Logo as an alternative to Python? - Programming Languages

Karl A. Krueger wrote:[color=blue]
> In comp.lang.lisp Joe Marshall <jrm@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:[color=green]
> > - Too amorphous. Lisp is a lot like an infinite supply of 2x4
> > Legos. Yes, you *could* in principle build anything you want, but
> > those Lego sets that have a miniature Darth Vader and specially
> > molded parts for an X-Wing fighter allow you start playing right
> > away. When I became older, I became more of a Lego `purist', but
> > I didn't expect everyone else to.[/color]
>
> Lego is apparently abandoning a lot of these tie-in products and
> returning to the basics:
>
>[/color]
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040108/ap_on_bi_ge/denma[/url]
rk_lego_1[color=blue]
>
> The company now plans to stop making the electronics and movie
> tie-in products and return to its core mission: producing
> colored plastic building blocks for children.[/color]

Yes, the problem with a miniature Darth Vader and specially molded X-Wing
parts is that they're mostly useless for building, say, a bridge. Unless
it's a Gibsonesque post-apocalyptic bridge/homestead, which come to think of
it, would make for a cool Lego model.

Post-apocalyptic bridges aside, clearly this means that Lisp will become
ever more popular as people realize that the prefabricated parts in, say,
J2EE won't help them build anything other than the same sort of applications
that their competition is building... ?

Anton

Anton van Straaten wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:[/color]
[color=blue]
> Post-apocalyptic bridges aside, clearly this means that Lisp will become
> ever more popular as people realize that the prefabricated parts in, say,
> J2EE won't help them build anything other than the same sort of applications
> that their competition is building... ?[/color]

More pointedly, the same sort of applications that the developers of the
prefabricated parts have already built.

Bear

Joe Marshall <jrm@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
[color=blue]
> The primary drawbacks of Lisp are these:
>
> - No whiz-bang graphics right out of the box. When I was in college
> I thought that symbolic differentiation was the greatest thing
> since sliced bread. I have a feeling that my daughter will find
> it somewhat less inspiring.
>
> - Not easy to share the results. Trading with friends is good
> inducement for hacking.[/color]

These two are solved if you use, say, MCL or LispWorks. Graphics
right out of the box, and you can save images pretty easily.

When I was a kid, I got a huge kick out of just being able to make
simple text interactions, with the ability to occasionally show
pictures (C=64 here). You can make games, stories, cooking shows...
It might not have to be too fancy to get a good, "I made this!!!"
response.

--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'

Anton van Straaten wrote:[color=blue]
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>[color=green]
>>Lego is apparently abandoning a lot of these tie-in products and
>>returning to the basics:
>>
>>[/color]
>
> [url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040108/ap_on_bi_ge/denma[/url]
> rk_lego_1
>[color=green]
>>The company now plans to stop making the electronics and movie
>>tie-in products and return to its core mission: producing
>>colored plastic building blocks for children.[/color]
>
>
> Post-apocalyptic bridges aside, clearly this means that Lisp will become
> ever more popular ...[/color]

<g> That's exactly what I was thinking as I read the piece. As long as
they do not carry it to an exSchreme.



kt

--
[url]http://tilton-technology.com[/url]

Why Lisp? [url]http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film[/url]

Your Project Here! [url]http://alu.cliki.net/Industry%20Application[/url]

[email]tfb@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU[/email] (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
[color=blue]
> When I was a kid, I got a huge kick out of just being able to make
> simple text interactions, with the ability to occasionally show
> pictures (C=64 here).[/color]

A good 'teaser' which I've considered to try out on my own kids, is
a random sentence generator (kids love to see the computer generate
surrealistic sentences).

You could even start out much more modestly by showing them how to
create a very simple "adjective story" program, where the child types
in a text with some kind of markers for missing adjectives, then types
in a bunch of adjectives and let the program insert them randomly into
the story(*)

As a more advanced step, a simple version of Eliza is always fun.

(*) like this:

NFTP 31 > (story)
the <> boy entered the <> room. he spotted his <> sister eating <> cake. <end>
(THE STUPID BOY ENTERED THE RED ROOM. HE SPOTTED HIS DIRTY SISTER EATING GREEN CAKE.)

--
(espen)

Espen Vestre wrote:[color=blue]
> You could even start out much more modestly by showing them how to
> create a very simple "adjective story" program, ...
>
> NFTP 31 > (story)
> the <> boy entered the <> room. he spotted his <> sister eating <> cake.[/color]
<end>[color=blue]
> (THE STUPID BOY ENTERED THE RED ROOM.
> HE SPOTTED HIS DIRTY SISTER EATING GREEN CAKE.)[/color]

Plus, your kids would be able to get an after-school job generating nonsense
paragraphs for spammers, especially if they can come up with more phrases
like "HIS DIRTY SISTER"...

Anton

"Anton van Straaten" <anton@appsolutions.com> writes:
[color=blue]
> Plus, your kids would be able to get an after-school job generating nonsense
> paragraphs for spammers, especially if they can come up with more phrases
> like "HIS DIRTY SISTER"...[/color]

I wouldn't recommend that, though, since spammers would require them
to mispsell evrey wrod!
--
(espen)

A friend's 11 and 12 year old boys had a lot of fun with
Game Maker 5

[url]http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/[/url]

It has a drag and drop interface for configuring objects to
create a game. You can also put in snippets of code, but I
found the interface to that confusing. Not the ultimate
answer, but it does address the question of why would the
child want to write programs at all.

Alan Crowe
Edinburgh
Scotland

Joe Marshall <jrm@ccs.neu.edu> wrote on Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:51:55 -0500:[color=blue]
>
> The primary drawbacks of Lisp are these:[/color]
[...][color=blue]
> I think, however, that some hacking on my part might mitigate a bunch
> of these drawbacks.[/color]

Correct

[color=blue]
> - No whiz-bang graphics right out of the box.[/color]

True for some implementations but nothing a custom core with CL-SDL[1]
can't solve. (shameless plug)

Matthew Danish and other contributors have done wonderful work on it.
If you'd make some abstractions over the somewhat low-level interface
you'd be set.

[color=blue]
> When I was in college I thought that symbolic differentiation was
> the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have a feeling that my
> daughter will find it somewhat less inspiring.[/color]

Yes, I've found that visuals work wonders for kids and teenagers.

What also worked real well for me was making them realize that
something they use everyday and think is hard to make, is actually
pretty easy.

In my case it was teaching a bunch of teenagers with little computer
experience (besides surfing and chatting, that is) to make a website
during a school holiday. This was a project that started in 1996 I
think when making websites was still somewhat (a very teensy little
bit) higher level computer use for the normal folks.

Your kids should ofcourse start at a little higher level than that :-)
I dunno, hack an Xbox or write a program/game for their mobile phone.
Just trying to think of something here, not really Lisp related those
examples.


Another idea, I tried to integrate ECL[2] into Quake2 on Linux during
a weekend a few months back and got some good results but never
finished it (sorry Juan . I've been thinking of continuing with it
so that one can drop their own bots written in Lisp into a
multi-player game and fight against them. (Using a more modern and
popular engine would be even better.)


cheers,
Erik

[1] [url]http://cl-sdl.sourceforge.net/screenshots/index.html[/url]
[url]http://cl-sdl.sourceforge.net/[/url]

[2] [url]http://ecls.sourceforge.net/ecl-in-quake2.jpg[/url]