The comments on this thread make me want to quit HN for good.
I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots.
I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence. It's good to know many of you can. A woman who already speaks and organizes events is writing and illustrating a children's book about programming–and some of you sit and criticize her motives, pedagogy, and presentation skills from your desks. Bravo.
I generally don't swear, but some of you are jackasses.
This is wonderful. I think some of the commenters here are missing the point by insisting that how they learned to code is how everyone should learn. If we're going to get to a point where coding is a basic type of literacy like math or reading (and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that goal), then you have to start small when kids are young. Really young kids need some kind of framework. You can't just throw existing programming books at them and say, "have at it". Do we throw high school level geometry books at kids to teach them shapes? No, we give them all sorts of fun story books that incorporate shapes (and colors, and numbers...) so that they get the basics. I suspect this book is trying to fill in that early gap with respect to programming.
My youngest child could count to 10 at 18 months most likely because she insists on me reading the infernal book "Deborah the Dozy Duckling" all the time. It's about a duck that falls asleep while playing hide and seek. The whole book is frankly awful and I hate reading it, but that one page where Deborah's friends count to 10 turned out to grab her for some reason. Books can be very, very powerful learning devices.
I had a 1991-issued book called “Professor Fortran's Encyclopaedia“ in my childhood. It introduced me to computers, modems, viruses and even several BASIC commands in the form of a comic book with funny characters:
I did not learn programming from it (it contained no actual code other than a “hello world”), but it fired up my imagination and introduced me to computery things. I didn't get to have an actual computer until five years later, but when I finally got it, I got into programming immediately.
This kind of books is extremely underrepresented and I believe very valuable.
My brother use to have a book (well, probably still does somewhere) called The New Way Things Work. It had simple explanations of how tons of different mechanisms work, but it had an entire chapter dedicated to explaining how digital systems could work, using woolly mammoths and various sorts of pie transportation devices. Really brilliant and detailed illustrations throughout.
I have always thought it was a wonderfully delightful way to introduce children to those sort of concepts. It was more EE/CE than coding (and the rest of the book was heavily ME), but I think the approach adapts to coding equally well.
Art is how society assimilates progress, converting technology into culture.
Of course stories matter. My self image as a proto nerd was largely informed by culture. War Games, Short Circuit, a bazillion scifi stories, popular science mags and books, etc. I may have learned coding from K&R. But I was motivated to learn how by the examples and role models I saw.
Liukas's talk at Heroku Waza 2013 (further down the kickstarter page) explains her philosophy and motivation for the book. Having personally spent real effort on messaging, narratives, innovation, and motivating people -- I think her strategy is brilliant.
> If we're going to get to a point where coding is a basic type of literacy like math or reading (and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that goal), then you have to start small when kids are young.
This type of literacy would be something akin to "computational thinking" and then programming is to computational thinking as arithmetic is to mathematics. Programming shouldn't be an end in itself but a means to develop a deeper understanding of our modern information-rich technological sophisticated society. And yes, in my opinion, in that society one should be able to "program" as much as one should be able to "do arithmetic" or "can read/write". "Programming" can mean a lot of different things to different groups of people, but the basic idea of information processing and automatic repetitive tasks should be understood by all.
I agree 120%! Can't wait for this book to come out and give it to my daughter.
Shoot, I remember back in the 90's when I was still in high school, the programming books I had were so dry that it almost made me want to quit for good (I did take a 10 year break from learning to code and went into real estate investing).
Anyone that tells you to learn programming the hard way is full of it. Making programming fun and interesting definitely lowers the entry barrier. Maybe that's why some of the folks feel insecure that some youngin' may learn coding and steal away their job? You just never know!
Seems like lot of comments have concerns with the programming part, so here is my view why indirect approaches can be also important:
When we started Rails Girls with Linda, we saw that there were plenty of programming workshops, books and education available. We didn't want to create one more. Instead we focused on creating easy, one-day workshop to get you to try and see what programming and technology is about, while also building your first sample application and getting meet the local tech scene. After the workshop we tell the people that you now have all the tools and contacts you need for programming or creating something. It's up to you to learn more.
The important part was that all these people (probably thousands at this point) got over the first step and of whom many wouldn't have touched programming otherwise.
In the same way I don't think this book should be about teaching programming that much, but more as creating stories and personalities for technologies to peak interest. Children's interest usually leads to questions and to more interest. You can then use that energy, answer the questions, teach more and extend the workbook exercises to more challenging things. You can also use those characters as a basis to explaining the technology world or talking about what you do for living.
The point is that when you're trying to get a new demographic interested, you need to find a way to get them over the first step, which is to get them involved and getting them interested. The earlier this happens, the better.
Why project like this and the Goldie Box are important, is that they create a story, a world and excitement around technology, for those who might miss or haven't found their innate interest yet.
When I was ~9, my parents bought me a book called "Wrote your own adventure programs for your microcomputer" [1] (Well, the Spanish version [2]) I remember reading and reading and reading it, and not understanding it... I tried to replicate some of the ideas, but I think it was quite dense (and the translation was not very good).
The curious thing is that, when I properly started learning programming in college, I remembered that book, and a lot of things started make sense...
I say all this for two thing:
- I think is brilliant that there are books specifically teaching basic programming to kids, so more of them is great news
- Making a good programming book at that age is challenging, so please let it be good
This is, IMHO, an entry point, to give a taste of what programming is, so kids can try themselves later in front of a computer. Not sure what the best approach is, and I'm not convinced about the "story" approach, as I am not sure if it's interactive enough (as showing exercises). But, hey, there should be some options, and giving Linda's experience, I guess she has a better knowledge about teaching than me. So I'm sure it will be great
Want to know how to teach kids to use computers? Give them an 8-bit machine from the 80's, and all the books for the thing that you can find.
My kids have an old 8-bit machine .. and they love the thing. They can type in their own BASIC programs from tons of sources, or load up a hundred games and other educational apps from a disk that I know won't contain anything weird or offensive .. on a machine with no access to the Internet. Its a wonderful thing, hearing a 6-year old tell his 4 year old brother how to make a sound eminate with just a few SOUND and PLAY commands ..
Great that it worked for you. Doesn't mean it will work for others.
Example: me. I had access to a computer, but couldn't comprehend the (foreign) lingo well enough to find the correct books in the (vast) library. My parents weren't into technology and couldn't help me. Had they understood the potential and had they given a few nudges, I would have started at 8 what I now started at 20. Many kids need guidance and encouragement.
The two methodologies aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe when this book comes out your kids will love it, perhaps even have a better appreciation for the concepts because of their experiences. Or, since Ruby is very different than BASIC, it might give them a glimpse into the variety of the world of computer programming.
I think it could be a great way of repackaging programming education in order to reach out to a different demographic, and we'll have to try out to see, so I wish this project all the best. Having said that:
> The book will be hardcover, 8x8 inches and 32 pages. The activity book is 16 pages and paperback.
I don't see how you could cover even just the basics mentioned on the Kickstarter page in so few pages without going too fast (remember this is a picture book). Maybe turning it into a series with different adventures (topics) makes more sense?
"Hello Ruby will be a classic journey of discovery that teaches the readers about different people working together, how problems can be solved in small sequences and how remixing and sharing helps everyone."
"The activity book teaches kids early programming skills. It’s designed to be enjoyed by a kid alone, but can also be worked through with an adult. And best of all - the workbook is designed to be doodled, wrecked and drawn all over.
- The foundational knowledge structures, like sequences, variables, patterns, loops, lists, conditionals, operators and events. Taught through exercises of dot-to-dot, pairs, odd-one-out, all from Ruby's world.
- A sprinkle of software culture, by teaching them to abstract and modularise, work iteratively and incrementally as well as encouraging them to reuse and remix work.
- Creativity and DIY attitude. Tons of doodles, logic puzzles and even a foldable miniature laptop that allows the kid to peek inside a computer."
Even if it just inculcates problem solving techniques like breaking a problem down into its component parts and then grokking the real underlying problem rather than the symptoms, (the lack of the latter is quite prevalent these days), it will be a net gain.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the books aim to teach kids to approach problems using programming logic, like loops and if else statements, rather than actually getting them up and running on Ruby.
But this is just what I remembered from reading her Kickstarter!
She's certainly very good at marketing, but based on the video and Kickstarter page I wonder how educational the book will actually be. A couple of sample pages would be helpful.
Here I was open-minded as ever, prepared to see something great, also prepared to scold at misogynistic crowd because there were hints in some comments that there is such crowd here... and then I watched the video.
Everything that can go in other direction related to stereotypes and gender roles - DID. It went so overboard that I think it's a part of marketing strategy for it. This is just sad, because I think the product could've done without it as well as it did.
I thought the same for a moment, until I realized I was basically watching a kids show. The colors, the enthusiasm, the fast cuts, this video was made by someone who knows how to get kids (we're talking 4-6 here) interested in something. If that's the sensibility she brings to her storytelling and illustrating, this book is going to be a wild success.
If it was a Kickstarter for an invention or a software product, I'd expect the presenters to be a bit more sedate. But given what she's selling, I think showcasing her personality helped make it clear that she's the right person for this job.
Cynic hat on . . . I'm not sure I get this. Looks like an effort to promote an illustrator more than actually achieve the stated aims.
The reasoning is simple: Alan Kay and others have repeatedly demonstrated kids have a far greater aptitude for this stuff than is generally accepted. The packaging in this manner isn't the problem, the problem is the programming environments around today don't tend to do anything the kids are interested in without overcoming significant hurdles. i.e. unless you can do graphics easily forget it.
Back when I grew up in the 80s every 8 year old had to do Logo at school, partly to teach maths, partly to teach programming constructs. This was the part of the week almost everyone liked most. Make pictures, do maths, play with robots - what's not to love?
So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now.
I got to know Linda in business school in 2005. I worked on a big group assignment with her for a year. She's got this natural joy about her that if feel she can inpire anyone about anything.
She founded Rails Girls in 2010 and joined Code Academy a few years ago so she has way more experience introducing people to programming than she does on doing illustrations.
I believe getting people inspired is the best way to get them to learn. My two cents is that she was inspired by _why's work and tries take that approach further.
>So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now.
Yes. The the alarms bells are far too numerous when the co-founder of Rails Girls ("Our aim is to give tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas."), and community manager at Codeacademy expands her mission of education and inspiration to children via a book tailored to them.
Alarm bells everywhere.
Thankfully, you've caught the issues and rang the (many) alarms before the book has even been written. Very efficient.
Considering there are quite some illustrated books about programming, especially "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby", the whole thing doesn't seem to hurt either.
Kids have different tastes, like everyone. So why not an illustrated guide? It does not necessarily "fix" a problem, but provide a wider range of material. Not everything has to be code.
Linda has credibility when it comes to teaching code, so I would not put myself above that.
Many people, myself included, cut their teeth on machines where graphics were far from easy. Most of my early programs on the VIC20 and C64 were text adventures, and occasionaly I'd get into some games where the graphics were as exciting as moving asterisks.
I too first really started with Logo. I tried teaching Scheme twice to 7-yr-olds, and found they readily picked up the concepts. But they seem more excited with things like Scratch, since you can get sounds and things jumping around and responding in a very easy manner. Logo is just not as impressive now as it was decades ago.
This would likely be a very good indoctrination of programming via narrative for kids between 4-8, specifically 4-6. For kids that age, this takes something real and presents it as a magical force exerted on the world which can bring order and control. Kids that small are very intelligent and will get, much more, an emotional kindling for programming from a book like this...
I'd take more issue with the obvious branding. It would have been more elegant if the penguin and robot had more generic renderings.
I don't think that reasoning is simple: I don't agree that what you assert has actually been demonstrated. There is no agreed-upon way in which you can teach kids programming. Otherwise: citation needed.
Looks like an effort to promote an illustrator more [..]
How about being a bit more generous as to someone's motives? Why not "achieving the stated aims, with the added benefit if promoting an illustrator?". Suppose I like painting and birdwatching. Now I do a kickstarter for a birdwatcher's guide with paintings of birds. I'm honestly excited about birdwatching and believe a book with painted birds will make it more enjoyable for many people. As I happen to paint myself and I think my quirky way of painting birds will add to the enjoyment, I decide to do the paintings myself. Am I promoting my own paintings? Of course! Is my motivation otherwise completely honest? Of course!
Presentation and the packaging matter. It really matters to programming right now because of the image problem it has for the masses: "it's a well paid janitorial occupation for socially inept, nerdy looking males". Anything that helps break that perception helps.
From my experience (as a former 8 year old who had to do logo), this could be a great way to get kids to think of programming/computers as something they should learn more about.
Most 8 year olds are looking at logo (or whatever) and being turned off from it.
Recently Chicago announced that they are going to make Computer Science a core subject for students K-12. And now this children's book is announced. It's really an inspirational time for not only diversity, but general exposure of CS to the mainstream. But seriously, what an amazing idea! Good luck with Hello Ruby!
Was looking for exactly such a book for teaching my 7 and 8 year old brothers the theoretical basics of programming after getting them to create their own tiny games with MIT's Scratch.
As I'm also quite confident that Linda's execution will be of highest quality, I pre-ordered the digital version.
What an incredibly important book for little boys, to normalize learning from women early on so they don't grow up to form stereotypes like "programming is for men". Bravo!
I'm really pleased about this. I've been dismayed by the computer education my kids receive at school - Powerpoint basically. I've provided them with more, but it's so welcome to have the materials from an educator.
Good, good, good. More of this. Inspiring children to learn how to solve problems is very important. I don't know if it'll work out or not but we certainly need more people that try.
That robot-parent programming in the gym blog post was one of the more inspiring posts I read in the last couple of years.
Most people who know how to program attempt to teach their kids how to program. That being said, we need many more resources of all kinds directed towards teaching children. I hope this leads to 100 more programming books/videos directed at children.
[+] [-] callmeed|12 years ago|reply
I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots.
I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence. It's good to know many of you can. A woman who already speaks and organizes events is writing and illustrating a children's book about programming–and some of you sit and criticize her motives, pedagogy, and presentation skills from your desks. Bravo.
I generally don't swear, but some of you are jackasses.
[+] [-] JunkDNA|12 years ago|reply
My youngest child could count to 10 at 18 months most likely because she insists on me reading the infernal book "Deborah the Dozy Duckling" all the time. It's about a duck that falls asleep while playing hide and seek. The whole book is frankly awful and I hate reading it, but that one page where Deborah's friends count to 10 turned out to grab her for some reason. Books can be very, very powerful learning devices.
[+] [-] danabramov|12 years ago|reply
I had a 1991-issued book called “Professor Fortran's Encyclopaedia“ in my childhood. It introduced me to computers, modems, viruses and even several BASIC commands in the form of a comic book with funny characters:
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Энциклопедия_профессора_Фортран...
I did not learn programming from it (it contained no actual code other than a “hello world”), but it fired up my imagination and introduced me to computery things. I didn't get to have an actual computer until five years later, but when I finally got it, I got into programming immediately.
This kind of books is extremely underrepresented and I believe very valuable.
[+] [-] Crito|12 years ago|reply
I have always thought it was a wonderfully delightful way to introduce children to those sort of concepts. It was more EE/CE than coding (and the rest of the book was heavily ME), but I think the approach adapts to coding equally well.
(http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Way-Things-Work/dp/0395938473)
[+] [-] specialist|12 years ago|reply
Of course stories matter. My self image as a proto nerd was largely informed by culture. War Games, Short Circuit, a bazillion scifi stories, popular science mags and books, etc. I may have learned coding from K&R. But I was motivated to learn how by the examples and role models I saw.
Liukas's talk at Heroku Waza 2013 (further down the kickstarter page) explains her philosophy and motivation for the book. Having personally spent real effort on messaging, narratives, innovation, and motivating people -- I think her strategy is brilliant.
[+] [-] ht_th|12 years ago|reply
This type of literacy would be something akin to "computational thinking" and then programming is to computational thinking as arithmetic is to mathematics. Programming shouldn't be an end in itself but a means to develop a deeper understanding of our modern information-rich technological sophisticated society. And yes, in my opinion, in that society one should be able to "program" as much as one should be able to "do arithmetic" or "can read/write". "Programming" can mean a lot of different things to different groups of people, but the basic idea of information processing and automatic repetitive tasks should be understood by all.
[+] [-] rdudek|12 years ago|reply
Shoot, I remember back in the 90's when I was still in high school, the programming books I had were so dry that it almost made me want to quit for good (I did take a 10 year break from learning to code and went into real estate investing).
Anyone that tells you to learn programming the hard way is full of it. Making programming fun and interesting definitely lowers the entry barrier. Maybe that's why some of the folks feel insecure that some youngin' may learn coding and steal away their job? You just never know!
[+] [-] enra|12 years ago|reply
When we started Rails Girls with Linda, we saw that there were plenty of programming workshops, books and education available. We didn't want to create one more. Instead we focused on creating easy, one-day workshop to get you to try and see what programming and technology is about, while also building your first sample application and getting meet the local tech scene. After the workshop we tell the people that you now have all the tools and contacts you need for programming or creating something. It's up to you to learn more.
The important part was that all these people (probably thousands at this point) got over the first step and of whom many wouldn't have touched programming otherwise.
In the same way I don't think this book should be about teaching programming that much, but more as creating stories and personalities for technologies to peak interest. Children's interest usually leads to questions and to more interest. You can then use that energy, answer the questions, teach more and extend the workbook exercises to more challenging things. You can also use those characters as a basis to explaining the technology world or talking about what you do for living.
The point is that when you're trying to get a new demographic interested, you need to find a way to get them over the first step, which is to get them involved and getting them interested. The earlier this happens, the better.
Why project like this and the Goldie Box are important, is that they create a story, a world and excitement around technology, for those who might miss or haven't found their innate interest yet.
[+] [-] jaimebuelta|12 years ago|reply
I say all this for two thing:
- I think is brilliant that there are books specifically teaching basic programming to kids, so more of them is great news
- Making a good programming book at that age is challenging, so please let it be good
This is, IMHO, an entry point, to give a taste of what programming is, so kids can try themselves later in front of a computer. Not sure what the best approach is, and I'm not convinced about the "story" approach, as I am not sure if it's interactive enough (as showing exercises). But, hey, there should be some options, and giving Linda's experience, I guess she has a better knowledge about teaching than me. So I'm sure it will be great
So, kudos to Linda... ;-)
[1] http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3384/5718165821_2ce65d26fd_z.j...
[2] http://www.paraquenoseolviden.com/gallery2/v/electronica/pro...
[+] [-] Avitas|12 years ago|reply
- I suspect that this compartmentalized targeting (esp. to younger demographics) really should be explored with other projects...
...Arduino, BSD/Linux/*nix, Py, JS, and so forth.
[+] [-] leoc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fit2rule|12 years ago|reply
My kids have an old 8-bit machine .. and they love the thing. They can type in their own BASIC programs from tons of sources, or load up a hundred games and other educational apps from a disk that I know won't contain anything weird or offensive .. on a machine with no access to the Internet. Its a wonderful thing, hearing a 6-year old tell his 4 year old brother how to make a sound eminate with just a few SOUND and PLAY commands ..
[+] [-] Confusion|12 years ago|reply
Example: me. I had access to a computer, but couldn't comprehend the (foreign) lingo well enough to find the correct books in the (vast) library. My parents weren't into technology and couldn't help me. Had they understood the potential and had they given a few nudges, I would have started at 8 what I now started at 20. Many kids need guidance and encouragement.
[+] [-] thinkpad20|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MartinCron|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vanderZwan|12 years ago|reply
> The book will be hardcover, 8x8 inches and 32 pages. The activity book is 16 pages and paperback.
I don't see how you could cover even just the basics mentioned on the Kickstarter page in so few pages without going too fast (remember this is a picture book). Maybe turning it into a series with different adventures (topics) makes more sense?
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|12 years ago|reply
"Hello Ruby will be a classic journey of discovery that teaches the readers about different people working together, how problems can be solved in small sequences and how remixing and sharing helps everyone."
"The activity book teaches kids early programming skills. It’s designed to be enjoyed by a kid alone, but can also be worked through with an adult. And best of all - the workbook is designed to be doodled, wrecked and drawn all over.
- The foundational knowledge structures, like sequences, variables, patterns, loops, lists, conditionals, operators and events. Taught through exercises of dot-to-dot, pairs, odd-one-out, all from Ruby's world.
- A sprinkle of software culture, by teaching them to abstract and modularise, work iteratively and incrementally as well as encouraging them to reuse and remix work.
- Creativity and DIY attitude. Tons of doodles, logic puzzles and even a foldable miniature laptop that allows the kid to peek inside a computer."
Even if it just inculcates problem solving techniques like breaking a problem down into its component parts and then grokking the real underlying problem rather than the symptoms, (the lack of the latter is quite prevalent these days), it will be a net gain.
[+] [-] JonLim|12 years ago|reply
But this is just what I remembered from reading her Kickstarter!
[+] [-] brador|12 years ago|reply
How is it possible to teach even the basics of programming in 32 pages?
How would you explain a simple FOR loop to a child through a story?
[+] [-] guidobouman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mratzloff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Confusion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MartinCron|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Keyframe|12 years ago|reply
Everything that can go in other direction related to stereotypes and gender roles - DID. It went so overboard that I think it's a part of marketing strategy for it. This is just sad, because I think the product could've done without it as well as it did.
[+] [-] idProQuo|12 years ago|reply
If it was a Kickstarter for an invention or a software product, I'd expect the presenters to be a bit more sedate. But given what she's selling, I think showcasing her personality helped make it clear that she's the right person for this job.
[+] [-] danabramov|12 years ago|reply
She was being playful. As a former kid, I appreciate that.
[+] [-] sethbannon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fidotron|12 years ago|reply
The reasoning is simple: Alan Kay and others have repeatedly demonstrated kids have a far greater aptitude for this stuff than is generally accepted. The packaging in this manner isn't the problem, the problem is the programming environments around today don't tend to do anything the kids are interested in without overcoming significant hurdles. i.e. unless you can do graphics easily forget it.
Back when I grew up in the 80s every 8 year old had to do Logo at school, partly to teach maths, partly to teach programming constructs. This was the part of the week almost everyone liked most. Make pictures, do maths, play with robots - what's not to love?
So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now.
[+] [-] pasiaj|12 years ago|reply
She founded Rails Girls in 2010 and joined Code Academy a few years ago so she has way more experience introducing people to programming than she does on doing illustrations.
I believe getting people inspired is the best way to get them to learn. My two cents is that she was inspired by _why's work and tries take that approach further.
[+] [-] deveac|12 years ago|reply
Yes. The the alarms bells are far too numerous when the co-founder of Rails Girls ("Our aim is to give tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas."), and community manager at Codeacademy expands her mission of education and inspiration to children via a book tailored to them.
Alarm bells everywhere.
Thankfully, you've caught the issues and rang the (many) alarms before the book has even been written. Very efficient.
[+] [-] jeremymcanally|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Argorak|12 years ago|reply
Kids have different tastes, like everyone. So why not an illustrated guide? It does not necessarily "fix" a problem, but provide a wider range of material. Not everything has to be code.
Linda has credibility when it comes to teaching code, so I would not put myself above that.
[+] [-] bloat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelGG|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pistle|12 years ago|reply
I'd take more issue with the obvious branding. It would have been more elegant if the penguin and robot had more generic renderings.
[+] [-] Confusion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahuth|12 years ago|reply
Most 8 year olds are looking at logo (or whatever) and being turned off from it.
[+] [-] thrush|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robgering|12 years ago|reply
Her illustrations are really great.
[+] [-] guidobouman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsobers|12 years ago|reply
Whether the book is effective at teaching Ruby to kids remains to be seen, but I'm pulling for her.
[+] [-] myzerox|12 years ago|reply
Was looking for exactly such a book for teaching my 7 and 8 year old brothers the theoretical basics of programming after getting them to create their own tiny games with MIT's Scratch.
As I'm also quite confident that Linda's execution will be of highest quality, I pre-ordered the digital version.
[+] [-] jcoder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cromulent|12 years ago|reply
Backed.
[+] [-] kriro|12 years ago|reply
That robot-parent programming in the gym blog post was one of the more inspiring posts I read in the last couple of years.
[+] [-] swang|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyager|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregors|12 years ago|reply
I think these are awesome too http://kidscodecamp.com/
[+] [-] tall|12 years ago|reply