Microsoft Pushes Kid's Programming Language

Iria · Sep 29, 2005, 06:54 AM

Microsoft has signed on to promote a new programming language intended to replace BASIC as the first step students take towards learning how to code.

The Kid's Programming Language, or KPL, was developed under the direction of Jonah Stagner, and his colleagues, ex-Microsoft program manager Jon Schwartz and former NCR engineer Walt Morrison. The three run the software consultancy Morrison-Schwartz Inc.

"One of the things we realized is that we all learned programming on some flavor of BASIC when we started. You're not going to learn how to program in BASIC anymore," said Morrison, in an interview. "We wanted something that isn't 20 years old; modern technology that uses an integrated development environment, so we can take our kids and move them directly from this to the .NET environment." [Morrison was speaking figuratively; officially, BASIC was originally devised in the early 1960s at Dartmouth.]

While KPL can be downloaded for free off of a dedicated Web site, it's poised to get wider exposure thanks to a recent descriptive article posted on the Coding4FunWeb site, which is part of Microsoft's MSDN developer network.
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Read More / Source: TechWeb

MSX · Sep 29, 2005, 11:12 AM

Cool, then half of the stuff they learn wont crossover into the much more popular programming language C++, or even java. Go MS. Way to indoctranate the next generation.

studbagel9 · Sep 29, 2005, 01:09 PM

I think that the purpose of this is more to get them involved with microsoft standards, not necessarily steer them away from C++ or Java, or any other particular language, besides BASIC of course

Sep 29, 2005, 06:54 AM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 87	Microsoft Pushes Kid's Programming Language Microsoft has signed on to promote a new programming language intended to replace BASIC as the first step students take towards learning how to code. The Kid's Programming Language, or KPL, was developed under the direction of Jonah Stagner, and his colleagues, ex-Microsoft program manager Jon Schwartz and former NCR engineer Walt Morrison. The three run the software consultancy Morrison-Schwartz Inc. "One of the things we realized is that we all learned programming on some flavor of BASIC when we started. You're not going to learn how to program in BASIC anymore," said Morrison, in an interview. "We wanted something that isn't 20 years old; modern technology that uses an integrated development environment, so we can take our kids and move them directly from this to the .NET environment." [Morrison was speaking figuratively; officially, BASIC was originally devised in the early 1960s at Dartmouth.] While KPL can be downloaded for free off of a dedicated Web site, it's poised to get wider exposure thanks to a recent descriptive article posted on the Coding4FunWeb site, which is part of Microsoft's MSDN developer network. __________ Read More / Source: TechWeb

Sep 29, 2005, 01:09 PM	#3
studbagel9 Rolling the Hard Six Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lock Haven, PA Posts: 767 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I think that the purpose of this is more to get them involved with microsoft standards, not necessarily steer them away from C++ or Java, or any other particular language, besides BASIC of course __________________

Sep 29, 2005, 11:12 AM	#2
MSX Burning the frozen... Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 1,201 Rep Power: 0	Cool, then half of the stuff they learn wont crossover into the much more popular programming language C++, or even java. Go MS. Way to indoctranate the next generation.