Hi, I'm also curious about this. Is a pure programming style like Haskell's less or more natural than an imperative mutable-state based one to kids without experience. I intuitively expect that for kids with a high-school background in mathematics would find the first more natural, but this is not based on any teaching experience. Does anyone have real-life experience with this or know of any related literature?
Thanks Dominique 2011/1/27 Vo Minh Thu <not...@gmail.com>: > Hi, > > You said "Haskell's immutability is good for mathematics but doing anything > else > takes a great deal of up-front patience and perseverance[...]" > > I guess it is true for imperative programmers... but are you saying > that about kids that just know how to use a calculator? > > Cheers, > Thu > > 2011/1/27 aditya siram <aditya.si...@gmail.com>: >> Ye gods! A B & D [1] language for kids? At least give them a fighting >> chance [2] at becoming future developers. >> >> Haskell's immutability is good for mathematics but doing anything else >> takes a great deal of up-front patience and perseverance, two very >> rare qualities in that demographic if my own childhood is any >> indication. >> >> BTW I want to be wrong so if you do succeed with this I will feast on >> crow with gusto. >> >> -deech >> >> [1] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BondageAndDisciplineLanguage >> [2] http://scratch.mit.edu/ >> >> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Chris Smith <cdsm...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> So I find myself being asked to plan Haskell programming classes for one >>> hour, once a week, from September through May this coming school year. >>> The students will be ages 11 to 13. I'm wondering if anyone has >>> experience in anything similar that they might share with me. I'm >>> trying to decide if this is feasible, or it I should try to do something >>> different. >>> >>> To be honest, as much as I love Haskell, I tried to push the idea of >>> learning a different language; perhaps Python. So far, the kids will >>> have none of it! This year, I've been teaching a once-a-week >>> exploratory mathematics sort of thing, and we've made heavy use of >>> GHCi... and they now insist on learning Haskell. >>> >>> (By the way, GHCi is truly amazing for exploratory mathematics. We >>> really ought to promote the idea of Haskell for elementary / junior-high >>> level math teachers! It's so easy to just try stuff; and there are so >>> many patterns you can just discover and then say "Huh, why do you think >>> that happens? Can you write it down precisely? ...") >>> >>> -- >>> Chris Smith >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >>> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >>> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Haskell-Cafe mailing list >> Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org >> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >> > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe > _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe