🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <KAHN.92Aug3123921@m31.parc.xerox.com>, kahn@m31.parc.xerox.com (Ken Kahn) writes:
|> From: kahn@m31.parc.xerox.com (Ken Kahn)
|> Subject: Logo is based on 1960s programming language research
|> Date: 3 Aug 92 16:39:21 GMT
|> 
|> I am hoping to spark a discussion about what the "Logo" of the 90s might
|> look like.  I recall hearing Seymour Papert about 15 years ago say that
|> Logo was designed by taking the best ideas in computer science at the
|> time (late 1960s) and "child engineering" them.

That is indeed what was done, and your suggestion of a thread about
where Logo should be/go sounds good; but there is a real question

Is Logo to be a complete, full language for use by children? or

Is Logo to be a tool (an "Instructional Framework" as we called it back then)
to teach problem solving concepts to Children?
(let's not get pedantic about
the differences between "teach them" and "allow thenm to discover"; that
issue has been around since before Seymour (just about)).

So, are all these "new things" being added to help students to be better
computer types, aware of all the latest thrills and frills that technology
has come up with?  What, if any, are germain to the mission of Logo
and how many would be better used in/by some other platform.

Logo was designed to be simple; remember, the first Logo we used
with children was implemented on a 20k (18 bit words) PDP-1(D)
with ASR-33 110 Baud Teletypes (tm).  The students had no keyboard
experience, a frustration level index of .0004 and did not necessarily
read well.  (The turtle (Irving), and the turtle concept that allowed
immediate feedback was a major step.) These days we have access to
much more in the way of technologies, but what is needed to help
students learn problem solving? (Or are we teaching programming?
Is there a difference?)

|> "Gosh, it's really hard for
|> computer scientists to understand the recent developments in many of
|> these areas, how can he expect this to be suitable for kids?"  Well, I
|> think that was probably the same reaction that the original designers of
|> Logo and Smalltalk received when they talked about their work.  

	No, actually I remember no such discussions, it was clear that
there was a tool available that could allow us to do this sort of thing,
we had no thought of trying to teach anything about Computers or computer
science; the computer was a tool, as was (is?) Logo.

>	Twenty
|> years ago it was a very radical stance to claim that a programming
|> language for kids should borrow heavily from such sophisticated
|> languages as Lisp and Simula (object-oriented programming).

No quite, it was radical to assume that there could be a language that 
kids could use period. The Lisp basis came from looking at what was available
(Should get Wally Feurzeig on this, he made the choices for the most part.) 

|> I sense, however, that most people on this list are pretty satisfied
|> with Logo as it is.  They want better graphics, use of windows, menus,
|> multiple turtles, etc. but think only in terms of incremental
|> improvements to the language and environment.


|> 
|> I see Logo (and Smalltalk 72) as very good first steps towards a goal of
|> giving children powerful, yet easy to learn and use, means of
|> programming computers.  To control multiple Lego motors and sensors, for
|> example, from a monolithic sequential programming language such as Logo
|> leads to very non-modular programs that scale poorly. I think that the
|> next "Logo" should be more powerful (based on concurrent objects) and
|> easier (based upon visual programming, program animation, and a simpler
|> underlying computation model).
|> 
|> Comments?

I've put in my 3 cents from a historical viewpoint, I'd also be interested 
in comments.  The opinions expressed are clearly my own.


(From the father of the Turtle...)

-- 
If God had intended us to vote, He would have given us candidates.

	...Wex