ActionScript as a teaching language

[Paul King]

On 1 Jan 2006 at 4:29, Peter (Peter <tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org>) spaketh these wourdes:
> 
> On Sat, 31 Dec 2005, William Park wrote:
> > It boggles rational mind that such esoteric languagues could even be
> > mentioned in the context of High School computer cirriculum.
> 
> But ... that 'interactive geometry' package that they are using is in 
> fact a heavily watered-down version of Matlab or Scilab, yes ?

The "interactive geometry" package which is common in the Ontario Math curriculum 
is called "Geometer's Sketchpad", which has no language interpreter or compiler 
that I know of, watered-down or otherwise. It is purely graphical and 
interactive, chock full of menus and dialogs.

> 
> Also Logo, Lisp and Prolog can be said to be birds of a feather (with 
> Logo requiring the least typing, followed by Prolog and followed by Lisp 
> after a large gap).

Grade 11s would be more worried about whether the concepts I am trying to teach 
will make sense to them. Whether the code is more concise in one language or 
another is hardly here nor there. Apart from that I don't know of any Computer 
Science program on the planet, even at the university level, who would use these 
as teaching languages (maybe in third-year, and only because there is no better 
language for the particular job in that course).

For example, I have to teach data types, and afterward teach functions, 
procedures, and scoping rules. Turing has always been a trusty language that has 
made these concepts clear and easy to teach. But since Turing is not "sexy" 
enough, many teachers had gone to action script, where scoping is more attached 
to movie clips, which is not exactly knowledge that is transferrable to languages 
with normal scoping rules.

This is why I wouldn't teach Python, because the scoping would not be obvious 
enough. I wouldn't teach C/C++, because it is too loosely-typed. Java is a little 
better, and is also taught alternatively with ActionScript, because its typing 
and scoping rules are more sensible. I would personally favour Java.

> 
> Then there is this Smalltalk based environment for children I found. It 
> runs as a plugin in a browser:
> 
> http://www.squeakland.org/
> 
> I am impressed (but the screen size works out wrong under my window 
> manager).

Sounds great, but if there is ever anything like screen problems, that tends to 
translate into classroom management problems.

I've looked at the website, bookmarked it, but haven't had the chance yet to 
"kick smalltalk's tires", so to speak. I have never used smalltalk, but have 
heard a great deal about it, and I understand that it has been around for quite a 
while.

> 
> Peter

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