Turn on any modern PC/device. Then look at the hoops you have to jump through to run the equivalent of:
10 print "my sibling smells"
20 goto 10
Computers of that era booted up straight into BASIC and you could easily enter the above. It was obvious to anyone watching exactly what was going on and they could have a try.
You can conceptually do the same thing now, but have to jump through hoops first. Download the right dev environment, work out how to start an editor, work out what code to write, work out how to run it and finally see the results. Devices are very personal now, so no one is likely to watch you do this, and trying to mimic it is far harder than turning your own device on.
Hopefully we'll end up with single function devices that can do this. The RPi is a good step in that direction, but still requires a lot to get going (look at all the cables and other bits and pieces you have to connect first.)
One device with such a low barrier to getting started programming that kids still have access to is TI graphing calculators - I got into programming through my TI-84 back in middle school, writing quadratic equation solvers and the like , and eventually playing with graphics and simple games. I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone specifically choose the calculator as a starting platform, but it's a great way to accidentally discover programming. And it was a great way to kill time at school for several years...
I think the hoops for doing this sort of thing are greatly exaggerated. Windows has had a scripting language built into it for years in the form of Powershell. OS X has a variety of other tools: Python, Ruby, Perl, etc. And then you have the web, which has a huge number of repls for various languages. Like repl.it which has Forth, Python, Lua, Scheme, Javascript and others.
Basically, I think that the reason people don't program as much as some would like has nothing to do with access to programming environments.
I think the author's point about how computers used to come with programming manuals is a good one. The spirit is different. The computer environments now are, in my opinion, better for learning programming. More languages are installed by default or easily available and the Internet is much better for learning than the books I remember using. But this kind of assumption that people would be buying a computer in order to mess around with Basic or Hypercard no longer seems to be the rule.
I was actually kind of impressed with the Sugar environment when I tried it out with my nephews. They spent a lot more time experimenting with the thing than I even expected. Something was different about that system. It encouraged exploration in a way that their normal YouTube and video game habits didn't. Maybe it was just the nature of the applications.
I'm a pythonista myself. The instructions to someone wanting to do Python are:
- find out what platform they are using (Unix, Windows, Mac, iDevice, Android etc)
- Ensure Python gets installed or is accessible (add in version 2 versus 3, 32 bit versus 64 bit)
- Work out what the text editor or "IDE" will be
- Enter the code (no gotos in Python)
- Run the code and view the output
While these hoops are nothing for you or me, they are significant for others. Note how people report A/B testing showing that extra steps towards various goals results in big dropoffs.
Incidentally this is what repl.it does with QBasic:
> 10 print "hello"
Parse failed: Syntax error at 1:10: Token("hello")
> help
=> 0
I understand your point, but I think it comes down to self-discovery. Using the C=64 (and other home computers of the era) enabled you to discover that programming existed as a thing, and then to learn more by digging deeper. Modern computers are much, much better at the digging deeper side of the equation, but completely fail on creating the initial spark of interest.
In my experience, if you can create that initial spark with your kids (as I did with my daughter, just by showing her the C=64 programming book I had as a kid), then they _will_ want to know more.
So how about this: embed an RPi into a kids keyboard, and have it boot straight into a Python interpreter with libraries loaded so you can immediately start writing programs that draw stuff on screen and play sounds. Encourage tech-minded parents to run labs at their local schools that use these devices, and encourage local IT companies / universities / government to subsidise the cost of providing every student with one.
The OLPC was sort of an earlier version of that. I'm all for solutions that have that kind of ease of use - no hoops or hurdles from pressing the power button, through being able to do something immediate that you can show off to others.
I got a tiny little bit of that old C64 feeling showing my daughter how to cheat at Cookie Clicker (a browser game) yesterday. It's got nice and clean Javascript source code with comments, and all you need is a console prompt.
This is a subject that is very dear to me, so I will try not to rant about it.
There are a couple of things "wrong" with the way we teach kids computers today.
Our educators are in the hands of the masters of consumers. When a new technology comes out, we all abandon the current stuff, and engage in the upgrade cycle. Repeat until generations have no clue any more about what the old ways were.
This is an absolute falsehood pushed upon society by those who wish to control the consumer base. It is consumption destroying education, plain and simple.
The point is this: Every C64 that was ever produced - heck, every 8-bit computer, ever - STILL WORKS, or can be MADE TO WORK in the area of computer education.
It is absolutely arbitrary that computers get old. Every machine that was ever made, is still just as useful as it ever was - the difference is, the user walked away (because they are consumers not users).
I have a large collection of 'antique' computers in my midst: C64, Atari, Oric, Atmos, Telestrat, MSX, heck .. even a BeBox and an SGI O2. All are still working, all are still quite capable of engaging a young mind in the exercise of exploration and discovery that makes a good developer.
And, my 3 year old and 6 year old kids LOVE THEM. They absolutely LOVE the old sprites, the old simple ways. The 6-year old takes immense joy out of typing:
.. into an old Oric Atmos thats been set up exclusively for him to be able to do that .. in fact the very first writing he was able to do was in typing in a BASIC PROGRAM!!
The 3 year old absolutely loves that he can turn the machine off and on, and off and on, and off and on .. and it will still work. Can't do that with Daddy's workstation!
So the point is, parents: disconnect your kids from the consumer trap. Give them old computers to learn computing on. Everything they will ever learn, WILL STILL BE VALUABLE TODAY when they 'grow up and get a bigger computer' - the reason is, because computers still work, fundamentally, the same way.
I predict my 6 year old will be hacking in assembly by the time he is 10 - just like his Dad did. And thats what made me the developer I am today.
(BTW: yes, I also have rPi's, Beagleboards, and so on.. when they're ready, they'll be available to the kids to hack on. But if the kids can't do their own low-level programming by the time they get the rPi dusted off, I will be very surprised..)
EDIT: Another thing that is 'wrong' with computers today, imho, is the decoupling of development from use. Again, our computers have been turned into consumption platforms - the moment that Microsoft removed the developer tools from being part of the base OS image, computers started to lose a lot of value. Any OS that doesn't ship with a way of building apps for it, inherently included by design, isn't an Operating System - its a Consumer Capture System.
Do everything you can to get development tools back into the OS, people. It is more important than the desire to reduce the effect of having 'too many smart developers out there'..
You can conceptually do the same thing now, but have to jump through hoops first. Download the right dev environment, work out how to start an editor, work out what code to write, work out how to run it and finally see the results. Devices are very personal now, so no one is likely to watch you do this, and trying to mimic it is far harder than turning your own device on.
Hopefully we'll end up with single function devices that can do this. The RPi is a good step in that direction, but still requires a lot to get going (look at all the cables and other bits and pieces you have to connect first.)