pfc (02/07/83)
ATTENTION: LOGOPHILES
YOUR OPINION, ADVICE, EXPERIENCES WITH LOGO IN GENERAL AND APPLE LOGO
IN PARTICULAR...
1. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE SUPERIOR TO BASIC AND PASCAL AS A
BEGINNER'S TEACHING LANGUAGE. FOR WHAT AGE RANGES? K TO 6?
HIGH SCHOOL? ADULT ED?
2. BASIC AND PASCAL ARE ALSO USED FOR A FAIR AMOUNT OF "SERIOUS
PROGRAMMING". DO YOU SEE THAT TYPE OF CAPABILITY IN LOGO
(AND/OR IN APPLE LOGO) OR IS IT MERELY A SET OF "TRAINING
WHEELS" THAT YOU REMOVE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE?
3. WHAT ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOGO AND LISP. WHAT IS
THAT RELATION? WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF LISP?jah (02/08/83)
1) LOGO is unquestionably better than Basic etc. for beginners (my opinion, not totally unfounded). What age ranges? At MIT it was used in a first year physics course (college first year, that it) with fine rresults (Abelson and Disessa) 2) One can program quite seriously in Logo. Not on an apple, though. A good Logo (and even apple logo) can cerrtainly do all the games and learning aid type stuff that machines are used for in schools. 3) Logo is called a simplified version of Lisp. I'm not sure this is 100% true, but it's close enough. The future of Lisp in this country is assured (but which Lisp in particular is unclear). Several large computer compannies (TI, HP, & IBM to name but three) are spending considerable amounts of money on what they call "ai" (but what is really symbolic prrogramming, not necessarily AI). One of the above three is serriously looking into LispMachines and the production thereof, and the otherrs are talking about buying them. Shlumberger-Dahl, CDC, BBN, TI, are among the many that already own Lisp Machines (in some form orr another).