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From: Robbo on 20 Feb 2010 15:46 On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:50:14 +0100, Alf P. Steinbach wrote: > * Robbo: >> Hi, >> >> Does anyone remember the good old days of 'type-in' programs that you >> used to get in magazines in the 80's? >> >> I used to love typing these programs into the various computers that I >> had as a kid back then. >> >> My kids are now at a similar age as myself in that era and I thought I >> may see if they are interested in programming by getting them started >> with something similar. >> >> I have unfortunately been unable to locate any BASIC source on the >> internet that may have been taken from these magazines and posted >> somewhere. >> >> Does anybody know where I may find a library of BASIC source code on >> the internet that I can get my lads to type into a BASIC >> emulator/interpreter on a PC? > > I suggest one of two routes (or perhaps both): > > A) JavaScript > The nice thing is that you can have JavaScript in HTML. > > B) Python > One nice thing is that there's an interpretive environment and > standard Turtle graphics. Are you saying there is a turtle GUI for python? If so what is it called? > > Both A and B are languages actually used for serious things, while also > being simple enough to be used by children. >
From: Robbo on 20 Feb 2010 15:58 > Nowadays, there are also more graphical interactive programming systems, > such as Alice (alice.org), > Etoys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etoys_(programming_language), > Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu). > Thanks I will check them out and see what they are like
From: Robbo on 20 Feb 2010 15:59 >> C# is actually pretty impressive nowadays, though if the OP is not >> careful he may Microsoft his kids. > > No danger of that happening once they start seeing error messages like: > > "The file you tried to open does not exist. I know the name of the file > but I'm not going to tell what it is." Absolute no danger of being MS'd!! only linux in our house!!
From: Alf P. Steinbach on 20 Feb 2010 16:18 * Robbo: > On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:50:14 +0100, Alf P. Steinbach wrote: > >> * Robbo: >>> Hi, >>> >>> Does anyone remember the good old days of 'type-in' programs that you >>> used to get in magazines in the 80's? >>> >>> I used to love typing these programs into the various computers that I >>> had as a kid back then. >>> >>> My kids are now at a similar age as myself in that era and I thought I >>> may see if they are interested in programming by getting them started >>> with something similar. >>> >>> I have unfortunately been unable to locate any BASIC source on the >>> internet that may have been taken from these magazines and posted >>> somewhere. >>> >>> Does anybody know where I may find a library of BASIC source code on >>> the internet that I can get my lads to type into a BASIC >>> emulator/interpreter on a PC? >> I suggest one of two routes (or perhaps both): >> >> A) JavaScript >> The nice thing is that you can have JavaScript in HTML. >> >> B) Python >> One nice thing is that there's an interpretive environment and >> standard Turtle graphics. > Are you saying there is a turtle GUI for python? Affirmative. > If so what is it called? The standard one is called "turtle". :-) Well that's in Python 3.x. I think perhaps in 2.x it's "Turtle". The standard turtle graphics module, that is the module in the standard library, produces vector graphics. There are other bitmapped graphics turtle graphics modules Out There. >> Both A and B are languages actually used for serious things, while also >> being simple enough to be used by children. Cheers & hth., - Alf
From: BGB / cr88192 on 21 Feb 2010 23:11
"Robbo" <robbo_blah(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:hlpidn$g1u$2(a)news.eternal-september.org... > >> Nowadays, there are also more graphical interactive programming systems, >> such as Alice (alice.org), >> Etoys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etoys_(programming_language), >> Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu). >> > Thanks I will check them out and see what they are like I am stuck using Alice in a class (yes, this is apparently the fate of anyone trying to take programming related classes in colleges...). I guess I will note that with something like this, there is likely to be the issue of having to transfer to, really, anything different... I guess left unanswered here is the approximate age and mental maturity of the kids. if they can already do stuff like reading, writing, math, ... may as well just give them an actual language... for example, Java and Eclipse could be worth looking at I think... how to make it interesting could be an issue though... as for myself: long ago I started with basic, and it was fairly much self-directed, and I mostly just fiddled with stuff... later on though, I started to migrate to C and assembler, where I started learning assembler first and then bridged my way into understanding C by looking at the asm output from the compiler, and also by just fiddling with C... however, in my case, I have run into a wall: I have little particularly interesting to do, or at least, that I can work on and actually have anyone to talk to about it... my recent stuff with compilers and interpreters, is not terribly interesting. even with stuff being now public domain, it all doesn't matter... so, I have my good old dynamic C compiler (well, hell, at least this is generally working ok...). I have a JBC interpreter, but given I can't directly target the thing (none of my other code produces JBC, and just compiling the code with ECJ for an impl without a classlib is kind of pointless...). I have an x86 interpreter, and this has a C library and partial POSIX, but once again, running little sandboxed apps is not particularly useful at the moment either... I have partly started on a CIL/MSIL interpreter (interpret first, maybe JIT later...), where implementing this is itself an uphill battle, and I am not certain it will be that much more useful than either of the former... if I want C# or MSIL, it seems I am a bit better off just using MS's impl (or Mono, for that matter...). but, MSIL has at least one notable advantage over Java: C++/CLI (or, IOW, I can directly see both C land and .NET land at the same time, and the compiler is smart enough to include all the info needed for the MSIL image to access the native code...). but, alas, it all starts seeming fairly pointless... what can one do that in the end will have actually have been worth doing?... |