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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

1401 points alankay | 2 comments | 20 Jun 16 18:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

This request originated via recent discussions on HN, and the forming of HARC! at YC Research. I'll be around for most of the day today (though the early evening).
1. patrec ◴[21 Jun 16 11:16 UTC] No.11944882[source]▶
Hi Alan (and others!),

Logo is ~50 years old now, squeak 20 and olpc ~10. Do you know innovators who are now in their 20ies, 30ies and 40ies and who at least partly credit their mental development to childhood exposure to logo, e-toys, mindstorms, Turtle Geometry etc?

replies(1): >>11944979 #
2. fchopin ◴[21 Jun 16 11:41 UTC] No.11944979[source]▶
I'm not someone that would be widely considered to be an innovator, but I had a few of the very first microcomputers that came out alone with some accompanying books of how to program them in BASIC, which was very important to the start of my career. The only free games I had early on were the ones I wrote myself, though it was only a few years before I was copying commercial games from others in an Apple II computer club. I also had the 1979 Big Trak- the real world version of logo; in fact if you were to attach a piece of sidewalk chalk to the back of it, it would be even more similar. I've often thought of getting the newer version for my daughter, even though it's not exactly the same: https://www.amazon.com/BBT-BIGTRAK-Big-Trak/dp/B0035IZ85G/

If you're looking for ideas for youth to get into programming, I've had the most success with Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/ , but I think Legos and Minecraft (or the free imitation, Exploration Lite)- things that you build with- are also important. Read "Jeff Bezos on the best gift he's ever received": http://www.marketplace.org/2014/12/08/business/jeff-bezos-be... And of course, getting kids into music is a great thing for creativity.