Computers for children

From: Miles O'Neal <meo_at_netads.com>
Date: Wed Jan 13 17:26:44 1999

Francois said...
|
|>I've yet to see a BASIC that runs on top of an OS that's as
|>easy to get into and provides direct feedback as well as a
|>graphical BASIC DOS.
|
|Apparently you have not tried Visual Basic...

Not lately, no.

|>But Linux is just fine as a newbie OS for a kid.
|
|At what level are you talking?

At the same level the other guy was talking - using a computer.

|I have not seen any sofware for kids (like
|the knowledge adventure or humongous entertainment series) that would run on
|Linux. It is hard to get a kid used to play with windows for 6 years and
|tell him that it is crap and the one where you have to type long commands is
|a lot better.

First off, I know very few people who run Linux w/o running X.
(OK, I do, on specialized systems such as Internet gateways,
but I'm thinking of desktops.)

That's all the Windoze interface is, from a user standpoint.
Just a desktop.

Secondly, I said as a "newbie OS". We were refering to the first
OS a child uses. To me, if you use product A for 6 years, and
then try product B of the same genre, you don't call using product
B your introduction to the genre! YMMV. 8^)

Finally, with the ease of a good GUI and the power of the Linux
(UNIX) CLI, you can do plenty. And it costs far less to do it
than with a Windoze box.

For example, we use GIMP. Granted, it doesn't do everything
PhotoShop(tm) and its add-ons do, but look at the price difference!
And the GIMP is still rapidly progressing.

I'm not saying everyone should use Linux, or that MicroSoft is
useless. My point is simply that tere are alternatives, and
not everyone has thought them through or seen everything that
is available.

-Miles
Received on Wed Jan 13 1999 - 17:26:44 GMT