[TriLUG] Teaching Kids to Program

[Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG]

I really need to learn LUA myself at some point.

Ken

On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Steve Litt via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
wrote:

> On Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:50:47 -0400
> Steve Litt via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:45:09 -0400
> > Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> >
> > > So if you were going to teach your kids some starter programming,
> > > what language and/or ide would you use?
> >
> > Python.
>
> I forgot something.
>
> Python's great to teach a kid programming. But if I had a kid who was a
> preexisting Geek and *really* wanted to learn programming, I'd teach
> him/her Lua. Here's why...
>
> Lua is like an algorithms and data structures course in a box.
> Everything you learned about algorithms and data structures, all that
> stuff that seemed so tough in other languages, is trivial in Lua.
>
> Python's one and only [1] complex data structure is the table, which
> is like a Perl hash or Python dictionary with such high performance
> that you can give it numeric keys and have it perform well as an
> array. Because Lua treats functions as just more data, you can put
> functions into tables, thereby implementing much of what objects are
> intended to implement. Callback routines in Lua are trivial. Closures
> are pretty easy. I learned about all these things by programming in
> Lua.
>
> So, if you're teaching your kids programming because everyone should
> know the basics of programming, Python's the way to go. If one or both
> of your kids wants to become a crackerjack programmer, I'd recommend
> Lua.
>
> HTH,
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> August 2015 featured book: Troubleshooting: Just the Facts
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/tjust
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