From: Richard Dale Date: 2005-02-14T08:29:56+09:00 Subject: Re: Printing why's (poignant) guide to ruby Alexander Kellett wrote: > i'm really puzzled by this. > why python? or even worse. vb??!! Why do you think they are easier to learn than ruby? I'd just like to try teaching non-programmers programming and find out what it is they don't know. Or if they don't know much can they get started and learn incremently? From Alan Kay's recent interview: http://acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=273 "Basically what happened is this vehicle became more and more a programmer’s vehicle and less and less a children’s vehicle—the version that got put out, Smalltalk ’80, I don’t think it was ever programmed by a child. I don’t think it could have been programmed by a child because it had lost some of its amenities, even as it gained pragmatic power." I don't think Why's is the first in the line of 'cartoon computer science books'. I have 'Think about [TLC] Logo - A Graphic Look at Computing with Ideas' by John R. Allen, Ruth E. Davis and John F. Johnson. It has great cartoons, and is written by serious people (I believe why is very serious too - that's why he's so funny). People don't seem to want teach computer programming to children anymore (or 45 year old beginners).. -- Richard