http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=879269


in reply to Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers)

Sometimes Perl isn't the right tool.

If your purpose is to enthuse the students with programming, starting them on Perl is a little like trying to excite them to music by having them play scales on a piano. It might be invaluable in the end, if they stick at it, but you'd be better off in the short term by sticking an electric guitar in their hands.

To that end, something like Alice is more likely to grab their attention.

(If you decide to download it, go here, the local download links run at about 15k/s only!)


Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers)
by Sprad (Hermit) on Dec 29, 2010 at 16:33 UTC
    I've tried Alice twice before, but each time it's been met with rage and hostility. Scratch is very well-organized and intuitive, but Alice makes it hard to do even simple things. The first time a student asked about adding two numbers together, we had to resort to a Google search to find out how!

    It's very frustrating to know what you want to do, but not know how to express it.

    I was considering Java, C++, Python, and Perl. I dismissed Java and C++ for being too complex. And I know Perl better than Python, so that clinched it.

    Perl is huge, but you don't have to know all of it to do useful things. For the kind of projects we'll be doing, we probably won't even need regular expressions. So no need to cover those, for example.

    ---
    A fair fight is a sign of poor planning.

Re^2: Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers)
by Argel (Prior) on Dec 28, 2010 at 18:20 UTC
    Wow, that actually looks really interesting!! Wish they made it easier to import 3D objects. ASE is okay but something more portable like the old Wavefront object format would be nicer (or Collada or FBX).

    Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks

      I came across it whilst looking for a solution to my animated graphs problem.

      It's way too heavy for that purpose, but I was dead impressed with the tutorials. I haven't done anything more with it though.


      Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
      "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
      In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.