Heartwarming tale of a GNU C++ programer connecting with his daughter over tech.
When I read things like this, I have to admit, I get a bit excited. What will the tools of eduction look like in the years to come?
the real fun began after we started to explore the XO’s games. I told her to open Pippy and we played the “guess the number” game. In Pippy, the source code appears on the top half of the screen, and the interaction window (where you enter your name and guess the number) appears on the bottom half. She played the game three times, averaging about 7 guesses per try, and then said “I want to play another game.” I suggested she try playing a different game by modifying the parameters to guess a number between 1 and 1,000,000, instead of between 1 and 100. She looked at me with wide eyes. I explained that on the top was a program, the program of the game, and that if she changed a single number in two places, she could change the game itself. She went from a look of “no way” to a look of “OK! What are we waiting for!” in about 200 milliseconds. She started to enter a million, decided that was just a little too large, and changed it to 1,000. She hit “run” and sure enough, the prompt asked for a guess between 1 and 1,000. She looked at me excitedly. I told her to guess, and after 11 guesses, she got it. She looked at me again, somewhat amazed. I told her she had just programmed the computer. I might as well have told her we were going to spend a week in Cinderella’s castle–she jumped up, shrieked, and yelled “HEY MOMMY! GUESS WHAT!? I JUST PROGRAMMED THE COMPUTER!”
Needless to say there was much excitement. She tried other modifications, including a version of the game she could win every time on the first try. She got her syntax errors, run-time errors, all the other scrapes and bruises one gets on the way to learning how to program, but she was excited, elated, and became confident!
Read the full article at (parent.thesis)
