[Bluej-discuss] formatter extension?

[Todd O'Bryan]

On Sun, 2007-10-14 at 04:00 +0000, Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:

> 1. Java is likely already too complex for a true beginners language but
> since qbasic is not around any more it is the best we have

Actually, a few of us who love BlueJ for Java start our programming
students in Scheme using the "How to Design Programs" text at
http://www.htdp.org

One advantage of Scheme that helps solve some of the other problems you
mentioned is that, used functionally, it has a computational model
that's very easy to conceptualize. Everything is just substitution and
simplification, so students don't have to maintain a separate mental
model of what's going on in memory. Even conditionals are handled as
rewrite rules (Check the first condition, if it's false, erase the
condition and its consequent and re-evaluate the conditional. If it's
true, rewrite the whole conditional as its consequent.)

The other key thing that the people who designed HtDP realized is that
you should not turn beginners loose with a whole language. It's too easy
to make mistakes that result in errors that they're not prepared to
understand yet. For example, in their follow-up--"How to Design
Classes"--they've created language levels for Java that severely limit
what students can do (and thus the mistakes they can make) as they're
learning.

Todd