Localized (Visual) Programming Language For Kids? 185
First time accepted submitter jimshatt writes "I want my kids to play around with programming languages. To teach them basic concepts like loops and subroutines and the likes. My 8-year-old daughter in particular. I've tried Scratch and some other visual languages, but I think she might be turned off by the English language. Having to learn English as well as a programming language at the same time might be just a little too much.
I'd really like to have a programming language that is easy to learn, and localized or localizable. Preferably cross-platform, or browser-based, so she can show her work at school (Windows) as well as work on in at home (Debian Linux).
By the way, she speaks Dutch and Danish, so preferably one of those languages (but if it's localizable I can translate it myself).
Any suggestions?"
Lego Midstorm (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know if it's localized, but Lego Mindstorm should do the trick. Rather expensive solution though.
Perl FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
:>)
The ability of Perl [wikipedia.org] to mystify, astound, and obfuscate is so reknowned that there is even a contest dedicated to the ability of Perl to render unintelligible code:
Used properly, Perl can become a "write-only" programming language, such that no one else can decipher what you are attempting to do.
;>)
Just kidding. I am actually a fan of Perl, Python, C, C++, BASIC, Lisp, and Scheme. I hear good things about Logo and the turtle languages all allow keywords to be in any language. Just because the token for printing in BASIC is usually the english word "PRINT", there is no reason for it to be constrained to that. In the TRS-80, "PRINT" is retokenized as the question-mark symbol "?" which can also be used as a short-cut for the "PRINT" statement. My first programming language was BASIC (Level 1 basic) on the TRS-80 with 4K (4 kilobytes!!!) of memory. I am sorry that your daughter is turned off by the english language. Get your hands on a BASIC interpreter and change the interpreter for the keywords which you'd prefer. Or stick with Scratch as recommended above.
.
Also, Lisp and Scheme are fairly cryptic and language agnostic, though parenthesis heavy: car, cdr, eval, print (damn, that last word is obviously english.) Good luck!
Editirs? (Score:0, Funny)
This sentence no finite verb.
Neither this one.
Re:I learned C when I was a kid. (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps, and after all, these boys have other failings as well.
Their musical skills are below par, they're absolutely useless at bricklaying and carpentry, and they suck at brewing and winemaking. I've suggested to my sister-in-law that she sell them off to vivisectionists and start again, but she's hesitant.
Do you have any arguments that might convince her?
Re:Lego Midstorm (Score:4, Funny)
I don't know if it's localized, but Lego Mindstorm should do the trick. Rather expensive solution though.
Why is this modded funny?