Hello,
you know the problem? You want to teach somebody how to program in Pascal, so you start with simple line oriented programs. And then you get the answer "Pascal is boring, because you can only write old DOS programs with it" (Yes, some even call them "DOS programs", although they run under GNU/Linux).
So for those who want to teach Pascal my project AKFAvatar might be a solution. You can take any Pascal program, which uses only the standard input/output and compile it into a funny graphical program with no extra effort (apart from the first installation). Yes, there is no need to make any changes to the program, just use a wrapper-script to compile your program to use my library. (The program may not use the CRT unit or any other nonstandard output facility)
If you want to make use of more features, you can leave the script away and include the unit with "uses avatar;". There are some funny additional procedures to use. For example you can show image files, or play audio files... So programming with it is fun, but still easy enough for beginners.
Please have a look at it: http://akfoerster.de/akfavatar/
It is still alpha and almost only tested under GNU/Linux so far.
Please tell me what you think about it.
Andreas K. Foerster wrote:
you know the problem? You want to teach somebody how to program in Pascal, so you start with simple line oriented programs. And then you get the answer "Pascal is boring, because you can only write old DOS programs with it" (Yes, some even call them "DOS programs", although they run under GNU/Linux).
So for those who want to teach Pascal my project AKFAvatar might be a solution. You can take any Pascal program, which uses only the standard input/output and compile it into a funny graphical program with no extra effort (apart from the first installation). Yes, there is no need to make any changes to the program, just use a wrapper-script to compile your program to use my library. (The program may not use the CRT unit or any other nonstandard output facility)
The same mistake was made in teaching mathematics the-modern-way, with much graphics and much less exact reasoning nor proofs-of-correctness. Well, indeed in a democratic society the Pythogorean Theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem should no longer be proofed, which is dictatorial, or even be thought about, which is elitarian, but decided on by voting ....
This is all bullsh..., I mean nonsense. Programming, like mathematics, *is* about exact reasoning and it *is* about abstract thinking. The task of teachers is to lead pupils into this new world and to bring young people to spiritual maturity. It is *not* the task of teachers to succumb to the first shallow prejuduce, like whether something yet unknown is "boring" or not.
Sincerely,
Adriaan van Os
Am Thursday, dem 16. Aug 2007 schrieb Adriaan van Os:
So for those who want to teach Pascal my project AKFAvatar might be a solution. You can take any Pascal program, which uses only the standard input/output and compile it into a funny graphical program with no extra effort (apart from the first installation). Yes, there is no need to make any changes to the program, just use a wrapper-script to compile your program to use my library. (The program may not use the CRT unit or any other nonstandard output facility)
The same mistake was made in teaching mathematics the-modern-way, with much graphics and much less exact reasoning nor proofs-of-correctness.
[...]
This is all bullsh..., I mean nonsense. Programming, like mathematics, *is* about exact reasoning and it *is* about abstract thinking. The task of teachers is to lead pupils into this new world and to bring young people to spiritual maturity. It is *not* the task of teachers to succumb to the first shallow prejuduce, like whether something yet unknown is "boring" or not.
I think you misunderstand what my unit does. It does not make programming any easier, it doesn't even try! You still start writing line oriented programs as you would do without. Using my unit just makes them look a lot better and more interesting for beginners. The programs can be the same, as you would write without it.
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Adriaan van Os -
Andreas K. Foerster