Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!midway!ellis.uchicago.edu!goer
From: goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: best introductory PC language
Message-ID: <1991Apr21.005055.10020@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 91 00:50:55 GMT
References: <1991Apr20.031652.7153@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 43

I recently posted a query about the "best" introductory PC language -
an inquiry for my 5 year-old.  Many have mistaken my request, so let
me try to be clearer:

     1) The child in question already knows GW-BASIC, and writes
        programs with as many as 500 lines, and understands Car-
        tesian coordinates, binary data representation, flow-of-
        control, random numbers, etc.  He likes to program on Sat.
        mornings while daddy and mommy are still "sleeping" ;-),
        and has no trouble looking up basic commands in the manual.

     2) The child in question has gotten himself into pretty deep
        water, writing spaghetti code that I have a hard time un-
        ravelling when he gets into trouble (which happens a lot).

     3) Given that he knows GW-BASIC, and it's not filling his needs,
        I'm trying to find something that will be better for him.
        What I'm trying to find for him is a language that

             a) runs on a PC (can't beat the price)
             b) has full, fast, high-level graphics capabilities
             c) is NOT a labeled language like GW-BASIC
             d) is interpreted (in the interactive sense)
             e) has a fairly simple syntax

        One other thing that my son would probably like is built-in
        handling of bignums and nice floating point routines.  He
        has a penchant for pushing things to the limit.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough before.  I got a bunch or responses
saying that I shouldn't expect too much of him, or that BASIC was a
good introductory language.  Believe me, I don't push him at all.  He
does most of this on his own.  And he already knows BASIC quite well,
and it's clearly not doing the job (at least the GW-BASIC variety).

I'm almost exclusively a UNIX programmer, and I've tried teaching him
Icon (a high-level string processing language).  He doesn't like doing
dumb UNIX tty stuff, though.  Can someone who knows PC software please
help me???
-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@sophist.uchicago.edu         rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer