Hi folks, thought you might be interested in this email exchange from this week:

>Subject:  Question
>
>Hello,
>
>I am trying to find a Computer Science program for my son going into
>8th grade. I have been told by a friend of mine who is an IT Director
>for our church that evidently Java and C++ are the most relevent
>languages to learn to be current and up-to-date should my son choose to
>pursue a degree in this field in college. I noticed your Book 2 uses C
>and not C++. Do you plan to continually update this curriculum to
>include state-of-the-art information and updates in the market trends,
>etc? Any help you can give me is so appreciated. I am a total novice
>at this and want to provide my son with as appropriate a course as he
>could find in any public school in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex where
>we live. Thank you for your time and assistance.
>
>Sincerely,
>B.

Hello B.,
Your friend is correct: Java and C++ are the goals to aim for. Unfortunately, all the books for these languages are written for adults, and they are hard for kids to process. Gifted kids are able to handle it though. Java is particularly difficult; you need to get at it gradually. For a gifted kid able to handle the adult books, I would start with C, then C++ (this means the next, more advanced version of C), then Java. Usually these books are not "fun" in a kid's eyes, and the vocabulary is pretty huge.

My books are a more gradual entry into the field. In Computer Science Pure and Simple Book 1 the student learns some general useful skills on the computer, such as making newsletters in a word processor and using a spread sheet. He also learns some simple programming (drawing and animations) using a fun language developed just for kids, Logo (based on Lisp). Logo is fun for beginners because it offers instant feedback--the turtle moves forward when you type "forward 50", for example. But Logo also contains the more complex components of any computer language: variables, looping, if-then statements, and so on.

Computer Science Pure and Simple Book 2 takes the student into these more complex constructions, and creates fun projects for them--making games such as Hangman, Madlibs, and some odd ones we cooked up. Visual Basic could also be used to make similar games, and that would be a computer language used in the workplace. But I should stress that most languages are very similar at the core (Java actually is a step beyond, isn't similar!).

My books do not actually teach C. At the end of Book 2 there is a qualified recommendation of a C book for the next step. This book is C for Dummies by Dan Gookin. It uses a lot of jokes and silliness to get the job done. Unfortunately some of the jokes are a bit off-color, pickup lines and so forth. So I warn readers to use their discretion on it. Personally I would only use it for high school students.

Once students learn the basics in Logo, they can easily pick up a book on C or Visual Basic and understand what to do. My intention with Computer Science Pure and Simple is to give kids a familiarity with the computer that will serve them well later on. In fact, many of today's programmers learned Logo as kids. You should ask your friend if he learned it.

I do not intend to continually update Computer Science Pure and Simple. It works at a basic level, which for the foreseeable future should be the same.

Students in the best schools here in St. Louis use Logo at the middle school level. They use other languages, such as Visual Basic, in high school. But that may be because no one else has written Logo books to teach high school programming. Logo teaching, as it was originally conceived, is for elementary age kids to learn to explore and hypothesize, and so on. But the Logo language will take us as far as we want to go--It is robust, and can do parallel processing, a very modern concept. It also is cheaper than Visual Basic, which was $110 just for the disk a couple of years ago.

Students in most public schools are being taught a lot of Power Point and Hyperstudio lately. In my opinion this is of little value. It's good for familiarity with the computer, but it isn't hard to figure out. It is NOT a substitute for learning some programming early on!!

In short, you should assess your student and make a decision about whether a slower (and more fun) start with Logo is what he needs.

Sincerely,
Phyllis Wheeler
Motherboard Books

From B:
Thank you so much for your help.  You answered many of the questions I have been struggling with and gave me very valuable information to ponder.  I like the approach you have to make it fun and "do-able" vs. technical and hard to wade through.  I deeply appreciate your time and knowledge that you took the time to share with me.  Blessings.