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What killed Smalltalk could kill Python

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  What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-01-22 03:34 +1100
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Michiel Overtoom <motoom@xs4all.nl> - 2015-01-21 18:45 +0100
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2015-01-21 12:21 -0600
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-02-07 23:35 +0000
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-21 19:18 +0000
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 09:35 +1100
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-21 23:10 +0000
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-01-22 02:25 +0200
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2015-01-21 21:22 -0600
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2015-01-22 17:52 +0000
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Anthony Papillion <anthony@cajuntechie.org> - 2015-01-21 17:19 -0600
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 10:41 +1100
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python John Ladasky <john_ladasky@sbcglobal.net> - 2015-01-21 16:22 -0800
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> - 2015-01-21 17:37 -0600
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 10:55 +1100
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> - 2015-01-23 16:51 -0600
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2015-01-24 08:09 +0000
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-24 19:16 +1100
              Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2015-01-24 14:09 +0000
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> - 2015-01-24 06:34 -0500
              Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2015-01-24 14:14 +0000
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-24 09:57 +1100
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> - 2015-01-26 14:18 -0600
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> - 2015-01-23 16:51 -0600
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2015-01-21 17:08 -0700
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-01-21 21:59 -0500
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 14:08 +1100
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski <emil@fuse.pl> - 2015-01-22 05:46 +0100
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-02-09 13:28 -0800
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-01-21 15:46 -0800
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 10:57 +1100
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Mario Figueiredo <marfig@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 01:09 +0100
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python sohcahtoa82@gmail.com - 2015-01-21 17:00 -0800
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 12:36 +1100
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-01-21 17:38 -0800
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 12:45 +1100
              Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-01-21 18:53 -0800
                Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 13:59 +1100
                  Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-02-07 23:54 +0000
                    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-08 11:57 +1100
                      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-02-08 18:59 +1100
                        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-02-08 19:24 +1100
              Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2015-01-23 15:35 +1000
                Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-23 17:07 +1100
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-01-21 17:44 -0800
          Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-01-22 14:23 +1100
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 15:34 +1100
            Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2015-01-23 15:39 +1000
              Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python sohcahtoa82@gmail.com - 2015-01-23 14:48 -0800
                Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Emile van Sebille <emile@fenx.com> - 2015-01-23 14:58 -0800
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Mario Figueiredo <marfig@gmail.com> - 2015-01-22 01:16 +0100
        Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-01-22 00:45 -0500
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> - 2015-01-21 18:11 -0800
      Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-01-22 06:30 +0000
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> - 2015-01-22 07:26 -0500
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Emil Oppeln-Bronikowski <emil@fuse.pl> - 2015-01-22 16:47 +0100
    Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python Tony the Tiger <tony@tiger.invalid> - 2015-01-23 18:04 +0000

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#84468

in 734949 20150124 113420 Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> wrote:
>On Saturday 24 January 2015 03:09:51 Bob Martin did opine
>And Gene did reply:
>> in 734904 20150123 225104 Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>> >On 01/21/2015 05:55 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> >> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Tim Daneliuk
><tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>> >>> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly.  Once there is a
>> >>> critical mass of installed base, no language EVER dies.
>> >>
>> >> Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in
>> >> REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX.
>> >> Where's REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish
>> >> language of OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no
>> >> Unicode support (it does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no
>> >> inbuilt networking support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket
>> >> libraries for OS/2 REXX, but I don't know that other REXX
>> >> implementations have socket services; and that's just basic BSD
>> >> sockets, no higher-level protocol handling at all), etc, etc. Sure,
>> >> it's not technically dead... but is anyone developing the language
>> >> further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code being written? Not a
>> >> lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX definitely had its
>> >> installed base. It was the one obvious scripting language for any
>> >> OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at least be so left
>> >> behind that they may as well be dead.
>> >>
>> >> ChrisA
>> >
>> >Rexx is still well used on mainframes.
>>
>> http://www.oorexx.org/
>>
>> I use ooRexx every day, on Linux mostly, but also available on Windows.
>
>Can it run typical AREXX source?  I don't see a single syllable on that
>now 5 year old site indicating any such capability.

AREXX is based on Mike Cowlishaw's original mainframe Rexx so I doubt there
was much difference.
ooRexx is compatible with Rexx and is actively maintained by current & past IBMers.
A new version is coming soon.

>
>Example: Something needs to be synchronized to occur in the first tick of
>the next minute, and has nothing to do until then, so it queries the
>system for the number of ticks remaining in this minute, then puts itself
>to sleep for that long.
>
>Is this possible in ooRexx?

Yes, you'll find all you need in the utility classes at
http://www.oorexx.org/docs/rexxref/book1.htm

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#84415

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
> On 01/21/2015 05:55 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>>> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly.  Once there is a critical
>>> mass of installed base, no language EVER dies.
>>
>> Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in
>> REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX. Where's
>> REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish language of
>> OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no Unicode support (it
>> does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no inbuilt networking
>> support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket libraries for OS/2 REXX,
>> but I don't know that other REXX implementations have socket services;
>> and that's just basic BSD sockets, no higher-level protocol handling
>> at all), etc, etc. Sure, it's not technically dead... but is anyone
>> developing the language further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code
>> being written? Not a lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX
>> definitely had its installed base. It was the one obvious scripting
>> language for any OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at
>> least be so left behind that they may as well be dead.
>>
>> ChrisA
>>
>
> Rexx is still well used on mainframes.

Oh, is it? Cool! Maybe some day I'll be interviewing for a job, and
they'll ask if I know REXX.. and I'll actually be able to say yes. :)

ChrisA

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#84617

On 01/23/2015 04:57 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>> On 01/21/2015 05:55 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>>>> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly.  Once there is a critical
>>>> mass of installed base, no language EVER dies.
>>>
>>> Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in
>>> REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX. Where's
>>> REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish language of
>>> OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no Unicode support (it
>>> does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no inbuilt networking
>>> support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket libraries for OS/2 REXX,
>>> but I don't know that other REXX implementations have socket services;
>>> and that's just basic BSD sockets, no higher-level protocol handling
>>> at all), etc, etc. Sure, it's not technically dead... but is anyone
>>> developing the language further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code
>>> being written? Not a lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX
>>> definitely had its installed base. It was the one obvious scripting
>>> language for any OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at
>>> least be so left behind that they may as well be dead.
>>>
>>> ChrisA
>>>
>>
>> Rexx is still well used on mainframes.
> 
> Oh, is it? Cool! Maybe some day I'll be interviewing for a job, and
> they'll ask if I know REXX.. and I'll actually be able to say yes. :)
> 
> ChrisA
> 

Let me first note for the record that I make my living on *NIX type
systems.  So, my comments below are not bound to my personal technical
religion ...


I work in and among some of the larger corporations on the planet and I
have a little secret for you:  Mainframes are NOT going away wholesale.
As the population of mainframe-savvy staff dwindles into retirement,
one of the hottest tickets you're going to see in the next 20 years
is people who can do that work.  It's so bad, that IBM themselves are
working to train the next generation of MVS systems programmers, and
the like.

And no, you can't just replace mainframes with open systems equivalents.
There are likely hundreds of millions of lines of COBOL and assembler
code that cannot just be ported over to a new platform and language.
Why?  Because there is an ecosystem of support in the mainframe world
that is utterly absent in the *NIX/Windoze world.   This includes things
especially like CICS, IMS (ask Caterpillar if they'll stop using it ;),
DB2 and so forth.

So, yes, if you're mainframe savvy, you may have a nice consulting career
in your old age :)

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk     tundra@tundraware.com
PGP Key:         http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

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#84417

On 01/21/2015 05:55 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com> wrote:
>> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly.  Once there is a critical
>> mass of installed base, no language EVER dies.
> 
> Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in
> REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX. Where's
> REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish language of
> OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no Unicode support (it
> does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no inbuilt networking
> support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket libraries for OS/2 REXX,
> but I don't know that other REXX implementations have socket services;
> and that's just basic BSD sockets, no higher-level protocol handling
> at all), etc, etc. Sure, it's not technically dead... but is anyone
> developing the language further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code
> being written? Not a lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX
> definitely had its installed base. It was the one obvious scripting
> language for any OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at
> least be so left behind that they may as well be dead.
> 
> ChrisA
> 

Rexx is still well used on mainframes.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk     tundra@tundraware.com
PGP Key:         http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

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#84162

On 01/21/2015 04:37 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> On 01/21/2015 10:34 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> In 2009, Robert Martin gave a talk at RailsConf titled "What Killed
>> Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby". (No cheering, that sort of attitude is one of
>> the things that killed Smalltalk.) Although Martin discusses Ruby, the
>> lessons could also apply to Python.
> 
> 
> I find these kinds of discussions sort of silly.  Once there is a critical
> mass of installed base, no language EVER dies.
> 
> I suspect the real reason Smalltalk sort of got kicked to the curb is because
> a) It clung to a kind of OO purity that simply is at odds with the practice
> of programming at large scale  and   b) It thus never built the aforementioned
> critical mass.

I suspect Smalltalk lost relevance mainly because it never integrated
very well into any computing system.  Everything ran in a virtual
machine in its own image in isolation as it were.  The IDE and the
runtime environment were inseparable, and as OS's developed their own
environments it just never tried to fit in.  It's almost as if Smalltalk
was the language, runtime, your program source code, *and* operating
system.  That's what he meant in his talk about the problem with
smalltalk being the "image."  The only way to distribute your smalltalk
programs was to distribute the image file, which was basically a memory
dump.  When you wanted to list out a smalltalk program you were
basically decompiling it to the editor widget.

So this integrated nature of smalltalk (source code, editor, live
objects, etc) was its most powerful feature, but ultimately its downfall
too in my opinion.  And at the same time we regularly pine for some of
those features.

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#84176

On Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:55:27 +1100, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
declaimed the following:

>Not sure about that. Back in the 1990s, I wrote most of my code in
>REXX, either command-line or using a GUI toolkit like VX-REXX. Where's
>REXX today? Well, let's see. It's still the native-ish language of
>OS/2. Where's OS/2 today? Left behind. REXX has no Unicode support (it
>does, however, support DBCS - useful, no?), no inbuilt networking
>support (there are third-party TCP/IP socket libraries for OS/2 REXX,
>but I don't know that other REXX implementations have socket services;
>and that's just basic BSD sockets, no higher-level protocol handling
>at all), etc, etc. Sure, it's not technically dead... but is anyone
>developing the language further? I don't think so. Is new REXX code
>being written? Not a lot. Yet when OS/2 was more popular, REXX
>definitely had its installed base. It was the one obvious scripting
>language for any OS/2 program. Languages can definitely die, or at
>least be so left behind that they may as well be dead.
>

	To my mind, what killed REXX is that most operating systems just don't
support its key feature well: ADDRESS targets!

	When the only target turns ADDRESS into the equivalent of os.system()
(or some variant of popen() ) it just loses too much. Besides the original
mainframe implementation, I have a feeling only ARexx managed to maintain
the spirit of REXX -- and that may have been as it was so easy to extend
the native AmigaOS message passing IPC to create ARexx ports letting
processes truly communicate interactively.
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#84177

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber
<wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>         To my mind, what killed REXX is that most operating systems just don't
> support its key feature well: ADDRESS targets!
>
>         When the only target turns ADDRESS into the equivalent of os.system()
> (or some variant of popen() ) it just loses too much. Besides the original
> mainframe implementation, I have a feeling only ARexx managed to maintain
> the spirit of REXX -- and that may have been as it was so easy to extend
> the native AmigaOS message passing IPC to create ARexx ports letting
> processes truly communicate interactively.

Very good point. I can count the instances where ADDRESS could be used
for something else on the fingers of one hand... and one of them was a
MUD server that I wrote myself, and which nobody else ever used. And
it would have done better to use SAY rather than ADDRESS; it's kinda
cute, but not very practical, to have something like this:

/* code file for implementing, say, the 'search' command */
if arg(1) = "haystack" then do
    "You find a needle in the haystack!"
    "It is long, sharp, and made of metal."
    call move_object create_object("needle"), caller
end
else "You find nothing of interest."

Each quoted string got sent to the client as a line of text. Yeah,
nice, but there are plenty of other ways to do it.

(The main coolness of this system was that I could update the REXX
code without restarting the server, which was pretty handy.)

Other than that, it's really not a well-used feature. Oh, what might
have been...

ChrisA

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#84187

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:55:27AM +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:

> Where's REXX today?

Still (somehow) alive in neo-Amiga platforms like AmigaOS4.x, MorphOS and AROS. I know that's as good as dead but there are still people writing AREXX glue code.

-- 
vag·a·bond adjective \ˈva-gə-ˌbänd\
 a :  of, relating to, or characteristic of a wanderer 
 b :  leading an unsettled, irresponsible, or disreputable life

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#85405

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On 01/21/2015 03:37 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> 
> I wrote some rambling disquisition on these matters some years ago ...
> 
>   http://www.tundraware.com/TechnicalNotes/Python-Is-Middleware
> 
>   http://www.tundraware.com/TechnicalNotes/How-To-Pick-A-Programming-Language

Very enjoyable, thank you!

--
~Ethan~

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#84157

Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> writes:
> In 2009, Robert Martin gave a talk at RailsConf titled "What Killed
> Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby"...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX3iRjKj7C0

That's an hour-long video; could someone who's watched it give a brief
summary?

Meanwhile, there's this:  http://prog21.dadgum.com/203.html
"Retiring Python as a Teaching Language"

tl;dr: he's switched to recommending Javascript as a first language
instead of Python, since JS makes it easier to write graphics and games,
which is what lots of beginners are interested in now.

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#84161

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:46 AM, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Meanwhile, there's this:  http://prog21.dadgum.com/203.html
> "Retiring Python as a Teaching Language"
>
> tl;dr: he's switched to recommending Javascript as a first language
> instead of Python, since JS makes it easier to write graphics and games,
> which is what lots of beginners are interested in now.

Bad idea. Better to pick a language that makes it easy to get things
right, and then work on the fun side with third-party libraries, than
to tempt people in with "hey look how easy it is to do X" and then
have them stuck with an inferior or flawed language. Too many people
already don't know the difference between UTF-16 and Unicode. Please,
educators, don't make it worse.

ChrisA

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#84163

In article <mailman.17933.1421884677.18130.python-list@python.org>, 
rosuav@gmail.com says...
> 
> Bad idea. Better to pick a language that makes it easy to get things
> right, and then work on the fun side with third-party libraries, than
> to tempt people in with "hey look how easy it is to do X" and then
> have them stuck with an inferior or flawed language. Too many people
> already don't know the difference between UTF-16 and Unicode. Please,
> educators, don't make it worse.
> 
> ChrisA


Indeed. If games and funnies is what drive beginners into programming, 
that's fine. But the educational principles of programming shouldn't be 
trashed in the process. We need serious developers in today's complex 
application systems. Not uneducated programmers with nary a knowledge of 
Software Engineering. Besides if games and funnies are the only thing 
that can drive someone into programming, I'd rather not see that person 
become a developer.

"I want to become a programmer so I can make games" is, on the vast 
majority of cases, the quote of someone who will never become a 
programmer. Why should teachers reward that kind of thought?  

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#84167

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 4:10:08 PM UTC-8, Mario Figueiredo wrote:
> In article <mailman.17933.1421884677.18130.python-list@python.org>, 
> rosuav@gmail.com says...
> > 
> > Bad idea. Better to pick a language that makes it easy to get things
> > right, and then work on the fun side with third-party libraries, than
> > to tempt people in with "hey look how easy it is to do X" and then
> > have them stuck with an inferior or flawed language. Too many people
> > already don't know the difference between UTF-16 and Unicode. Please,
> > educators, don't make it worse.
> > 
> > ChrisA
> 
> 
> Indeed. If games and funnies is what drive beginners into programming, 
> that's fine. But the educational principles of programming shouldn't be 
> trashed in the process. We need serious developers in today's complex 
> application systems. Not uneducated programmers with nary a knowledge of 
> Software Engineering. Besides if games and funnies are the only thing 
> that can drive someone into programming, I'd rather not see that person 
> become a developer.
> 
> "I want to become a programmer so I can make games" is, on the vast 
> majority of cases, the quote of someone who will never become a 
> programmer. Why should teachers reward that kind of thought?

I think one of the problems is that most of the people with the "I want to become a programmer so I can make games" mentality really have no clue at all how much work it takes to produce a game.  They just see that Minecraft was made started by just one guy and now he's a billionaire, and they think "I want that to happen to me!".  They think that just because the game has low-resolution graphics means they could produce something similar in just a couple days, ignoring complexities like rendering optimizations and interaction with the world.

Others will pick up Python because everyone tells them its an easy language to learn and then think they're going to make the next Call of Duty or World of Warcraft with it without any knowledge of basic algorithms.  They might learn a few from some tutorials, but they'll have no idea how to apply them.  They won't be able to make the jump from "Here's how to start a TCP server in one window while connecting to it from a client in another window and send chat messages back and forth" (essentially a basic implementation of netcat) to creating a game server that sends game state updates to the players.

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#84168

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:09 AM, Mario Figueiredo <marfig@gmail.com> wrote:
> "I want to become a programmer so I can make games" is, on the vast
> majority of cases, the quote of someone who will never become a
> programmer. Why should teachers reward that kind of thought?

How about "I want to become a programmer so my brother, 2.5 years
older than me, won't be better than me any more"? Should that kind of
thinking be rewarded? Because that's how I got started. My brother was
being taught the basics of programming, I was jealous (being the
second child will tend to produce that), and so at six years old, I
started learning to code. And then a few years later, I wanted to
learn C because my brother didn't know it (we'd both learned BASIC),
and since I didn't have a C compiler, I learned 8086 Assembly Language
instead, using DEBUG.EXE. Largely out of jealousy.

I hope I've gained a little maturity since then...

ChrisA

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#84169

Mario Figueiredo <marfig@gmail.com> writes:
> "I want to become a programmer so I can make games" is, on the vast 
> majority of cases, the quote of someone who will never become a 
> programmer. Why should teachers reward that kind of thought?  

I don't see what the problem is.  Kids are interested in games and they
are into playing them, so of course they also want to program them.

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#84171

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Mario Figueiredo <marfig@gmail.com> writes:
>> "I want to become a programmer so I can make games" is, on the vast
>> majority of cases, the quote of someone who will never become a
>> programmer. Why should teachers reward that kind of thought?
>
> I don't see what the problem is.  Kids are interested in games and they
> are into playing them, so of course they also want to program them.

It's not a terrible justification for getting into programming. But
writing games is (almost always) a terrible way to start programming.
Either you pick up a super-restrictive "hey look, you can build a game
with just point and click" system, which isn't teaching programming at
all, or you end up getting bogged down in the massive details of what
it takes to write code.

If someone's unfazed by the "it'll take you years before you can
actually write a saleable game" consideration, then getting into
programming via toys (writing Fizz Buzz or a factorial calculator)
will put him/her on a much better footing for actual coding work.

ChrisA

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#84174

Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> writes:
> Either you pick up a super-restrictive "hey look, you can build a game
> with just point and click" system, which isn't teaching programming at
> all, or you end up getting bogged down in the massive details of what
> it takes to write code.

Code Hero ran into various obstacles and never got finished, but it was
a game whose purpose was to teach the player how to write their own
games using Unity3D.  I saw some early versions and it seemed pretty
accessible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Hero

Heck, there's even a song about learning to program through wanting to
write games, and ending up treating programming as a type of
spirituality (there was an interview with the songwriter explaining
this, but it seems to have gone offline):

lyrics:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/lyrics/Code-Goddess.txt
mp3:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/music/Code-Goddess.mp3


> If someone's unfazed by the "it'll take you years before you can
> actually write a saleable game" consideration,

Wanting to write games is a completely different topic than wanting to
sell them.  It's just like any other creative outlet.  Most people who
teach themselves to juggle do it because juggling is fun, not because
they want to join the circus.  

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#84175

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> If someone's unfazed by the "it'll take you years before you can
>> actually write a saleable game" consideration,
>
> Wanting to write games is a completely different topic than wanting to
> sell them.  It's just like any other creative outlet.  Most people who
> teach themselves to juggle do it because juggling is fun, not because
> they want to join the circus.

True, but even a playable game is a long way beyond a first-day
programmer. (By "playable" I mean something that someone other than
its author would play and enjoy.) It's fine as a goal, but needs to be
viewed with a perspective of "that's where I'm trying to get to", not
"now I'm going to start writing games".

ChrisA

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#85343

In article <mailman.17939.1421895565.18130.python-list@python.org>,
Chris Angelico  <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 1:53 PM, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>> If someone's unfazed by the "it'll take you years before you can
>>> actually write a saleable game" consideration,
>>
>> Wanting to write games is a completely different topic than wanting to
>> sell them.  It's just like any other creative outlet.  Most people who
>> teach themselves to juggle do it because juggling is fun, not because
>> they want to join the circus.
>
>True, but even a playable game is a long way beyond a first-day
>programmer. (By "playable" I mean something that someone other than
>its author would play and enjoy.) It's fine as a goal, but needs to be
>viewed with a perspective of "that's where I'm trying to get to", not
>"now I'm going to start writing games".

Not to mention that mostly a game is understood, not as something like
chess, but an FPS (first person shooter) game.
But that is real time programming, one league beyond beginners
procedural (sequential) or functional programming.
The result is either a disappointment or the illusion of having created
something while in fact one used a frame work where all the hard work
has been done.

>
>ChrisA

Groetjes Albert
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

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#85345

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Albert van der Horst
<albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Not to mention that mostly a game is understood, not as something like
> chess, but an FPS (first person shooter) game.
> But that is real time programming, one league beyond beginners
> procedural (sequential) or functional programming.
> The result is either a disappointment or the illusion of having created
> something while in fact one used a frame work where all the hard work
> has been done.

Even worse, it's usually graphical. From what I've heard from
companies and people that produce graphical games, there's at least as
much work in creating assets (images, 3D models, textures, stuff) as
there is in writing code. And that's before you even consider writing
a storyline, which is something that I wouldn't expect a new
programmer to worry too much about ("just go around shooting stuff up"
makes a fine storyline), but which the best commercial games always
put a lot of work into. (And it does improve the game significantly. I
wouldn't have spent anything like as many hours on Alice: Madness
Returns as I have if it didn't have the storyline it does.)

If someone's going to create a game from scratch, it should probably
be a puzzle game. Things like 2048 wouldn't take nearly as much effort
as an FPS. Turn-based rather than real-time, no heavy graphics, a
simple bit of randomness and only a few controls. Pretty
straight-forward.

ChrisA

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