The Commodore 64 Spike: A Freakonomics-ish Theory of CS Education

50 点作者 kranzky超过 11 年前

19 条评论

mindcrime超过 11 年前

Maybe in 17 years or so, there will be an Arduino / rPi / Beaglebone explosion of entry into CS programs? Look at things like this cool program put on by the Durham County (NC) Public Libary this summer:<a href="http://durhamcountylibrary.org/2013/06/teen-tech-camp-2013/" rel="nofollow">http://durhamcountylibrary.org/2013/06/teen-tech-camp-2013/</a><a href="http://exitevent.com/teen-tech-camp-hosts-future-developers-1389.asp" rel="nofollow">http://exitevent.com/teen-tech-camp-hosts-future-developers-...</a><a href="http://www.slj.com/2013/08/technology/powerful-partnerships-pi-and-python-behind-the-success-of-teen-tech-camp/" rel="nofollow">http://www.slj.com/2013/08/technology/powerful-partnerships-...</a>Kids learned to program in Python, on a Raspberry Pi, and each of them left at the end of the day with their Pi, and accompanying monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. Some of these kids were underprivileged kids who had no computer access before, so the event was a pretty big deal for some of these kids. From what I heard, a few parents teared up at the end when they found out their kids got to take all their stuff home with them.More programs of this nature, and more access to Arduino, rPi and the like, is one of the things I hang my hope for the future generations on.Aside: I'm proud to say that our other co-founder here at Fogbeam Labs, snkahn, was one of the co-conspirators who helped pull that together.

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rogerbinns超过 11 年前

Turn on any modern PC/device. Then look at the hoops you have to jump through to run the equivalent of:<pre><code> 10 print "my sibling smells" 20 goto 10 </code></pre> Computers of that era booted up straight into BASIC and you could easily enter the above. It was obvious to anyone watching exactly what was going on and they could have a try.You can conceptually do the same thing now, but have to jump through hoops first. Download the right dev environment, work out how to start an editor, work out what code to write, work out how to run it and finally see the results. Devices are very personal now, so no one is likely to watch you do this, and trying to mimic it is far harder than turning your own device on.Hopefully we'll end up with single function devices that can do this. The RPi is a good step in that direction, but still requires a lot to get going (look at all the cables and other bits and pieces you have to connect first.)

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stephengillie超过 11 年前

The problem isn't a lack of devices with the bare bones showing, where tinkering will produce results to be learned. The problem is that some things, like iPhone apps, are so much more polished than anything the average 12-year-old can produce that anything they make is discouraging by comparison.How many teenagers would it take to produce Candy Crush, a highly-polished game made by a team of teams -- art team, multiple app coding teams, database team, facebook integration teams, financial team, and management team. Man-years of effort went into making that game.Now be 12. Be a gamer. Be a kid who's choosing between struggling to make HTML5 Canvas work on a webpage, and playing games with friends.

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justanother超过 11 年前

It's about That Feeling. I got That Feeling from the Atari 800 and Apple IIgs, you got it from your C64, I sometimes manage to find it still, with the help of liquor and a Lisp interpreter (but not at all from the line-of-business apps that make my living now). Without That Feeling, you're not going to go past a certain level in software development, no matter how many dry facts you learn. How do kids get That Feeling today? It sure isn't from iOS devices.

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Pitarou超过 11 年前

I'm kinda' researching this question for my MSc e-Learning technology, so I've got a lot to say on the matter, but I'll try and keep this brief.We need the CompSci equivalent of Meccano sets for kids to tinker with. Something that's easy to just pick up and start playing with, gives instant feedback, and equips them with the skills to go and play with bigger and better toys.The guys at Khan Academy understand this well, and they've built something pretty slick. <<a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/browse-programs>" rel="nofollow">https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/browse-programs></a> I guess you could describe it as a cross between processing.js and JSFiddle, with a showcase for interesting new projects.From my limited interactions with the system, I'd say it's already pretty good, but to be great they need to figure out how to make peer-teaching work better. Also, I think they would benefit from an even more accessible "just pick it up and play with it mode", rather than insisting that the kids sit through tutorial videos before they can do anything.

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pellias超过 11 年前

I remembered my first 'programming' experience. Went to the library and pour through the BASIC books, found an 'I spy' game that only had like 12-15 lines of code.Went to my friend's C64, typed everything out and then sat looking at the screen after typing 'Enter' for the last statement.Nothing happened obviously. That damn book didn't teach u about compiling, running and I am not even sure that book was about programming for C64 or what not.

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plg超过 11 年前

It's totally true. In the 1980s we as kids had to learn a more complete mental model of what was happening inside the computer, just in order to operate it, even without necessarily programming it (although we did that too). Starting in the late 1990s computers became more like appliances. Nowadays university students haven't a clue what's happening behind the fancy interface.I'm not saying appliance-like functionality isn't a good thing ... for the masses it undoubtedly is.But as the OP's article points out quite nicely, it's not conducive to lighting a fire inside a young mind.I remember going to the back of computer magazines and transcribing pages upon pages of BASIC code corresponding to various games ... (on an Apple II) ... those were definitely the days.

FrankenPC超过 11 年前

Back in the C64 days everything was absolutely fresh. Everything was exciting. No one was an "expert". Everyone was just really enjoying experimenting. THAT'S why it was exciting. It was undiscovered country. To kids, it's boring now. There's nothing to discover. Deep down, kids want adventure. It seems computer science is being relegated to the same box mathematics is stored in.

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flashmob超过 11 年前

The commodore 64 rocks as an educational tool about computers! Here are some interesting things that we did besides games:- Sprites. You had to use pencil and paper to calculate the bit values on a bit map and convert these in to DATA statement in BASIC- Modifying bytes directly on the disk to change some ASCII text to whatever you like.- Going to K-Mart and program the demo machine with some prank program and let it run.- SAM Text-to-speech. We hooked it up to the phone mic and used it to do prank call our friends.- Peek and Poke any part of memory, sometimes get funny results- Typing out programs from magazines and watch them do funny things, flip text or other effects- Connecting to a BBSFun times!

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kranzky超过 11 年前

Would be interested in discussing feedback on this post; I'm about to enter a Startup Weekend, and would love to do something that could address this problem.

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rocky1138超过 11 年前

I completely agree, have felt the same, and lamented this to a friend just days ago. It's great to know that there are others out there. For me, my exposure was via an IBM PS/2, LOGO, and GW/QBASIC, but the effect was the same.

eksith超过 11 年前

Arduino and other development boards are getting cheap enough that they should be part of school computer science curriculums. In lieu teaching Basic et al. (which is still the standard for BASIC microcontrollers from Parallax) they could instead be persuaded to learn C/C++.Like Legos or Erector sets, kids are more fascinated with toys they can build with rather than play passively (which they get bored of quickly). Replace "toy" with "exploration venue" and you have a whole new world of possibilities.

tony_allan超过 11 年前

Arduino - <a href="http://arduino.cc/" rel="nofollow">http://arduino.cc/</a> and its many derivatives, and more recently Raspberry Pi - <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.raspberrypi.org/</a> are going to create the same effect as the Commodore 6.Cheap enough for curious kids to buy themselves, very easy to use, both with a strong connection to the real world.In addition, as well as a stand-alone internet connected device, the Raspberry Pi makes a cheap Linux desktop computer.

orangebox超过 11 年前

Most people who own cars have little interest in how they work under the hood. Same is true for computers today. It's not just true for machines but all parts of life. I know several adults who hardly ever cook, despite that fact that they've been eating meals cooked by other all their lives. Using something doesn't necessarily mean you'll want to learn how to create it yourself.

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dirkk0超过 11 年前

Awesome article. Parents 'in the know' seem to have to educate the children themselves instead of relying on the school system (the australian insights of the author apply in Germany, too).Out of the same notion I am doing a series of video tutorials on how to create browser games for my 14 year old girl and her classmates.It's also in english so as a side effect they get into that as well.

mhenr18超过 11 年前

The comment about 10% of CS graduates in Australia being female rings true and I think it's a highball. I'm typing this as I sit in a systems programming lecture at UQ and the attendance is hardly 5% female.Of course that's a sample size of 1 but it's still worrying.

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sunpazed超过 11 年前

"In the beginning there was the command line" covers most of these points: <a href="http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html</a>

andyidsinga超过 11 年前

really interesting. im a couple years younger than op ..had an atari 400 - with the basic book:) .most of my friends had c64s. i didnt't even seek a career in sw dev. ..but ended up here anyway. i think much of the reason is those days punching in basic, moving on the BBSs, fidonet ...getting into C, sockets and win32 and yada yada yada holy crap i fly a desk for living! originally wanted to be a pilot ...now i can afford to learn to fly but dont have time ..back to messing with that irc bot web wrangler thing im hacking for the fun of it.

benzoate超过 11 年前

I went to university in 2007 (born in 88), but I grew up with a Commadore 64. I guess being brought up by a relatively poor single mum has its advantages