From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.7 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,NICE_REPLY_A autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 12733 invoked from network); 16 Nov 2021 19:16:56 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 16 Nov 2021 19:16:56 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id DDAA89C874; Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:16:51 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A1E29C841; Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:15:22 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=osta.com header.i=@osta.com header.b="atgqJMvr"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 016AA9C841; Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:15:18 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 1865 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:15:16 AEST Received: from bosmailout02.eigbox.net (bosmailout02.eigbox.net [66.96.186.2]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BB5629C83D for ; Wed, 17 Nov 2021 05:15:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from bosmailscan06.eigbox.net ([10.20.15.6]) by bosmailout02.eigbox.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1mn3RB-0000Wj-QI for tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:44:09 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=osta.com; s=dkim; h=Sender:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Type:In-Reply-To:From: References:To:Subject:Reply-To:MIME-Version:Date:Message-ID:Cc:Content-ID: Content-Description:Resent-Date:Resent-From:Resent-Sender:Resent-To:Resent-Cc :Resent-Message-ID:List-Id:List-Help:List-Unsubscribe:List-Subscribe: List-Post:List-Owner:List-Archive; bh=/AJKfwjfaHELTewuveUBbAzG/SQR7D4beyjFsSLF9u4=; b=atgqJMvrEBTd1fqPkJyi50L7MV R0qBE7DtCtehKKVigAbdmzjK/4ASvlPs7EiFtwMWC5IluTtS+8J42zEgppzMSkYRqlN4ySXJdbTmd imcd8BaNtujFaTZN3PeRjy4gXG7w4qAdEgIUgZLaTg4wBKIkn6QgvfHm+c8HXnmGKr32QqTKqq+VT /IhRIXSjPNp6tBveXl2XLT6Ry0gzfTQrY7NHzHXICjjLrz3lp7SewQT2LCCNzWkeoCSswAe9adVf6 v/sfrVK4j6ogDj2JH/Dl2Oi8Mx3CDxsxKx6Uso6IVrVRY2DNYLaLK13DBOD4B/oevw1C5qsQYFLbF QEy2uZHA==; Received: from [10.115.3.32] (helo=bosimpout12) by bosmailscan06.eigbox.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1mn3RB-0002e3-FC for tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:44:09 -0500 Received: from bosauthsmtp18.yourhostingaccount.com ([10.20.18.18]) by bosimpout12 with id K6k62600Q0PPbB6016k9BS; Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:44:09 -0500 X-Authority-Analysis: v=2.3 cv=d4VuNSrE c=1 sm=1 tr=0 a=hsonH7E3nOZjOFuRJksPKA==:117 a=mFBQu28lFQKcP3udx94wqA==:17 a=IkcTkHD0fZMA:10 a=vIxV3rELxO4A:10 a=gZ_Qg5DTvCEA:10 a=XIuXScDsIHsTbZ5TSpoA:9 a=QEXdDO2ut3YA:10 Received: from c-67-185-166-156.hsd1.wa.comcast.net ([67.185.166.156]:51789 helo=[10.0.0.128]) by bosauthsmtp18.eigbox.net with esmtpa (Exim) id 1mn3R8-0007m9-5T for tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 16 Nov 2021 13:44:06 -0500 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 10:44:04 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/91.3.1 Content-Language: en-US To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org References: <20211116040858.se3ygq2butxqopcx@localhost.localdomain> <202111161827.1AGIRU1l930653@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Heinz Lycklama Organization: Open Systems Technology Associates In-Reply-To: <202111161827.1AGIRU1l930653@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-EN-UserInfo: ffc85f53e1d6cf32f4fdb09be51357ac:931c98230c6409dcc37fa7e93b490c27 X-EN-AuthUser: heinz@osta.com X-EN-OrigIP: 67.185.166.156 X-EN-OrigHost: c-67-185-166-156.hsd1.wa.comcast.net Subject: Re: [TUHS] Book Recommendation X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Reply-To: heinz@osta.com Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Jon, regarding FSNAP - wrote it from scratch. Did not know about SNAP at the time. Heinz On 11/16/2021 10:27 AM, Jon Steinhart wrote: > Clem Cole writes: >> Unfortunately, because the hobbyist and much of the press for entry-level >> of the same, touted BASIC, many did not know better. The fact is I'm >> still now sure the HS and JHS are a lot better than they were. >> >> I'll let Steinhart reply, but he wrote an excellent book recently targeted >> to just those same students that what to know more, but frankly their HS >> teachers really are not in a position to teach them properly. > Well thanks Clem :-) > > I didn't actually hit BASIC until college where freshmen had to learn it > on the PDP-8. Took me all of about 5 minutes to learn the language and > about a half a day to do the entire semester of coursework. Got me off > to a good start on annoying my professors. > > I think that my first programming language was SNAP running on a PDP8-E in > the (I don't remember the exact name) Princeton computer barn. Because my > dad worked at IBM I remember going over to his VP's house to learn APL on > his home terminal. FORTRAN on I think an IBM 1620 was next. After that > was Heinz's FSNAP on the Honeywell DDP-516 at BTL. Never thought to > ask before, Heinz - was FSNAP based on SNAP? Assembler came after that, > followed by C. I know, what's the difference? Then Pascal in college > which was dreadful after C. I asked my professor to give me a few pointers > on how to program with fixed length arrays but he couldn't give me any :-) > > It's my opinion that BASIC was a good thing in its day but that that time > has passed. Part of what made it the goto language was its simplicity; > there wasn't much to learn and there was no complex toolchain so time was > spend on figuring out how to structure a problem so that it could be solved > on a computer. In my not very humble opinion, this is the fundamental > (or should I say basic) problem with CS education today; the effort is > focused on learning the language and the toolchain, not how to think and > solve problems. Somehow many of us learned to program in BASIC without a > "Hello World" tutorial. > > Another big factor in those days was that the consequences for getting > something wrong were pretty much nonexistent. What was the worst that > could happen, you'd accidentally output an obscenity? Give what computers > were used for back then, getting the math wrong was more likely than having > a logic error. I didn't have to worry about buggy code destroying anything > until a project where I modified FSNAP to control semiconductor test > equipment. > > I have tried when mentoring to get people to start with simple > character oriented programs but of course everyone (especially boys) > want to start with a video game. This immediately means having to deal > with multithreaded code (even if it's somewhat hidden) and complex APIs. > All of this is a distraction from learning how to think and solve problems. > As a result, we're producing a lot of "programmers" who can wrangle this > stuff while having no idea how to solve a problem. I think that a glance > at stackoverflow backs me up here. It's extremely frustrating: "I want to > write a video game where I can shoot something." "Cool. Let's learn > some physics." "I don't want to learn physics, I want to shoot something." > > As an aside, I saw an article recently where someone was lauding the > github "AI" code writing thing. The author wrote something like "Wow. > I asked it to replace spaces in a string with underscores and it just > gave me the code." Arrrrggggghhhh!!! IMNVHO this person should never be > allowed near a computer. If you can't do this without help you shouldn't > be programming. > > Like usual, I'm rambling, but one more related thing. I'm mentoring a CS > student who has to do a project this year. My advice was that I didn't > care what the project actually did, but that it should be based on an > Arduino and written in C and assembler without any of the sketch library > stuff. The goal being to learn to read a data sheet, program I/O devices, > and handle interrupts. All on a processor that's not too complicated. > > Jon