
Ruby4Kids: Another initiative to teach kids with Ruby - macco
http://thechangelog.com/post/3364672576/ruby4kids-another-initiative-to-teach-kids-with-ruby
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dablya
I'll be damned if I have to start listening to my daughter interrupt my
technical conference calls with "you know, you guys could have this already
done with a few lines of ruby"

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freedrull
In case you missed it, there was more discussion about Ruby4Kids here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158231>

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adriand
Not sure if everyone has seen:

<http://www.railsmentors.org/>

But it's another worthwhile project.

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brudgers
OK, I thought this might be cool - so I clicked on over to Ruby4kids
[<http://ruby4kids.com/ruby4kids>]. The first link is to Gosu
[<http://code.google.com/p/gosu/wiki/RubyTutorial>]. This isn't for kids. The
first heading is _1\. Overriding Window's callbacks._

~~~
steveklabnik
Gosu isn't for kids. But that doesn't mean that people can't use Gosu to teach
kids, with proper instruction.

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brudgers
> _"Gosu isn't for kids"_

That's what makes it inappropriate as the first link on Ruby4kids. It's
analogous to having dotnet4kids link to:

[http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/articles/Beginning-
Game-...](http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/articles/Beginning-Game-
Development-Part-I--Introduction)

rather than to this:

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ff384126.aspx>

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euroclydon
The more resources to teach kids programming the better! Especially ones which
use games, but ugh, += and @ signs on the front page!

I'm sure my kids would get used to the syntax without too much trouble, just
like they deal with the idiosyncrasies of the English language, but Python
seems like a better language to teach kids with, especially since there's only
one way to do something in Python.

~~~
steveklabnik
I actually (surprise!) disagree. The primary reason is this: Ruby's
flexibility as a language lets you give them simpler libraries. You have to
consider the language as a whole, not just the base language.

For example, Shoes just wouldn't really be possible in Python. At least, it'd
end up being much worse.

In the end, though, it's really just partisan squabbling. Let's worry about
getting as many kids as possible exposed to programming before we start
optimizing, eh?

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3pt14159
I was looking through some of those videos and I felt a very strong pang of
envy. These kids have videos that will live forever on the internet of them
programming. I wish I had that from when I was 6 to 13ish (before I started
coding for money).

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nickpinkston
@steveklabnik Google helped with <http://hackety-hack.com> right? Is this an
extension of that?

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steveklabnik
I'm not sure what you mean by 'Google helped.'

Ruby4Kids has no relationship with Hackety. We just share the same goals.

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nickpinkston
Didn't Google sponsor someone for gSummer of Code to work on Hackety?

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steveklabnik
Ahhh. No. Google said "Summer of Code will not have any Ruby projects," so the
Ruby community put a bunch of money together and did Ruby Summer of Code. Same
thing, no Google.

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swGooF
What age of kids does it target?

