[plt-scheme] Dr scheme for grade school kids?

From: Corey Sweeney (corey.sweeney at gmail.com)
Date: Sat Oct 2 09:59:23 EDT 2004

Dr schemes "display a picture in the editor" feature is definately
cool, so I can do things like:

(define my-pic {picture of gir})

however has anyone ever through of makeing so the pics can be used as
symbols?  So like:

(define {picture of a car} "trans-am")

Now this may or may not be silly for people who already know how to
program... It's possible that reading code could go faster if the
symbols were more distinct, and easily readable.  It's possible it'd
just be a waste of time for us.  However, I was thinking it might be
usefull for grade school kids.

Now I know nothing about the pedology of little kids, but I do
remember a time when i didn't understand variables, cause I remember
going by the 5th graders math class, peeking in the window, and
thinking "i'll never understand that" heh.  So if instead of

(define tempvar1 7)
(define tempvar2 6)
(+ tempvar1 tempvar2)

we could have

(define {picture of a box} 7)
(define {picture of a sack} 6)
(+ {picture of a box} {picture of a sack})


It might be more illistrative to little kids.  And while were at it,
we could make a macro language that converted it to:

(insert-in {picture of a box} 7)
(insert-in {picture of a sack} 6)
(+ {picture of a box} {picture of a sack})

I remember that there used to be a functional language called LOGO
that they used to teach to kids (not me though).

Anyway, I'm not going to promote this, I just wanted to toss the idea
into the wild  , and see if anyone felt it has any merrit.

Corey


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