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Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Mario Becroft
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What an awesome way to introduce your daughter to whole worlds (computing, logic, mathematics are just the start...) in a hands-on way with direct feedback and immediate gratification--you write the program and see it work immediately--or not work, and so you fix the problem. The whole sysem is simple enough a 7 year-old can readily grasp it.

Now imagine trying to teach your kid web programming (the new platform du jour). How would even begin teaching a novice so they might have a hope of building a useful mental model of what's going on at all levels of the system, let alone debug the pages of cryptic error tracebacks when you forgot a ; in your JavaScript.

For introductory computing at this level, I feel simple, direct feedback and the simple joy of learning one has agency over the machine and the power coming from that... is irreplaceable.

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