The comments on this thread make me want to quit HN for good.
I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots.
I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence. It's good to know many of you can. A woman who already speaks and organizes events is writing and illustrating a children's book about programming–and some of you sit and criticize her motives, pedagogy, and presentation skills from your desks. Bravo.
I generally don't swear, but some of you are jackasses.
On the contrary, I'm very glad that HN is as critical as it is. Is it the Only Correct Worldview? Absolutely not, and if you rely primarily on HN to forge your opinion of tech and startups and programming, you're going to be very cynical and blasé.
I'm sure that if Donald Knuth posted a "Show HN: I've been writing a book called The Art of Computer Programming", half of the comments would be negative (a fair lot of them would likely be about programming isn't an "art" and how it's preposterous to call it one). And so what? Again, I don't see this as a problem unless you hold HN to be some sort of ultimate source of information and discussion, which it is absolutely not.
But given how insufferably pompous SV culture can be at times ("Yeah we're changing the world with our totally rad app, and building the most amazing engineering team in the world"), I actually find it refreshing how comments on HN will try to pick anything apart and find whatever flaws it may have. It can be borderline ridiculous at times, but honestly so is everything else.
tl;dr if you're sick of HN, you're probably spending too much time on it
I'm all for criticism that involves actual analysis and attempts to be constructive. That's not what I saw/see here.
"Show HN" posts are specifically for criticism because (a) the OP asks for it and (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question. This is a Kickstarter page for a product that hasn't even shipped yet. Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.
No. The truth is that you're being overly defensive.
> I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence.
So we should all make smiley faces and exclamation marks and ZOMG children will learn coding because "nothing bad can come out of its existence"?
> (a) the OP asks for it
Oh I'm sorry, I'll never criticise anything ever again if OP doesn't ask for it!
> (b) we can actually put our eyes/ears/fingers on the product in question.
Dude/Dudette, that is literally the Kickstarter model. Are you saying a page explaining things about the book, with a video is just there for fun? Maybe I should give every kickstarter some money because hey, nothing bad/wrong can come out of their existence and I'm not allowed to criticise it since I can't put my ears/fingers on the product in question.
> Instead of "I hope they cover loops", we get "she is odd in front of a camera" and "too many alarm bells".
It'll be a pretty boring Maths book if all they cover are integers, strings and variables.
And yes, she did look odd in front of the camera. And I'm allowed to say that in this comment. Because she created it and put it up on Kickstarter. You want universal acceptance and love? I got some bad news for you...
And btw, the video was actually bad. Sorry.
> And BTW, I'm all for picking apart "insufferably pompous SV culture"–in fact, I'd love to make some spoof startup videos doing exactly that. That's just not what I'm seeing here.
I see a lot of pompousness in this post too. Lets be reasonable. It's a freaking children's book. The author is a well established member of the development community and works for one of the most well known programming tutorial website. One can presume that they would have the time and money to start working on a book which has lots of drawings. People were writing books before Kickstarter existed you know.
But of course, how dare I criticise anything about those cute drawings. Think of the Children!
You're allowed to be a hater — much like you're allowed to walk around creepily breathing on people's necks — but it still makes your comments unpleasant and drags down the level of discourse here.
So downvote and move on. You're not adding anything on topic with this meta comment and you could have foreseen it would hijack the top spot.
To add insult to injury, you're being drama-royalty: just because a few nobodies level unfounded criticism at her is not reason to "quit HN for good". Or you would've quit long ago. And instead of rubbing their face in their dumbness by explaining to them how wrong their criticism is, you're just going to stand on a soapbox and complain in general about how annoying the world is. Do something about it! And no, what you have posted is not doing something about it.
There is definitely something wrong with doing that with a top-level comment. It distracts from the actual topic. You should only do that if you have a very good reason, such as noting the same behavior multiple times on multiple topics.
You should certainly not do it within two hours after the article was posted, to allow time for selfcorrection. That is the point of the voting system.
There is also something wrong with doing it in an appeal-to-emotion fashion, threatening how this is 'almost making you leave'. You should clearly address the problem at hand, citing examples and explaining the problem, instead of hiding the actual problem that the fuss is about in the third paragraph.
You should only do that if you have a very good reason, such as noting the same behavior multiple times on multiple topics
A top level comment seems to be the only appropriate place to discuss the overall tone or tenor of a conversation. Responding to each dismissive/negative/unconstructive comment seems redundant and annoying.
How about you don't respond to tone or tenor at all? It's a bad argument on the best of days (PG's hierarchy has that near the bottom, one step above straight up ad hominem.)
It's a diversion at best. If you feel someone is being unpleasant, deal with it. You needn't be pleasant to be right. If they're being unpleasant and wrong, reply with why they're wrong, or alternatively downvote and move on. No need for meta noise in any case.
I respectfully disagree with the idea that we should simply ignore unpleasantness in the community. A healthy ecosystem is determined by a lot more than mere factual correctness.
But it's also determined by a lot more than a veneer of politically-correct pleasantness. I suggest that the best way to deal with such people is use the downvote button. Complaining about tone is just so much noise... it adds nothing to any discussion.
A 'collapse thread' function would go a long way to eliminating the damage meta-threads and troll/flame-threads do to discussions. Yeah, I know there are extensions/userscripts that do it.
And yeah, I get the concern PG has about community fragmentation, but when I see a comment "leave HN" that has half a dozen replies under it, I really don't think I need to go down that thread of discussion any further.
You extrapolated my comment quite a bit. "Doing something" and "complaining" are not mutually exclusive–nor was my complaint about "how annoying the world is".
EDIT: wanted to also add I had no intention/foresight of "hijacking" the top spot. Most of my HN comments get lost in the ether–which I'm perfectly fine with.
As the father of a nearly 6 year old girl, my first reaction when seeing the nice drawings and "programming for kids" was "COOOL! How much? Let me get my wallet out!". But then I saw "32 pages", and... yeah, that flipped my skeptic bit too. 32 pages is fine, but what am I getting there? An extremely broad but shallow overview? A few concepts explained... how? A neat story about how cool computers are? I don't really get a good sense of what all is covered in the book. Any of those things might make a fine book that I would buy - I really like the art shown - but "computer programming for kids" in such a short book just doesn't sound realistic.
The old Usborne computer programming books got a lot done in about 50 pages. But then they were quite textually dense, and by no means perfect as teaching tools either https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7110676 .
Yeah, 50 pages of text might get you something. 32 pages of mostly drawings gets you... The Gruffalo ( http://www.amazon.com/Gruffalo-Julia-Donaldson/dp/0142403873... ), a popular book for kids that we also own. So there's nothing wrong with the format, but just don't over promise in terms of what it is.
It's 32+16 pages, which totals 48... so if you're happy with 50, it's a bit strange to be upset about 32 pages of story and 16 pages of activities?
edit: It's much shorter than 50 pages full of text -- but I think this project looks great, especially for the target audience. IMNHO there's a pretty thin line between children's books like this, and when those actually interested (and a little older, maybe) can get started with any old programming book (many of the Ruby and Python books should work fine -- if we could learn 68000 asm in a foreign language from a magazine at 12, surely most of the "proper" books should be within reach of a motivated 10 year old?). What's needed is some books and materials to make the field interesting and fun to get into.
WTF is this crap? Have we gotten so deep into the PC weeds that any criticism of something a woman does is de-facto sexist/incorrect?!
If the (rather mild) contents of this thread are what you're hemming and hawing about, please make good on your threat, leave and take the horse you rode in on with you.
Whenever a woman is criticized in a remotely harsh tone, you will find men who instinctively rush to her aid. Men who will pat her on the head, compliment her, and apologize on behalf of everyone.
Don't blame women for this phenomenon (and I'm not saying you are); blame those men who view women as fragile children in need of protection.
Thanks for this comment. I thought I was the only one feeling this.
I'd say this is a perfect example of why there aren't more women in computers. From what I've seen, a lot of women have a low tolerance for this level of overt critique, regardless of whether the critique is correct or not.
There is nothing horrible about this project that warrants a negative view, particularly one that doesn't present any alternative.
A lot of women do. So do a lot of men. Computer science is filled with people on the poor side of "social skill set", and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. That's why there are less women in the field - they simply aren't going to tolerate a default reaction that is insulting first and helpful only if you ignore the attitude.
Don't get me wrong, we turn off a lot of people - men and women - because of this, but we lose a lot more women, percentage wise.
And just a note: The irony of you telling me to "please stop talking" is, well, perfectly suited to the topic of our conversation.
I can't speak for hendzen, but your suggestion that women avoid tech because they're not as thick-skinned as men -- as opposed to being constantly exposed to hostility -- can easily be perceived as offensive. It sounds like you're propagating the myth that women are delicate flowers who just aren't as tough as men, which is part of what allows men to continue getting away with bad behavior.
Well, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that women are less tolerant of assholes, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Women (overall of course, individuals vary) and men in general have different social cues and expectations. That's why each gender will act differently in the locker room than they will around the boardroom table.
Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with suggesting that women in general are less tolerant of being directly criticized in a public forum than men are. I don't view it as a sign of weakness. Men are much less tolerant of the behind the back insults that happen in women's circles than women are. The genders (overall, again) relate differently.
Neither is a sign of weakness, although they are exactly that when one of the two methods is dominant. And that's where we are today - computer science is closer to a locker room in culture and behaviour in many ways than it is to a boardroom. I see no reason not to accept the fact that many women would not be comfortable given that.
It isn't the women that need to change, though.
(I also see your point. My first comment may not have been properly clear.)
It's not healthy to be permanently offended, but presenting an idea and being told that it isn't good (by someone presenting no alternative) or that you have ulterior motives (by readers of a website directed to startups of all things) isn't something someone should need to deal with.
> presenting an idea and being told that it isn't good (by someone presenting no alternative) ... isn't something someone should need to deal with.
I might be visualizing a different conversational domain than you are, but I'm not sure about this.
For example, when you build a bridge, there's a clear, objective line of quality somewhere above "the bridge stays standing." If I know enough about physics to see that your bridge won't stand, that doesn't mean that I also know enough about architecture to propose my own bridge -- but it doesn't have to; the knowledge that design X is fatally flawed is useful in its own right.
>For example, when you build a bridge, there's a clear, objective line of quality somewhere above
She isn't building a bridge, she's writing a story for children. The failure point is that nobody likes her story and therefore it doesn't sell. That's the absolute worst thing that can happen. Not a single child will be so critically scarred from her story that they never learn programming. Yet it may resonate for some.
There is no point to critique when the downside is so unbelievably inconsequential and the plus side is beneficial to a person, other than simply being an ass.
But you made a general argument (no one should ever have to deal with negative feedback without a proposed alternative), not one specific to this case. And in the general case, it's wrong. I agree completely that it's right in this specific case -- but you were rhetorically over-reaching.
Social skills are those we develop to be able to function in a world of different weltanschauung. They are skills developed specifically to avoid offending anyone. Social skills can be taught but a thick skin can only be developed through experience.
I believe the critiques are just a more vocal minority, most of us that think this is awesome, will simply upvote the topic without leaving a comment. This is even more common on HN where one-line comments like +1, awesome, great is frowned on.
To be fair the comments were pretty grim for the first hour. Positive comments seem to take more time? I'd hate to be the author and see that kind of response.
Agreed. And since when is criticism a bad thing, esp. on HN? Especially since most of it here seemed meant to start a discussion, as in "I'm not sure this is the best way to teach programming, wouldn't X be better."
I thought this would be a worthwhile discussion to have as opposed to only useless "OMG this is the BEST thing ever" comments.
The initial comments appeared to me to be skewed toward criticism that was negative and/or tangential to the book's goals. It appears to have improved somewhat.
Must we really always find something to be critical of? Upvote the comments you think are worthy, ignore the rest (or indeed, just read the articles and ignore the comments altogether).
Comments about comments are an all too common contribution to noise in the SNR of the internet (and my apologies for contributing thereto! An effort at future signal clarity).
To all: Please avoid posting comments critical of critical comments, which in turn attract critical comments - down that road lies madness (and stack overflows).
This is wonderful. I think some of the commenters here are missing the point by insisting that how they learned to code is how everyone should learn. If we're going to get to a point where coding is a basic type of literacy like math or reading (and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that goal), then you have to start small when kids are young. Really young kids need some kind of framework. You can't just throw existing programming books at them and say, "have at it". Do we throw high school level geometry books at kids to teach them shapes? No, we give them all sorts of fun story books that incorporate shapes (and colors, and numbers...) so that they get the basics. I suspect this book is trying to fill in that early gap with respect to programming.
My youngest child could count to 10 at 18 months most likely because she insists on me reading the infernal book "Deborah the Dozy Duckling" all the time. It's about a duck that falls asleep while playing hide and seek. The whole book is frankly awful and I hate reading it, but that one page where Deborah's friends count to 10 turned out to grab her for some reason. Books can be very, very powerful learning devices.
I had a 1991-issued book called “Professor Fortran's Encyclopaedia“ in my childhood. It introduced me to computers, modems, viruses and even several BASIC commands in the form of a comic book with funny characters:
I did not learn programming from it (it contained no actual code other than a “hello world”), but it fired up my imagination and introduced me to computery things. I didn't get to have an actual computer until five years later, but when I finally got it, I got into programming immediately.
This kind of books is extremely underrepresented and I believe very valuable.
For me personally it was a book about William Pasteur and his development of the rabies vaccine. That book lit a fire in my mind for molecular biology (though that was not a well known "thing" at the time). To this day I can vividly recall the pictures of the "invisible army" marching through a sick kid's blood vessels. They were drawn as soldiers with bayonets and they stabbed the amorphous black blobby germs. A few years ago I located the book on Amazon. Interesting to see I'm not the only one whose career was influenced by this book: http://amzn.com/0916392066
Awesome reading your post! My dad bought this book at a Goodwill when I was a kid, and I still remember how some of my friends thought the title was cheesy (you know, at that age when we're already trying to be adults and macho), yet my dad explained to me how it was actually very important, and how great and important Pasteur and the great lineage of scientists were. Awesome.
Thanks so much for the link! The whole day I was trying to remember this book because it was also this exact book that helped me get interested in computing!
My brother use to have a book (well, probably still does somewhere) called The New Way Things Work. It had simple explanations of how tons of different mechanisms work, but it had an entire chapter dedicated to explaining how digital systems could work, using woolly mammoths and various sorts of pie transportation devices. Really brilliant and detailed illustrations throughout.
I have always thought it was a wonderfully delightful way to introduce children to those sort of concepts. It was more EE/CE than coding (and the rest of the book was heavily ME), but I think the approach adapts to coding equally well.
Art is how society assimilates progress, converting technology into culture.
Of course stories matter. My self image as a proto nerd was largely informed by culture. War Games, Short Circuit, a bazillion scifi stories, popular science mags and books, etc. I may have learned coding from K&R. But I was motivated to learn how by the examples and role models I saw.
Liukas's talk at Heroku Waza 2013 (further down the kickstarter page) explains her philosophy and motivation for the book. Having personally spent real effort on messaging, narratives, innovation, and motivating people -- I think her strategy is brilliant.
> If we're going to get to a point where coding is a basic type of literacy like math or reading (and I'm not necessarily saying I agree with that goal), then you have to start small when kids are young.
This type of literacy would be something akin to "computational thinking" and then programming is to computational thinking as arithmetic is to mathematics. Programming shouldn't be an end in itself but a means to develop a deeper understanding of our modern information-rich technological sophisticated society. And yes, in my opinion, in that society one should be able to "program" as much as one should be able to "do arithmetic" or "can read/write". "Programming" can mean a lot of different things to different groups of people, but the basic idea of information processing and automatic repetitive tasks should be understood by all.
I agree 120%! Can't wait for this book to come out and give it to my daughter.
Shoot, I remember back in the 90's when I was still in high school, the programming books I had were so dry that it almost made me want to quit for good (I did take a 10 year break from learning to code and went into real estate investing).
Anyone that tells you to learn programming the hard way is full of it. Making programming fun and interesting definitely lowers the entry barrier. Maybe that's why some of the folks feel insecure that some youngin' may learn coding and steal away their job? You just never know!
Seems like lot of comments have concerns with the programming part, so here is my view why indirect approaches can be also important:
When we started Rails Girls with Linda, we saw that there were plenty of programming workshops, books and education available. We didn't want to create one more. Instead we focused on creating easy, one-day workshop to get you to try and see what programming and technology is about, while also building your first sample application and getting meet the local tech scene. After the workshop we tell the people that you now have all the tools and contacts you need for programming or creating something. It's up to you to learn more.
The important part was that all these people (probably thousands at this point) got over the first step and of whom many wouldn't have touched programming otherwise.
In the same way I don't think this book should be about teaching programming that much, but more as creating stories and personalities for technologies to peak interest. Children's interest usually leads to questions and to more interest. You can then use that energy, answer the questions, teach more and extend the workbook exercises to more challenging things. You can also use those characters as a basis to explaining the technology world or talking about what you do for living.
The point is that when you're trying to get a new demographic interested, you need to find a way to get them over the first step, which is to get them involved and getting them interested. The earlier this happens, the better.
Why project like this and the Goldie Box are important, is that they create a story, a world and excitement around technology, for those who might miss or haven't found their innate interest yet.
It seems a lot of "problem solvers" in this thread couldn't quite imagine the problem you might be addressing, let alone the possibilities of the solution you chose.
Edit: Looks really promising btw. Best of luck moving forward.
(Just clarification that I'm not involved with this project but I have talked about it with Linda in the past. So my views are my own views, and not necessarily Linda's.)
When I was ~9, my parents bought me a book called "Wrote your own adventure programs for your microcomputer" [1] (Well, the Spanish version [2]) I remember reading and reading and reading it, and not understanding it... I tried to replicate some of the ideas, but I think it was quite dense (and the translation was not very good).
The curious thing is that, when I properly started learning programming in college, I remembered that book, and a lot of things started make sense...
I say all this for two thing:
- I think is brilliant that there are books specifically teaching basic programming to kids, so more of them is great news
- Making a good programming book at that age is challenging, so please let it be good
This is, IMHO, an entry point, to give a taste of what programming is, so kids can try themselves later in front of a computer. Not sure what the best approach is, and I'm not convinced about the "story" approach, as I am not sure if it's interactive enough (as showing exercises). But, hey, there should be some options, and giving Linda's experience, I guess she has a better knowledge about teaching than me. So I'm sure it will be great
Oh my goodness. I learnt to code using that book (Adventure Games)! It wasn't the only one, and as you say the big program at the back is somewhat mystical, but I remember it being instrumental in demystifying how a game was put together.
Want to know how to teach kids to use computers? Give them an 8-bit machine from the 80's, and all the books for the thing that you can find.
My kids have an old 8-bit machine .. and they love the thing. They can type in their own BASIC programs from tons of sources, or load up a hundred games and other educational apps from a disk that I know won't contain anything weird or offensive .. on a machine with no access to the Internet. Its a wonderful thing, hearing a 6-year old tell his 4 year old brother how to make a sound eminate with just a few SOUND and PLAY commands ..
Great that it worked for you. Doesn't mean it will work for others.
Example: me. I had access to a computer, but couldn't comprehend the (foreign) lingo well enough to find the correct books in the (vast) library. My parents weren't into technology and couldn't help me. Had they understood the potential and had they given a few nudges, I would have started at 8 what I now started at 20. Many kids need guidance and encouragement.
The two methodologies aren't mutually exclusive. Maybe when this book comes out your kids will love it, perhaps even have a better appreciation for the concepts because of their experiences. Or, since Ruby is very different than BASIC, it might give them a glimpse into the variety of the world of computer programming.
Of course! Parents should give their kid a penny farthing as a first bike. It sure hurts when they fall off, but it builds character. Once they can brush themselves off and get back up, it's off to the factory!
I think the most important thing is to make sure they have an ample library of software for the machine .. in my case, we have almost everything that was ever developed for the Oric/Atmos, and recently got it set up so that its very, very easy for the kids to play with ..
My kids complained about 'not having enough dots on the display' and "why are there no good games on it - like Super Mario", but once I showed them a few of the classics (Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy), they got right into it.
Most important of all, however: play with the machine with your kids, too. This is a great way to get them interested - you do the typing, they do the reading. ;)
Minecraft, at least on Raspberry Pi, has a full API. It's likely a bit complex to get going with, but you might find you can build a layer your kids would find "useful".
I've been thinking about that, especially as my son keeps trying to do things that the game doesn't support out of the box.
He set up an "honor system" store where people were expected to asynchronously trade (by dropping) some commodity for some other commodity and got upset at people "stealing".
Either this generation of kids will be the best citizens the world has ever seen, or the worst.
Than put more programmable constructs into Minecraft-like games, obviously. And no, Redstone doesn't count - stuff that celebrates ease of coding, not difficulty.
I think it could be a great way of repackaging programming education in order to reach out to a different demographic, and we'll have to try out to see, so I wish this project all the best. Having said that:
> The book will be hardcover, 8x8 inches and 32 pages. The activity book is 16 pages and paperback.
I don't see how you could cover even just the basics mentioned on the Kickstarter page in so few pages without going too fast (remember this is a picture book). Maybe turning it into a series with different adventures (topics) makes more sense?
"Hello Ruby will be a classic journey of discovery that teaches the readers about different people working together, how problems can be solved in small sequences and how remixing and sharing helps everyone."
"The activity book teaches kids early programming skills. It’s designed to be enjoyed by a kid alone, but can also be worked through with an adult. And best of all - the workbook is designed to be doodled, wrecked and drawn all over.
- The foundational knowledge structures, like sequences, variables, patterns, loops, lists, conditionals, operators and events. Taught through exercises of dot-to-dot, pairs, odd-one-out, all from Ruby's world.
- A sprinkle of software culture, by teaching them to abstract and modularise, work iteratively and incrementally as well as encouraging them to reuse and remix work.
- Creativity and DIY attitude. Tons of doodles, logic puzzles and even a foldable miniature laptop that allows the kid to peek inside a computer."
Even if it just inculcates problem solving techniques like breaking a problem down into its component parts and then grokking the real underlying problem rather than the symptoms, (the lack of the latter is quite prevalent these days), it will be a net gain.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the books aim to teach kids to approach problems using programming logic, like loops and if else statements, rather than actually getting them up and running on Ruby.
But this is just what I remembered from reading her Kickstarter!
"It's too complicated" moaned George, he continued:
"Mr Main has asked me to deliver all of these invites to the birthday party but I keep forgetting which people I've given invitations to. I gave Sam three invites and Polly hasn't got one yet, it's no use! I can't remember which invite is which!"
"Don't worry" said Ivy, "lets work together to make this more simple! I'll remember which invitation we're giving and which one is next, so all you have to do is deliver the invite!"
George beamed, "Really? You can do that for me?"
"Sure thing George! They don't call me Ivy Iterator for nothing!"
(that's cryptic internet speak for, man I really like what you wrote, I can totally imagine the next chapter being about George asking Ivy how she did that!)
>How would you explain a simple FOR loop to a child through a story?
You wouldn't.
The same way you don't explain how to take a corner kick to a child playing soccer. All you need to do is explain that they need to kick the ball into the net, and let them go.
The same way you don't teach multiplication to a child before you teach the concepts of grouping and sorting.
Everything else comes later. This is a good introduction, not something that will qualify them to work in the industry.
Actually you can get a better result by walking them through a play slowly, then faster and faster until they've got the muscle memory and speed to succeed. Combined with drills for strength/accuracy, and you can bring a kid up to speed pretty quickly.
Giving them the ball and letting them run is not coaching. It works for the 1st 5 minutes; then they'd probably like to have some success or learn something. Kids are like that.
The child needs to be at the right level to understand the concept before they can be coached to do it. The book is aimed for 6 year olds, so, I'm using that age. Teaching a corner kick to a 6 year old is a waste of time. (at least in North America) You are still teaching the basics of space, movement and ball control.
Ergo, playing a game is the best way for a 6 year old to learn. At this age, exposure is the key element.
She's certainly very good at marketing, but based on the video and Kickstarter page I wonder how educational the book will actually be. A couple of sample pages would be helpful.
I'd say it's up to her to build her case, not me. There aren't any sample pages, and what I saw focused more on story than programming concepts. They're not mutually exclusive, but her video seemed to me basically an emotional puff piece, a bit short on concrete details.
You're certainly very good at suggesting your criticism should be taken seriously, because you preceded it with praise.
Here I was open-minded as ever, prepared to see something great, also prepared to scold at misogynistic crowd because there were hints in some comments that there is such crowd here... and then I watched the video.
Everything that can go in other direction related to stereotypes and gender roles - DID. It went so overboard that I think it's a part of marketing strategy for it. This is just sad, because I think the product could've done without it as well as it did.
I thought the same for a moment, until I realized I was basically watching a kids show. The colors, the enthusiasm, the fast cuts, this video was made by someone who knows how to get kids (we're talking 4-6 here) interested in something. If that's the sensibility she brings to her storytelling and illustrating, this book is going to be a wild success.
If it was a Kickstarter for an invention or a software product, I'd expect the presenters to be a bit more sedate. But given what she's selling, I think showcasing her personality helped make it clear that she's the right person for this job.
Had a similar initial reaction and came to the kid show conclusion too but it didn't make it okay in my book. Loved the idea of the book(s) and it's well put forward but her overacting this 'over the top happy go far' personality in the video was just distracting from the point of the whole thing. The video is targeting sponsors on kickstarter not kids who will read this. I think it would have been better to tone it down a bit and then just go all outboard in the promotional material after the book is done.
I have nothing against it, although it wasn't my personal taste. I just want to point out that being exaggerated and semi-crazy is not the only way to get kids excited. It is maybe the "TV show for kids" way. I often cringe inside when I witness that way of dealing with kids, because to me it seems not very genuine.
Again, if people like it, and kids like it, fine. I just wanted to comment because I think it would be sad if everything for kids would be converted into that kind of format.
Actually the whole premise of "getting kids interested" already points to a problem. Kids are naturally interested. You don't have to go into manic mode to get them interested.
Too bad we don't have an example of this to look at. I, regretfully, agree with the OP. It would probably seem kind of weird, and then male presenter would seem more than a bit childish.
Have you seen girls playing with kids? Would you say it's “over the top” when some of them act in a similar way doing so? When a girl plays with a kid in such a way, does it “reinforce some gender stereotype”?
What KeyFrame said. Even if the video were intended to be viewed by children, her body language and behaviour would still be a bit over the top, and as it is,the intended audience is people donating to Kickstarter. So yeah, I think it reinforces gender stereotypes. Which, I mean, I'm unsure if it's a good or a bad thing, but, well, shrug.
Edit: probably I'll get downvoted for this so I'll just add that I think it's good this book is being made. Can't hurt to try different things to get kids interested. Just not sure why the gender comment was necessary.
No, because the audience is clearly unsatisfied with only having those options.
What a bigoted comment. OP is praising diversity, and you are suggesting what, exactly? That there isn't an issue if everyone in a field approaches a problem in the exact same way? Are you really that small minded?
I did not reply to the "diversity is good" comment, but to the "this is a good example why diversity is good" comment. This seems to imply to me that such a book wouldn't be made by men, which seems rather prejudiced to me. I only object to the implied prejudice.
Your comment also sounds as if you think women would approach the issue in a completely different way than men, so please explain in which way?
Don't dodge criticism by retroactively changing the meaning of what you said. We all know damned well the major lack of diversity in programming is the lack of women.
Rather affirm that this is exactly part of what you were saying [1]. I'll one-up you: indeed, the chance of a male writing such a book is much smaller than the chance of a female writing such a book. Acting as if gender wouldn't influence choice of content and style is ridiculous.
And before anyone jumps on my back: I'm telling it like it is, which implies nothing about how I think that it should be.
[1] Why would 'diversity' be a good thing, if not for the fact that it results in, you know, more diversity? Differences in the input result in differences in the output.
"I'll one-up you: indeed, the chance of a male writing such a book is much smaller than the chance of a female writing such a book. Acting as if gender wouldn't influence choice of content and style is ridiculous."
So what aspects of it are female specific? Because women would be more likely to worry about educating children?
Seriously, answer the question instead of relying on prejudice, please.
I'd consent that female heroines might be more likely for female authors (didn't check, though), although in this case I suspect gender of author's children might be more important.
Edit: I have to go further - sorry, but you made me think about it. Of course the odds of a woman writing such a book are significantly smaller, simply because there are much fewer female programmers than male programmers.
Of course the odds of a woman writing such a book are
significantly smaller, simply because there are much fewer
female programmers than male programmers.
If you are talking about P(book written by female|book written by programmer). I was talking about P(such a book written by female|such a book written by programmer).
Which implies I assume P(female programmer writing such a book) / P(male programmer writing such a book) > P(male programmer writing book) / P(female programmer writing book). Also P(female programmer writing such a book|female programmer writing book) > P(male programmer writing such a book|male programmer writing book)
So what aspects of it are female specific?
None. There are aspects more likely to originate from a female. As you say: female heroine. As you say: caring about education of children. You only need to look at the gender ratio in primary school teachers to affirm the latter.
I want to address one of the books in the Amazon link. 3D game programming FOR KIDS looks overwhelming even to me. The kid me would have looked a few pages and fell right asleep. I understand it isn't for the same age range as Linda's book but wow. This is the problem getting kids to stick with it. My manager talks about his kids just not sticking with programming. They go to classes and want to build things, but it is easier to play games than actually build them. Which is more valuable skill? Looking at the mockup images of Linda's book, it seems to bring kids real life scenarios with a programming ideology which is fantastic.
I only did a search for "programming book for kids" on Amazon. Maybe they all suck, maybe not. Maybe Linda's book will suck, too. I just want to know why a programming book written by a woman is presumed to be superior to programming books written by men. And I have nothing against programming books written by women - my question is why enter the gender angle.
Maybe men would be less likely to use a female protagonist, I haven't sampled the books content. Maybe not. So it's maybe nice to have a programming book with a female protagonist, but I doubt it is something only women would think of.
In fact I suppose if a man who has a daughter were to write such a book, he would be quite likely to make the protagonist female, too.
I think there's something to be said for having a female author to look up to, for young girls (and boys) in terms of dispelling programming stereotypes at a young age. And no, I don't think a man could accomplish the same thing. As far as the actual content though, no argument.
Cynic hat on . . . I'm not sure I get this. Looks like an effort to promote an illustrator more than actually achieve the stated aims.
The reasoning is simple: Alan Kay and others have repeatedly demonstrated kids have a far greater aptitude for this stuff than is generally accepted. The packaging in this manner isn't the problem, the problem is the programming environments around today don't tend to do anything the kids are interested in without overcoming significant hurdles. i.e. unless you can do graphics easily forget it.
Back when I grew up in the 80s every 8 year old had to do Logo at school, partly to teach maths, partly to teach programming constructs. This was the part of the week almost everyone liked most. Make pictures, do maths, play with robots - what's not to love?
So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now.
I got to know Linda in business school in 2005. I worked on a big group assignment with her for a year. She's got this natural joy about her that if feel she can inpire anyone about anything.
She founded Rails Girls in 2010 and joined Code Academy a few years ago so she has way more experience introducing people to programming than she does on doing illustrations.
I believe getting people inspired is the best way to get them to learn. My two cents is that she was inspired by _why's work and tries take that approach further.
>So, hope that theory is wrong, but it sets off too many alarms for now.
Yes. The the alarms bells are far too numerous when the co-founder of Rails Girls ("Our aim is to give tools and a community for women to understand technology and to build their ideas."), and community manager at Codeacademy expands her mission of education and inspiration to children via a book tailored to them.
Alarm bells everywhere.
Thankfully, you've caught the issues and rang the (many) alarms before the book has even been written. Very efficient.
Considering there are quite some illustrated books about programming, especially "why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby", the whole thing doesn't seem to hurt either.
Kids have different tastes, like everyone. So why not an illustrated guide? It does not necessarily "fix" a problem, but provide a wider range of material. Not everything has to be code.
Linda has credibility when it comes to teaching code, so I would not put myself above that.
Many people, myself included, cut their teeth on machines where graphics were far from easy. Most of my early programs on the VIC20 and C64 were text adventures, and occasionaly I'd get into some games where the graphics were as exciting as moving asterisks.
Yeah, but as others observe this is a moving target. What impressed you and me in the 80s is not going to motivate a child that grew up playing on an iPad.
The art here is in finding the set of virtual objects needed for the desired result, ideally about which there is some existing intuition for reasoning about. In Mindstorms they have a good term for this that I've forgotten, of which the turtle is the object used to teach ideas of geometry, subroutines etc.
Thats true, but my son has enjoyed typing in "moving asterisk" games from an old VIC20 book into an emulator, and has enjoyed playing them too. He would still rather play on an iPad though. Oh well.
I too first really started with Logo. I tried teaching Scheme twice to 7-yr-olds, and found they readily picked up the concepts. But they seem more excited with things like Scratch, since you can get sounds and things jumping around and responding in a very easy manner. Logo is just not as impressive now as it was decades ago.
The issue is grownups who don't have a logical mindset for program is the ones who design curriculum and not an under estimation of children's abilities. It would be really interesting to have a pre-school that teaches these concepts first:
breaking down one big problem to smaller problems
sequencing beyond 1, 2, 3 but in problem solving
logical thinking / prediction
This would likely be a very good indoctrination of programming via narrative for kids between 4-8, specifically 4-6. For kids that age, this takes something real and presents it as a magical force exerted on the world which can bring order and control. Kids that small are very intelligent and will get, much more, an emotional kindling for programming from a book like this...
I'd take more issue with the obvious branding. It would have been more elegant if the penguin and robot had more generic renderings.
I don't think that reasoning is simple: I don't agree that what you assert has actually been demonstrated. There is no agreed-upon way in which you can teach kids programming. Otherwise: citation needed.
Looks like an effort to promote an illustrator more [..]
How about being a bit more generous as to someone's motives? Why not "achieving the stated aims, with the added benefit if promoting an illustrator?". Suppose I like painting and birdwatching. Now I do a kickstarter for a birdwatcher's guide with paintings of birds. I'm honestly excited about birdwatching and believe a book with painted birds will make it more enjoyable for many people. As I happen to paint myself and I think my quirky way of painting birds will add to the enjoyment, I decide to do the paintings myself. Am I promoting my own paintings? Of course! Is my motivation otherwise completely honest? Of course!
That's Alan Kay of Smalltalk/PARC fame. His OOPSLA talk is the other classic, worth it for his opening jokes about Dijkstra.
The fact that so much of our modern computing environment stems from the work of a molecular biologist trying to teach children to program is lost on many. He's truly a visionary, sometimes wrong, but always at least interesting.
EDIT: Haven't been able to find a proper clip of it, but the really relevant part to this is that back in the 70s at PARC they used to teach Smalltalk to kids, and the apps they'd produce were seriously non-trivial. Things like electronics schematics editors (you can see part of this in passing during the OOPSLA video) were implemented by children. This still blows my mind.
Presentation and the packaging matter. It really matters to programming right now because of the image problem it has for the masses: "it's a well paid janitorial occupation for socially inept, nerdy looking males". Anything that helps break that perception helps.
From my experience (as a former 8 year old who had to do logo), this could be a great way to get kids to think of programming/computers as something they should learn more about.
Most 8 year olds are looking at logo (or whatever) and being turned off from it.
Recently Chicago announced that they are going to make Computer Science a core subject for students K-12. And now this children's book is announced. It's really an inspirational time for not only diversity, but general exposure of CS to the mainstream. But seriously, what an amazing idea! Good luck with Hello Ruby!
I bought into Robot Turtles and found it to have been fascinating. Yet, I had real difficulty getting my ten year old nephew to even look at it and I wonder about how well a book, cutesy as it is, will fare.
For the game, it was "for kids" (he meant his younger sister), it was a BORED game, and did he mention it wasn't for little kids?
I am curious as to the format, book or board game, being relevant in this day
This is aimed at 5-7 year olds. My nepheices, who are about that age, love storybooks - they must have a thousand or so.
Kids abilities and interests differ quite significantly between 3 and 5, 5 and 7, and certainly between 5-7 and 10. (I didn't realise how much until I watched these two growing up.)
Was looking for exactly such a book for teaching my 7 and 8 year old brothers the theoretical basics of programming after getting them to create their own tiny games with MIT's Scratch.
As I'm also quite confident that Linda's execution will be of highest quality, I pre-ordered the digital version.
What an incredibly important book for little boys, to normalize learning from women early on so they don't grow up to form stereotypes like "programming is for men". Bravo!
that's not how i read it. i read it as a sarcastic comment berating the author for allegedly creating a book that perpetuates gender stereotypes. to be fair, if i re-read it after having had my morning coffee, i can see how, if sincere, it's actually a good comment. if that's the case, i retract my comment.
I believe the point he was making was essentially that because this book eschews traditional stereotypes and cultural messaging about disciplines like science and math being the purview of males, not only do girls benefit, but boys do as well by virtue of the fact that the values they are being taught are less selectively biased.
Not only do young women win (obvious), but young men do as well as they are less likely to both accept and perpetuate stereotypes.
It was a bit muddled, but that is how I read his argument.
>but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities.
I wasn't arguing anything, merely clarifying the point of that poster.
But since you brought it up, the argument that boys benefit from being exposed to values like acceptance of diversity, and stand to gain by not being exposed to gender prejudice as they learn about the world around them...well it is an argument I not only accept, but embrace.
What a cynical and devious re-framing of the poster's argument btw. Aren't you something.
Again, I think you may be confused. The poster's argument that you're claiming to agree with is the same argument that you're taking issue with when you say:
>I agree with the sentiment here, but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities. but please don't argue that boys benefit from this by having the chance to be obedient little utilities.
That boys benefit is precisely the argument the poster is making (your framing them as "obedient little utilities" notwithstanding).
Additionally, the usage of italics simply indicates emphasis. It's one of the most mundane aspects of written English. Nothing fancy about it, FYI.
Except that most kindergarden nurses and primary school teachers are women, so they already normalize learning from women all the time. Oh, and of course mothers are women, too, and most kids spend more time with their mothers than with their fathers.
(I have nothing against a programming book written by woman - I learned Java from the Java Tutorial and earned lots of money with it - but I ask people to challenge their prejudices).
I even sent the author of the Java Tutorial a fan email once (the original author was a woman, don't know what it's current state is).
I'm really pleased about this. I've been dismayed by the computer education my kids receive at school - Powerpoint basically. I've provided them with more, but it's so welcome to have the materials from an educator.
Good, good, good. More of this. Inspiring children to learn how to solve problems is very important. I don't know if it'll work out or not but we certainly need more people that try.
That robot-parent programming in the gym blog post was one of the more inspiring posts I read in the last couple of years.
Most people who know how to program attempt to teach their kids how to program. That being said, we need many more resources of all kinds directed towards teaching children. I hope this leads to 100 more programming books/videos directed at children.
Why Ruby? Python would be a much better choice -- for that matter, C or assembly language [1] would be a better choice than Ruby! Here are the problems with Ruby:
- It is hard to get Ruby running on non-Linux systems.
- Ruby programs are incredibly hard to understand because the Ruby language is not compact [2]
- Rails is such a big part of the Ruby community, it is hard to find Ruby programs that aren't Rails webapps. So anyone who becomes interested in Ruby from the book, and searches online for more resources, will probably mostly get Rails-related hits.
- These hits will not just be useless to a beginner, but intimidating and misleading. Web application programming is a poor area to direct beginners into, because even the most trivial web application requires understanding a dizzying array of complicated, interconnected ideas such networking, HTTP, URL's, databases, template processing, HTML, browsers...
[1] I'm not trying to cast aspersions on anyone who started programming in these languages, and I'm not saying it's impossible to start there even today. I'm just saying that today there are much better choices available, such as Python.
Despite the title, I don't think the book actually teaches Ruby. It seems to be more about general programming concepts, with the main character being named Ruby because a) the author herself likes Ruby, and b) Ruby is both the name of a programming language and a common girl's name.
Sure, it sounds just fine.... I couldn't sit through the video though
I don't quite understand why kids need to be taught to want to build things. Most kids already want to build things. They just need an easy interface to accomplish a task and incrementally improve their creation.
Before legos, did we need a kid book about masonry? Of course not, we just needed an easy and approachable type of block.
I'm not meaning to sound so negative. It's a good project with a worthy cause. But, it's value is in the fact that parents want to impart their interests on to their kids and will spend money on artsy little books. So, I'm just questioning whether this is the right product to accomplish the stated cause.
> I don't quite understand why kids need to be taught to want to build things. Most kids already want to build things.
I'm reminded of this quote by Neil Degrasse Tyson in one of his speeches: "Stop worrying about the kids! They're fine, they're already interested in Space. It's the grown ups I'm worried about."
A children's book about programming is a great idea and it's very nice to see the market encouraging this kind of work.
That said, I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable giving this particular book to a young child. From the sketches it seems as if it will be light on fundamentals like logic and data structures, and a bit heavy on Ruby-specific abstractions and borderline political value judgements. I don't want to tell the younger generation which application stack they should be using, to say nothing of the completely out of place "Apple is selfish, Python is fascist" storyboards.
If you're interested in honest advice I'd remove the parts about what is wrong with all the other technologies and substitute material related to the history and engineering that made all of these tools possible. Mention how strings and floats are encoded as bits, for example. Young children are not going to be wondering why they are learning Ruby instead of C or assembly, but they will be wondering how it does all that cool stuff.
How on earth did you get any of that from the illustrations? I got the "Snow Leopard is a loner" reference (hah), but I don't see anything deprecatory towards Python or anything suggesting the book will actually teach Ruby syntax or idioms as opposed to general programming concepts. Anyway, the references to operating systems and programming languages are clearly meant for the adults who are reading alongside their kids. I very much doubt a young child with no prior exposure to computer programming will pick up on the jokes.
If everyone was to use Kickstarter in this way, Kickstarter would lose the appeal it has for hosting niche / innovative projects. Diminishes the tool for the rest of us.
I back a shitload of kickstarter projects that are basically 'help me collect enough preorders to get a print run', and I'd much rather kickstarter be a hub for that kind of thing than another bottle opener / wallet / watch design.
I'm surprised there aren't many books like that already in English. It was a Russian children's book that spiked my interest in programming when I was a kid. I didn't even have a computer, and neither did my school at that point. I don't remember the details too well, but it was basically about some boy in some imaginary land learning about algorithms, computer viruses, etc. in a really fun way. There were tons of very clear analogies, like algorithm and a cooking recipe.
One line of code on the whole page, and the syntax is wrong. (Need quotes on "hi computer")
But besides that, I think this has the potential to be great... but I honestly didn't get much from the video about the content of the book. It's a story, and it's about Ruby. How? What does it teach? How does it encourage kids to interact with technology, or program computers, or whatever the goal is? All I saw were a bunch of pretty pictures and a promise that kids will learn something.
This sounds like a fantastic book. I only wish that I had thought about this before. I want one for my kids and for my niece and nephew.
It is sad that both sides of the gender gap here have decided to make this book about gender. No one made this article out about people and they great things we can accomplish. I'm disappointed.
I think children will be better off reading _why's (poignant) guide instead, as it will teach them both the basics of common programming and give them a primer in avant-garde literature.
That or stop treating kids like kids, give them some standard and classic books, bootstrap an environment and let them dive in.
I would have thought the poignant guide would be better to give to a teenager than a child. Even I found myself caring way more about the story and the author than the code.
Just donated. Programming should be thought as early as possible and should be in the curriculums. This project servers the same vision. I don't know if the book will be structured properly or will have a great impact on kids, and I don't care, I support this vision.
I'd also remind people about HN user aristus' Lauren Ipsum book (http://www.laurenipsum.org/) for kids. Every one you buy he donates one to schools, etc.
Cool. Clearly there's a huge demand for this, so good to see it's being done. It occurred to me that this may be just as effective (maybe more?) in promoting coding for women who have kids, rather than just the kids themselves.
it would also be nice to see books and resources for children going up to about 14/15. It would be a shame to see a gap in their education when they can really get going.
For your consideration: Her last name means "slippery" in Finnish. She's puzzlingly good at pretending to smile and acting cutesy. Both are far from natural for a Finn. (Source: I'm a Finn)
You know, if you really think about what kind of people this most civilized of discussion forums finds desirable among its ranks, you'll realize that self-important snobs don't make the cut.
Oh, and I bet you're on Reddit too, just like most people here.
...so if it's targeted at children, 50% of children will take it up, thus the ratio of male:female programmers will remain the same, there'll just be more of them.
The book is aimed at girls. It would be nice to think that children were not conditioned by gender stereotypes at the age of 6/7, but unfortunately they are.
The current gender ratio is the result of decades of gender stereotyping that things like math and science and programming were "for boys".
I'm going to believe the author when she says that this is for children. I just don't buy the idea that boys can't enjoy stories with female leads. Look at Brave or The Hunger Games. My son loves those.
I don't know Linda but I volunteered at RailsGirls in SF this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience and I'm hoping to organize one here in my area. I've got 4 kids (3 girls, 1 boy) and we do everything from LEGOs to making movies to programming to SnapCircuits to building robots.
I'm excited about this book. Even if I wasn't, I honestly can't imagine anything bad/wrong coming out of its existence. It's good to know many of you can. A woman who already speaks and organizes events is writing and illustrating a children's book about programming–and some of you sit and criticize her motives, pedagogy, and presentation skills from your desks. Bravo.
I generally don't swear, but some of you are jackasses.