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Re: Program or be Programmed !

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visualforth@rocketmail.com wrote:

> I just started to read Douglas Rushkoff's book "Program or be Programmed"
> and found some lines which should tell us that it is an important task of
> us to educate young people in programming:
> 
> "Computers and networks finally offer us the ability to write. And we do
> write with them on our websites, blogs, and social networks. But the
> underlying capability of the computer era is actually programming -- which
> almost none of us knows how to do . We simply use the programs that have
> been made for us, and enter our text in the appropriate box on the screen.
> We teach kids how to use software to write, but not how to write software
> . This means they have access to the capabilities given to them by others,
> but not the power to determine the value-creating capabilities of these
> technologies for themselves."
> 
> We should be proud that with the power of Forth we can teach kids how to
> write software, to give them access to the power to determine the
> value-creating capabilities of this technology for themselves.
> 
> I accidentally found this by a special e-book offer from O/R Books:
> http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/program/
> 
> And I am sure another one is worth reading: "Technocreep - The Surrender
> of Privacy" by Thomas P. Keenan,
> http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/technocreep/
> 
> And there are more: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/
> I am writing this because this offer is available this week only, with O/R
> books celebrating it's fifth birthday. Of course these books are available
> as printed books, too. I ordered "Autopilot" as printed edition.

I managed to outline the very basics of Forth to a 5 year-old at a recent 
Imagineering Exhibition. In about 5 minutes spent with him he managed to 
grasp the concepts of the parameter stack and postfix operations. 

He was, to admit, quite bright in that he had suggested a small modification 
to the programme I was running on the stand. I was displaying a sine-wave of 
asterix characters scrolling continuously down the screen. 3 lines of code 
generated the sine-wave (and cosine) numbers and the other 30 or so lines 
did scaling and arrangements for its display. I was showing the source code 
in a separate window. 

With a bit of role play in the class-room and the aid of a few blocks and 
sheets of acrylic and some dry marker pens (shame we can't use chalk 
anymore) Forth would be a very good language to teach our primary school 
children. It would probably not take many sessions of this before you could 
let them loose on a Forth on a computer and have them programming for real.
There are some tutorial books that can help the teachers at this level too.

-- 
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET.....<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy.............<http://www.hidecs.co.uk>
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-510979
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************

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Program or be Programmed ! visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2014-12-01 18:55 -0800
  Re: Program or be Programmed ! Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-12-02 11:36 +0000
    Re: Program or be Programmed ! the_gavino_himself <visphatesjava@gmail.com> - 2014-12-13 12:47 -0800
      Re: Program or be Programmed ! Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-12-13 20:54 +0000
      Re: Program or be Programmed ! visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2014-12-17 16:51 -0800
    Re: Program or be Programmed ! "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2014-12-19 08:20 +0000
      Re: Program or be Programmed ! Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-12-19 09:29 +0000
      Re: Program or be Programmed ! "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-27 07:57 +0000
    Re: Program or be Programmed ! "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2014-12-25 21:08 +0000

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