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> At least those who do, want to learn because they can build cool things they can show off to friends. I have no doubt about what you say. I had a really brok
by gtycomb 7y ago
> At least those who do, want to learn because they can build cool things they can show off to friends.
I have no doubt about what you say. I had a really broken laptop that my 3rd grader happily tookover as his laptop, a linux machine mind you, about which he knew nothing about. I showed him how to open a terminal and use some bash commands, and how to invoke the Python interpreter and import a turtle graphics module. He was hooked and had lots of fun moving the turtle around (along with the incentive to learn some math at his level). I remember the day he walked to school with this duck taped laptop on a show and tell day, which ended up with the school's IT departement making Python available on all computers in that elementary school lab. I don't think he could have pulled this off in lisp. Beautiful language Lisp,but I don't see how I could have helped with graphics programming within an hour or so -- which was all what he was interested in.
- taeric 7y agoPretty sure Logo was originally implemented with a lisp, no? Don't fall into the trap thinking lisp is just functional.
- gumby 7y agoLogo basically was Lisp -- a small parser on top of MACLISP. There were some later small implementations (e.g. for the Apple II) that were written from scratch and didn't need to implement all of Lisp (e.g. lambda, plists, etc).
- mst 7y agoDoes that make logo the sole truly successful form of m-expressions?
- lonelappde 7y agoNo, because m+expressions are syntax and logo has a different syntax, and because Mathematica is a successful use of something much closer to m-expressions.
- flavio81 7y ago>Pretty sure Logo was originally implemented with a lisp, no? Logo is a bare-bones Lisp disguised as an educational language.
- kamaal 7y agoI recently picked up 'Turtle Geometry' from Abelson and diSessa. And it was a mind blowing experience. Really makes you think what kind of fun programming was about back then and its potential. Frankly speaking you begin to feel programming has kind of lost its way.
- taeric 7y agoIt is still somewhat there. Just competing with a lot more advanced things now. I also picked up that book. What are you using to work through the exercises?
- kamaal 7y agoI'm using TerrapinLogo. Its free but not quite, but works for the most part. Also supports multiple turtles.
- lonelappde 7y agoAll the easy problems are solved. Logo and processing and scratch exist Programming didn't lose its way, it move forward on its way.
- pgtan 7y agoBut it is also a excellent concatenative (left-to-right) language with brilliant procedure definition mechanism. Here as example, an oneliner to draw ascii christmas tree, we made with the kid last year: ? tanne.print tanne.output tanne.shift tanne.split 19 3 3
- taeric 7y agoWhat are you using to execute this? The Python module?
- dTal 7y agoSo, someone had lisp, thought "I want to teach people programming", and instead of just teaching lisp directly, chose to implement something quite different in syntax and spirit?
- taeric 7y agoTo be fair, that is the lisp spirit. They wanted to do something, imagined what that language would look like. And then implemented it in lisp. :)