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Comment by behnamoh | Hacker News Reader

I think schools should teach only functional programming, because it's much more challenging and better suits the purpose of educating the students.

When it comes to FP, I suggest Haskell without second thought, because it's pure and forces children to think functionally. Haskell's clean syntax also makes it easier for children to read and write code.

On a side note, Haskell also resembles much of mathematical notations kids learn in school anyway, more so than any other language (guards, functions, etc.) Teaching it would not only help kids with programming, but also would serve as a tool to implement math lessons on a computer.

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Contrast this with the tinkering view that students should be given devices that do things. Often described in very imperative languages. It is not shocking that many actually find imperative easier to get things done in.

This is not to say that I think functional is bad. But blind advocacy that ignores how you got to the spot you are is not helpful in getting others to the same spot.

Certainly imperative-style also has its own advantages, and I'm not saying FP is better or anything.

You might be right about the tinkering view, and to be honest, I know that sometimes procedural thinking is a must-have ability that kids should posses.

But then again, programming is not just coding, and kids getting used to imperative-style would probably miss the whole point, which is finding challenge.

Anyway, you know how hard it is for a person who is used to imperative to get it out of his system and program functionally. I have found the other way around much easier. Just a thought.

Why not both? Progress is usually the important part. Offering both is expensive; but going all in on a single approach is dangerous in the failure case.

Teaching both would work for older kids, but a lot of Papert's work suggests that most kids under 12 haven't yet developed enough capability for abstract thought to use explicitly mathematical concepts to model the world, so teaching FP style at that point is just going to lead to frustration.

If you're going to teach kids at younger ages, you need to introduce it in a way that they can relate to physically, which is why Logo makes the turtle central; it has a heading and position just like a child's body, and it moves in a similar way to the way you think about moving yourself.

Anyway, you should read Mindstorms if you're interested in this topic; it does a great job explaining why the Logo approach is specifically grounded in a thorough understanding of childhood cognitive development.

Apologies for the late response here. This makes sense, I was not thinking we were talking lower grade levels. So, 12+ is what I had in mind.

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