I was having a conversation with my two oldest sons today about the word “geek”. They were trying to convince me that I am not a “geek”.
It led to a conversation about what a geek is. We ended up that a geek is someone who likes math and computers (a seriously narrow definition that ignores science, but they don’t really have science in 1st grade). This then led us to computer programming which is a pretty geeky hobby no matter who is defining “geek”.
It got me thinking about my BASIC programming in grade school. I asked them if they wanted to learn how to program computers; they are interested as long as they can create games.
Then, a few hours later I was reading some feeds when I saw a few references to this:
“After a year in the making, and with very little fanfare, Microsoft last month launched Small Basic, a free programming language aimed at kids. Unlike Scratch and Alice, tools designed for kids to learn programming in a ‘codeless’ environment, Small Basic is essentially a small version of the BASIC language.”
Sweet. We may have to give this a try. Anyone want to make a rocket ship scroll across the screen?
