teaching Perl

>>I always thought a decent idea to get someone started on programming from the ground up would be a simple, text-oriented RPG. This, of course, will work best if the person actually likes RPGs. This would be a simple introduction to basic ideas of control flow, data structures, and the like, but should be fairly fun. I'd be willing to bet that you can actually write a decent game, with good combat mechanics and plotline, without having to worry about complicated user interface/graphics issues. <<

Of course, after that I have to ask if you've read "Diamond Age" by Neal Stephensen, both because it is one of my favorite books -- and because it does deal with the idea of a game/interactive book that teaches the reader (also a young girl) how to code (among other things.)

I think that a game would be fantastic -- except that it could be so much work, I wonder if I'd ever get around to building one. I do think the spirit should be preserved though -- something interactive, something fun. I would like to point out that a girl -- as Falkkin and I are both -- is probably not that likely to be incentivized by "good combat mechanics and plotline."

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to construct a series of exercises/challenges to teach the basic concepts. You could even "open-source" them and then people could put different kinds of wrappers on them. Falkkin, you could build an RPG; I'd probably just maintain a Wiki, where users could post notes to each other as they go along.

From my experience with my cousin, teens *ARE* willing to do puzzles, etc as part of a community thing. The wrapper's what counts. Sites like neopets.com are even in this category... what a different wrapper that is.. ;)

>>After spending a while with javascript I wanted to do stuff that it couldn't do, learned about perl, and the rest is history =] <<

The nice thing about learning Perl vs learning Windows shortcuts or noodling around with Javascript is that it *is* so powerful. I'd prefer to teach someone with Perl simply bc then we *can* detour into web, windows, spidering or whatever... and hopefully make the curriculum more appealing as a result.

Comment on teaching Perl

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: teaching Perl by Falkkin (Chaplain) on Jan 31, 2004 at 15:07 UTC
Of course, after that I have to ask if you've read "Diamond Age" by Neal Stephensen, both because it is one of my favorite books -- and because it does deal with the idea of a game/interactive book that teaches the reader (also a young girl) how to code (among other things.) Yes, I have read it, though I wasn't thinking of it at all when I posted this. (Incidentally, I liked Cryptonomicon better.) I think that a game would be fantastic -- except that it could be so much work, I wonder if I'd ever get around to building one. Well, if it were organized into small, separate "challenges", you could learn the basics while, in the process, making some simple game. Wouldn't have to be an RPG, of course - I just think that it's fairly easy to develop something like an RPG or interactive storytelling without the use of flashy graphics. I do think the spirit should be preserved though -- something interactive, something fun. I would like to point out that a girl -- as Falkkin and I are both -- is probably not that likely to be incentivized by "good combat mechanics and plotline." Woah there -- I'm afraid I'm a male of our species :) That aside, I think that the importance of plotline in a game depends on how much of a reader/author the designer is. By the way, are you aware of Alice or MooseCrossing? Both of these are programming languages designed to teach programming in a fun sort of way. Admittedly, they're fairly special-purpose languages, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They're also designed by people who actually do research in teaching kids to program, who probably know more about the subject than I do. :)	[reply]
Re: Re: teaching Perl by techgirl (Beadle) on Jan 31, 2004 at 19:52 UTC
(Incidentally, I liked Cryptonomicon better.) I liked Cryptonomicon, but I think I liked Diamond Age more, and Snow Crash the most. Well, if it were organized into small, separate "challenges", you could learn the basics while, in the process, making some simple game. Wouldn't have to be an RPG, of course - I just think that it's fairly easy to develop something like an RPG or interactive storytelling without the use of flashy graphics. Just to clarify, did you mean that a game would be created through the lessons or challenges, or that the game would be made up of them? Otherwise, I think this is the same idea that I had. The degree of interactivity or storytelling could vary... I created an interactive game to teach about internet security for a (policy-related) class I took ages ago.... it's a LOT of work :) I actually am a writer/designer, so those things aren't as difficult... for me the difficult part would be organizing the material and making sure it was interesting. That said, maybe with collaborators, it could be easier. Who knows! Given that, I think the first step would be identifying the puzzles/lessons, and perhaps an overall theme. It would be fairly easy to build a game around that. I was looking at the Quests section of this site, and wondering if asking people to suggest easy programming puzzles would be appropriate there. Since there are so many types of Perl programmers, possibly limiting it to say, web development or easy command line tools, might be valuable. Has no one ever done this before? I'm surprised. (Maybe because it is a lot of work, and the people who are willing to do that are mostly educators, not mortal Perl programmers like us.) By the way, are you aware of Alice or MooseCrossing? No, thanks. I will look into them...	[reply]
Re^3: teaching Perl by apotheon (Deacon) on Oct 26, 2004 at 06:31 UTC
An idea has occurred to me: What about something like a scavenger hunt? It would involve downloading a set of files to the hard drive, to include a readme to get you started. The first thing you'd do is write a script according to the beginning set of instructions. Those instructions might direct you to, for instance, grab text from a set of text files and assemble them into your next set of instructions. That, in turn, might direct you to write an FTP program designed to get data from a specific directory on a given server, which would be the next set of instructions. That, then, might direct you to write a script that puts together an HTML file that draws data from a database accessible on the Web. Et cetera. It has the benefits of A) not requiring one to be particularly interested in hack-n-slash adventure games, B) providing quick, positive feedback, and C) providing tasks of increasing difficulty as one progresses, to match the learning curve. There are probably other benefits as well, such as the fact that there aren't any "right" and "wrong" answers to the exercises, per se — only "effective" and "ineffective", which allows for a great deal of flexibility and ingenuity on the part of the student of Perl. By the way, Snow Crash was an incredible read. It's all the Stephenson I've read so far, aside from a very long essay (more than 30k words, I think). I intend to read more of it in the future, thought. - apotheon CopyWrite Chad Perrin	[reply]
Re: teaching Perl by Spenser (Friar) on Feb 02, 2004 at 16:02 UTC
On the topic of teaching programming using Perl, you might look at the book by danger (Andrew Johnson) Elements of Programming with Perl. It's a well written book that teaches programming using Perl instead of BASIC or some other low level language. -Spenser That's Spenser, with an "s" like the detective.	[reply]
Re^2: teaching Perl by apotheon (Deacon) on Oct 26, 2004 at 06:21 UTC
Wholly cow. I've been thinking "It'd be nice if there was an instructional text for beginning programming that used Perl instead of C++, Basic, Visual Basic, Pascal, or Logo!" for months. Now I find out it exists. I'm glad I stumbled across this. - apotheon CopyWrite Chad Perrin	[reply]