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From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: first language (geez.....)
Message-ID: <2592@ames.arpa>
Date: Wed, 26-Aug-87 13:51:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.2592
Posted: Wed Aug 26 13:51:12 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Aug-87 06:01:42 EDT
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Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
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LISP as first language (CARs, CDRs?!, Silly Parens?), REXX, LOGO?
No, network memory.  The new people coming into this discussion have not
seen the earlier posting on this thrice discussed topic.

Hugh LaMaster asked about LOGO.  When I first heard of it, it sounded
kind of neat, and I had a few minutes off from Grad School and 
an ANSI Pascal meeting in we had town [Santa Barbara] (when I was an
alternate).  It was just another language with some graphical constructs
thrown in.  Kind of disappointing but easily checked.

I think the discussion should be "what makes languages hard to learn"
rather than "what makes them good."  We are blind to our biases, and we
don't approach the problem in the right way.  I wonder what the drop out
rate for a lot of these classes are?  A good work-person analyzes the
shavings which fall on the floor every now and again.

But, let me relate something to you which happened last evening.
Normally, I have ACM/SIGGRAPH meetings one 4th Tues., but we were off
for the summer months and last evening I gave a talk on non-computer
stuff to the Sierra Club [but we were in Cupertino].  Afterward, the
hostess of the house was talking about her Mac.  Turned out she took an
animation class at De Anza college from one of my local ACM/SIGGRAPH
members.  She talked about a few people's inabilities to comprehend
animation but were otherwise excellent freehand/static artists.

What might be an interesting first programming language might be one of
these animation systems.  I won't discuss tradenames, but "they run on Macs"
and we had a SIGGRAPH meeting on some of these systems with Scott Kim and
Marne Morris [Exercise left for reader: try one.].  We discussed
the sequential nature of animation, the concept of state.  You can get
alternation without much problem (I'm pretty sure), and you can also get
some nice concurrency.  Still people had problems, but it sounds like
fewer than with normal "languages."

The basic technique is to create key frames and the machine does the
"in-betweening" via interpolation.

Normal programming languages are not very visual.  The typical example
of Smalltalk-80 graphics or LOGO are pretty crude.  It's difficult to
keep state clear (even in functional languages and even then the Mac
screen is painfully small).  But the visual metaphor offers perspective
(care to see that COMMON block, or static global var up in the upper
left hand corner?) and proportion which regular languages lack.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene