Teaching Forth Programming to kids... is really dangerous...

Teaching Forth Programming to kids is irresponsible and may hinder their progression into the professional programming industry.

So, let's do it.

One rather curious thing I've noticed about aesthetic satisfaction is that our pleasure is significantly enhanced when we accomplish something with limited tools.   - Donald Knuth, Computer Programming as an Art 

Forth doesn't have a lot of modern facilities, but that forces you to figure them out yourself.  Better yet, Forth encourages that you solve the problem at hand (rather than build elaborate frameworks).

I've been called out, in this blog somewhere, for promoting archaic old principles that don't apply to modern development.  But, I don't actually want to force people to learn this stuff. Find your tool and if it helps you do amazing things, stick with it.  

I've been programming in Forth since 1984.  I've learned a dozen languages since.  Forth is still the one that focuses my attention on problem solving better than any other.

Why am I writing this now?  I'm a bit late, but I just discovered this: Gforth for Google Chrome.

It's a toy right now (apparently no persistent file I/O), but I want it to be real.  I want to fire this up in a classroom full of kids and get them hacking.  I want them to build their own abstractions. I want them to see what middleware really is (a bunch of layered restrictions with the goal of making things more structured and easy, while in reality making you conform to things they want to keep hidden -- okay a rant for another day).

Sure, underneath Gforth for Google Chrome there are layers upon layers.  But there is a lesson there too: Its all about simulation.  It's Turing machines all the way down.