Programming language for children

[Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)]

On Sun, June 14, 2009 21:34, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:

>> One thing I don't agree with here is the avoidance of an IDE. Modern
>> IDEs
>> are superb tools that do a huge amount of donkey work for you and
>> organise your work. And they're fun!
>
> They are nothing but a distraction for beginners and serve only to
> confuse. They have to walk before they can run so let them learn the
> fundamentals of programming first, learn the language constructs for their
> particular language, and after they have some comfort level with that, you
> can introduce an IDE. Of course we may be talking about two completely
> different things when we say "IDE" because IDLE claims to be an IDE but so
> does Eclipse. Putting Eclipse in front of a beginner is a lost cause. It's
> overwhelmingly complex and can be very discouraging to someone who is just
> starting.

FUD.
A *good* IDE doesn't prevent you from doing actual work.
For example, vi(m) is an excellent IDE, and so is gedit.

I suppose that you only have experience with bad, bloated IDEs.

-- 
Amedee