From: Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@...>
Date: 2006-06-12T04:26:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby for Highschoolers?


On Jun 11, 2006, at 12:55 PM, Nicholas Evans wrote:

> Howdy list,
>
> I'm a highschool student with a very high chance of ending up  
> student-teaching the Programming I course during the 07-08 schoolyear.
>
> This year was the first year for the course, and Scheme was used.  
> However, I've been talking to the teacher about Ruby, suggesting  
> that she should try it for one of the programming courses next  
> year. (Unfortunately, there's no ready-made curriculum for Ruby  
> available to her, and she is not really a techie, so that idea was  
> shot down.)
>
> If I end up teaching it, I think it would be cool to cover Ruby  
> instead of Scheme. I'd have to develop my own curriculum, but  
> whatever.
>
Maybe you could base the curiculum/text on Chris Pine's Learn to  
Program. (Either that or Cartoon Foxes).
>
> So, given all of that, I have two questions for ya, list. One, do  
> you think there's any merit from teaching pretty non-technical  
> sophomores in highschool Ruby over Scheme? And two - Is there a  
> DrScheme-eqsue environment available for Ruby (screencap: http:// 
> www.plt-scheme.org/software/drscheme/tour/images/editor-repl.gif)?
>
Hmm, Ruby or Scheme for non-technical students? That's tough,  
Scheme's sysntax makes your eyes bleed, but it has very very simple  
semantics(short of callcc). OTOH the subset of Ruby I'd imagine you'd  
be using for this class would have pretty simple semantics to.

> The DrScheme-esque thing is a big deal. The computer labs are *all*  
> Windows labs, and nothing will change this. The program serves as a  
> sort of incredibly simple IDE. In the top pane, you can put in your  
> code, and the bottom pane displays results and lets you use an irb- 
> for-scheme type thinggy.
>
I don't know of any DrScheme-ish environment for ruby. You could try  
using FreeRIDE or Scite (both come with the one-click installer). Or  
possibly FXIrb [1]

> I appreciate any comments you can give me, list.
>
> Regards,
> Nick Evans
>

Good luck

[1] http://rubyforge.org/projects/fxirb/