Which kid's beginners programming - Python or Forth?

[Erik Max Francis]

BORT wrote:

> In my earlier browsing, I eliminated Logo early on, thinking we would
> hit its capability ceiling too quickly and then backtrack in order to
> make a transition to a "REAL" language.
> 
> uh... I've been browsing on Logo tonight and, even without the Lego
> robots, I may go that route.  Shoot, I thought Logo was just moving
> hokey sprites in increasingly complex patterns until I saw the book
> list at:

It's probably ideal for ages 7 and 10.  Note that even the name _logo_ 
is Greek for _word_.  There's plenty of "non-hokey sprite" stuff you can 
do with Logo, it's just that the turtle graphics are the most visually 
obvious form of Logo and what most people who had any exposure to Logo 
remember most easily.  The language itself shares a great deal with Lisp.

There are numerous modern Logo interpreters, so you shouldn't have any 
problem finding something both you and the kids can use, like UCBLogo 
for Unix or MSWLogo for Windows (based on UCBLogo).  If you want to go 
that route, there's even a set of computer science texts based on Logo, 
called _Computer Science Logo Style_ by Brian Harvey, maintainer of UCBLogo.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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