[gailcarm]

To me it's more about how to hook people (especially non-traditional CS students) rather than ensuring they can continue using the tool later on, though that is a bonus. But on that thread, I don't doubt that Python can be useful even though I haven't made use of it myself quite yet.

I can say that I use Processing all the time because it's so easy to make simple graphical programs. It has been particularly useful for prototyping little game ideas and making applets to explain graphics concepts to students. Depending on what sort of career path someone has, Processing might be really useful far beyond being a pathway to Java.

[muyuu]

But is it any simpler than other more open-ended tools? Python+pygame is really popular for prototyping little game ideas, for instance.

I think the point about choosing Processing, for most people, is the simple and well-established path to do:

1 - graphic-oriented apps

2 - stuff that can run in the browser (although Java applets are a massive PITA, sadly, and are slowly but steadily being phased out)

3 - not much else (actual feature: the excess of choice is overwhelming for a beginner)

And then I have this concern that many students, when already proficient in an "introductory language" never quite find the motivation to jump to another language with significantly different structure and syntax. Since proficiency in an introductory language is achieved rather early, it becomes a dead end before they can develop a "real taste" for advanced programming. This has happened to a lot of people I know. Many of my friends started in the 80s with Sinclair BASIC or some other BASIC (C64, C128, Oric, MSX, etc). These have, for the most part, enough built-in graphic primitives to toy around a lot and make simple games with little experience, even with the limited hardware of the time. But then, the next step in order to overcome these nice but slow interpreters was usually assembly or complex compiled languages (usually proprietary implementations, expensive and with obscure support). So they stopped right there.

It's not so bad now but the wall is still there.

[gailcarm]

Valid points. I wonder if stopping with a tool that does what you want or need is necessarily a bad thing? I personally hope we can get people into the more advanced stuff as well, but not everyone is getting a CS degree. So maybe it's ok if they don't continue. Then again, it is a shame if they stop programming at all because they have done all they can with the tool they learned.

[muyuu]

Yes, I agree... especially to the last sentence.

I cannot reconcile that someone would simply "stop learning" because "the tool does all he or she needs"... I think it's more about being unable to discover any more.

I don't think I'd ever stop learning because I'm content with my knowledge and it's all I need. I think I might get stuck not discovering new interests because of my own limitations or that of my limited environment.

However it's also true that you can have different interests and those be unrelated to programming. It just sounds wrong to me somehow, since programming is so all-inclusive and so practical for virtually any field.