.

I'm just not seeing where this sudden zeal comes from for building entirely new operating systems with entirely new languages just to teach kids how to code or how computers work.

In the end, what this article was really about - i.e. what the text within it actually talked about - was a $140 computer that runs a fringe OS that doesn't run any software other than its own. Maybe a better subject would have been what the heck they're thinking and, Pascal fan though I am, how the rest of Wirth's career has been like a one-hit wonder trying to recapture the magic as he keeps releasing slight retreads of his original language.

In regards to teaching kids using real-world tools - few people, kids or not, want to learn something they can't use in the real world (that includes theory). They're not going to get excited about using a language or OS that leaves them with the skills to produce nothing useful. Now if they can take what they're learned and program software for their smart phones - they're going to be much more excited.

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