From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Mar 13 18:46:58 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com (femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com [24.0.95.108]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55DAB37B71B for ; Tue, 13 Mar 2001 18:46:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from europax@home.com) Received: from home.com ([24.12.186.185]) by femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with ESMTP id <20010314024656.NOCQ2254.femail12.sdc1.sfba.home.com@home.com>; Tue, 13 Mar 2001 18:46:56 -0800 Message-ID: <3AAEDBAC.B175DC15@home.com> Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 18:47:08 -0800 From: Rob X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Meyer Cc: David Kelly , Daniel O'Connor , "freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG" Subject: Re: How do you get kids interested in computers- other than play References: <200103130320.f2D3KCe08320@grumpy.dyndns.org> <15021.39728.193728.726045@guru.mired.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Mike Meyer wrote: > > David Kelly types: > > "Daniel O'Connor" writes: > > > You could just install Python for Windows and see if he plays with that, > > On an iMac? :-) > > What - you mean an iMac won't run Windows software? Good for it! > > Guess you should install the Mac version, then. http://www.python.org/download/download_mac.html > > > Actually, I've been pretty impressed with the Python+tkInter stuff. I > write code on FreeBSD, and give it to people to run on Windows or the > Mac, and it just works - with the exception of the one time I needed > select(), which Windows doesn't do. They force programmers to use a > more error-prone approach. > > In my experience, people (as opposed to geeks) start fooling with > computers because 1) Someone with authority makes them, or 2) there's > something useful they want it to do. > > Since I assume #1 is out, you might look at what gets done away from > the computer, and point out how the computer could help with that > somehow. If you really want them to start programming, or scripting, > write the appropriate tool yourself (in Python on your FreeBSD box, of > course), and let him know you wrote it. Add the first change > request. *Help* him add the second one. > > -- > Mike Meyer http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ > Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. I also love Python/Tkinter. I use it at work for controlling $$$$ in instrumentation over the GPIB bus. I compete with the "evil" Perl people :) there. Sounds like a chapter for Dilbert. I'll see if he has some interesting task that could easily be scripted, maybe something for school. Thanks. Rob. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message