From: Ben Tilly <ben_tilly@...>
Date: 2001-02-08T22:34:44+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10572] Re: book review?

<amos+lists.ruby-talk@utdallas.edu> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Thu, 8 Feb 2001 09:40:02 +0900,
> >>>>> Andrew Hunt <andy@toolshed.com> (ah) writes:
>
>ah> That's the ticket, start teaching good habits young.
>
>Actually, I was wondering the other day whether Ruby might make a
>good CS introductory language.  When I was taking early CS courses
>long ago, I remember then the debates in some of the lang USENET
>groups between C++ and LISP as the introductory language.  Seems
>like Ruby would have them both beat.

A lot of the following proposal for teaching Python to
children looks applicable:

http://www.cwi.nl/www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html

(Including the comment about case mattering, and truncation
of integer division being confusing.)

Also Ruby borrows many core ideas from Smalltalk.  Which
was actually designed for teaching children:

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~wolfgang/cosc205/smalltalk1.html

So I would guess that Ruby would also work well.  But
personally I would guess that an interactive IDE like
Smalltalk has is likely to be an important missing
feature.

Cheers,
Ben
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