Which, by occasion, is going to be called Squeak (and will run without Ruby in the first place)
On Jan 24, 2007, at 11:12 PM, SonOfLilit wrote:
Ideally you will create a small ruby library on top of SDL that does turtle
graphics or simple shapes and requires just a single 'require 'lib'', no
code to create a window or reference it (since that IS scary) and start by
letting them draw things.
--
Julian 'Julik' Tarkhanov
please send all personal mail to
me at julik.nl
I also started with text.
Wrote text games and other fun stuff.
But the REAL joy came when we discovered the BASIC LINE command.
And with my sister, which was/is less of a gekk pre-programming-lessons, I
could never get her interested in writing text games and fun things
involving text (my generation of programmers will ALLWAYS remember the
famous rocket ascii animation).
When I taught her "paper logo" (I just took a piece of paper and taught her
LOGO commands, drawing them on the paper when executing) she got really
interested and not only did what I asked her to but thought a lot forward
(she proposed variables and named procedures herself, after only about half
an hour of polygon drawing).
Graphics are, in my opinion, the most "fun" kind of artistic programming,
and the one where nice results are the simplest to get (and also, one where
advanced programming yields even better results, see for example fractals or
the amazing demos a pascal teacher I had showed us, with a 3D flaming ball
or a waving flag...).
Aur Saraf
On 1/25/07, Martin DeMello <martindemello@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/25/07, SonOfLilit <sonoflilit@gmail.com> wrote:
> By the way, may I suggest a lesson learned from years of trying to teach
my
> sister programming:
>
> Graphics BEFORE number crunching and text processing.When I taught my brother to program, I started with text i/o. He had
great fun writing little quiz programs (ask a question, present a few
choices, wait for an answer, repeat), unit conversion programs, etc.
Text is more interactive than graphics that way.martin
I am afraid that name is already taken 
http://squeak.org/
Robert
On 1/28/07, Julian Tarkhanov <listbox@julik.nl> wrote:
On Jan 24, 2007, at 11:12 PM, SonOfLilit wrote:
> Ideally you will create a small ruby library on top of SDL that
> does turtle
> graphics or simple shapes and requires just a single 'require
> 'lib'', no
> code to create a window or reference it (since that IS scary) and
> start by
> letting them draw things.Which, by occasion, is going to be called Squeak (and will run
without Ruby in the first place)
--
Julian 'Julik' Tarkhanov
please send all personal mail to
me at julik.nl
--
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay
Not if you are me.
Etoys gives bad ahbits and I haven't managed to do graphics in
Smalltalk/Squeak to this day.
After reading about ST, playing with Squeak, marvelling at the browseability
of it all and the elegant simple language I've decided to learn how to use
it. "Finally, a language well-suited for GUI and graphics programming", I
thought to myself.
At the time I promised the manager of a kindergarten for underdeveloped
children that I'll code software to replace the horrible software they used
to teach the children about action-reaction (that if they do something it
affects the world around them) that actually worked against it's cause.
The program was supposed to be very simple: A full screen display of a white
canvas that can be painted on with a "mouse" (they had touch screens) and
/when/ painted on, cycles colors of a circle around the mouse position
(combination of very simple screensaver-like graphics tricks with mouse
input. Piece of cake, even in C which is very ill-suited for GUI
programming).
I chose Squeak for three reasons:
1) Deploying couldn't be easier
2) Smalltalk is supposed to be fitted perfectly to this kind of problem
3) I wanted to learn Smalltalk
After a week of trying to learn from the library, trying to learn from the
Squeak Paint program, trying to find good online tutorials, trying to do it
with MVC and Morphic - well, I gave up without having even a canvas I can
paint on with a photoshop-pencil-like tool.
So it's not something I'd teach 16 year olds.
I'd rather teach things that if I were them, I'd be able to figure out
myself and not need the teacher for.
I figured out how to use Ruby/SDL, when I needed it, in less than half an
hour.
I figured out how to use Ruby, when I decided to, the moment I tried (no,
seriously!).
That says good things about Ruby as a programming language to teach 16 year
old-s.
Currently I'm waiting for the contact details of that kindergarten to reach
me (someone is supposed to give them to me but she insists on waiting for a
certain event before she passes that email on, having to do with the rest of
the group which I visited the place as part of). The moment I will, I'll
talk details with them and guess I could deliver a Ruby/SDL implementation
within a day.
Aur Saraf
BTW I went through writing all this just because I hoped it'd get someone to
shout "idiot! Why didn't you do <this> or use <that> learning resource?!" at
me, so if you know what this and that are, please drop a line.
On 1/28/07, Julian Tarkhanov <listbox@julik.nl> wrote:
On Jan 24, 2007, at 11:12 PM, SonOfLilit wrote:
> Ideally you will create a small ruby library on top of SDL that
> does turtle
> graphics or simple shapes and requires just a single 'require
> 'lib'', no
> code to create a window or reference it (since that IS scary) and
> start by
> letting them draw things.Which, by occasion, is going to be called Squeak (and will run
without Ruby in the first place)
I have to admit, I started with the BASIC drawing commands on a
Commodore Plus/4 
On 1/25/07, SonOfLilit <sonoflilit@gmail.com> wrote:
Graphics are, in my opinion, the most "fun" kind of artistic programming,
and the one where nice results are the simplest to get (and also, one where
advanced programming yields even better results, see for example fractals or
the amazing demos a pascal teacher I had showed us, with a 3D flaming ball
or a waving flag...).
I am afraid that name is already taken
Amazing
--
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
- Alan Kay
This one is spot on in the context.
On Jan 28, 2007, at 11:59 AM, Robert Dober wrote:
--
Julian 'Julik' Tarkhanov
please send all personal mail to
me at julik.nl
After a week of trying to learn from the library, trying to learn
from the Squeak Paint program, trying to find good online
tutorials, trying to do it with MVC and Morphic - well, I gave
up without having even a canvas I can paint on with a
photoshop-pencil-like tool.
I **love** Seaside, the Squeak Smalltalk web app framework, but the
documentation is definitely the downside. Just finding good info on
the language's syntax took me some time. I tried and failed six months
ago with Cincom VisualWorks Smalltalk, too. It even took me a while to
find nice people in the Smalltalk community; the first people I asked
cursed me for not knowing Smalltalk to begin with, and then had
hysterical fits when I made a joke about it being a dead language.
Once I got it up and running, though, I fell in love with it. It's
pretty awesome. I recorded a screencast about Seaside this morning,
probably going to post and blog it tonight.
> Graphics are, in my opinion, the most "fun" kind of artistic programming,
> and the one where nice results are the simplest to get (and also, one where
> advanced programming yields even better results, see for example fractals or
> the amazing demos a pascal teacher I had showed us, with a 3D flaming ball
> or a waving flag...).I have to admit, I started with the BASIC drawing commands on a
Commodore Plus/4
Personally, if I was going to teach somebody programming today, I'd
use either Lego Mindstorms, or one of those "Bobot" kits. (Commands in
BASIC delivered via serial cable.)
> I am afraid that name is already taken
Amazing
But I was reading that carefully I suspected that you *might* talk about
that Squeak, just failed to see a hint, strange :)!
Yeah Squeak is definitely a candidate for teaching, especially with,
wossaname etoys.
And I guess Smalltalk is a great first language (only that you might hate
the second!)
Cheers
Robert
--
> "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
> - Alan KayThis one is spot on in the context.
Don't make me blush 
On 1/28/07, Julian Tarkhanov <listbox@julik.nl> wrote:
On Jan 28, 2007, at 11:59 AM, Robert Dober wrote:
--
Julian 'Julik' Tarkhanov
please send all personal mail to
me at julik.nl
Giles Bowkett wrote:
After a week of trying to learn from the library, trying to learn
from the Squeak Paint program, trying to find good online
tutorials, trying to do it with MVC and Morphic - well, I gave
up without having even a canvas I can paint on with a
photoshop-pencil-like tool.I **love** Seaside, the Squeak Smalltalk web app framework, but the
documentation is definitely the downside. Just finding good info on
the language's syntax took me some time. I tried and failed six months
ago with Cincom VisualWorks Smalltalk, too. It even took me a while to
find nice people in the Smalltalk community; the first people I asked
cursed me for not knowing Smalltalk to begin with, and then had
hysterical fits when I made a joke about it being a dead language.Once I got it up and running, though, I fell in love with it. It's
pretty awesome. I recorded a screencast about Seaside this morning,
probably going to post and blog it tonight.
There are two books on Squeak, both of which have CD-ROMs including (older) implementations. I have both of them. Unfortunately, they're very much written towards the "extreme programming" philosophy, which I find distasteful in many, though not all, respects. And, like the other poster, I found the user interface so orthogonal to everything I've learned and integrated into muscle memory that Squeak was simply unusable. And IIRC the "open software" people have yet to recognize the Squeak license as "free as in freedom". So -- three strikes and you're out!
Now, if you want to do animation, you can do it in Squeak. If you want to do a web app framework, you can do it in Squeak. If you want to do algorithmic composition and synthesis, you can do it in Squeak. But why bother when there's Blender, Rails, and Planet CCRMA?
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
So... do you have pointers on Graphics programming in Squeak?
On 1/29/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
> After a week of trying to learn from the library, trying to learn
> from the Squeak Paint program, trying to find good online
> tutorials, trying to do it with MVC and Morphic - well, I gave
> up without having even a canvas I can paint on with a
> photoshop-pencil-like tool.I **love** Seaside, the Squeak Smalltalk web app framework, but the
documentation is definitely the downside. Just finding good info on
the language's syntax took me some time. I tried and failed six months
ago with Cincom VisualWorks Smalltalk, too. It even took me a while to
find nice people in the Smalltalk community; the first people I asked
cursed me for not knowing Smalltalk to begin with, and then had
hysterical fits when I made a joke about it being a dead language.Once I got it up and running, though, I fell in love with it. It's
pretty awesome. I recorded a screencast about Seaside this morning,
probably going to post and blog it tonight.--
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
http://gilesgoatboy.blogspot.com
Mindstorms is a decent approach because you could move from graphical
programming to something like nqc
On 1/27/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Graphics are, in my opinion, the most "fun" kind of artistic programming,
> > and the one where nice results are the simplest to get (and also, one where
> > advanced programming yields even better results, see for example fractals or
> > the amazing demos a pascal teacher I had showed us, with a 3D flaming ball
> > or a waving flag...).
>
> I have to admit, I started with the BASIC drawing commands on a
> Commodore Plus/4Personally, if I was going to teach somebody programming today, I'd
use either Lego Mindstorms, or one of those "Bobot" kits. (Commands in
BASIC delivered via serial cable.)
Or Forth.
-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts. It's what I can remember in time to use.
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Gregory Brown wrote:
Mindstorms is a decent approach because you could move from graphical
programming to something like nqc
Yeah, there are a whole host of languages it supports... i think java
is another one.
There is even some Ruby code that lets you use DRb, though I've never tried it:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/lego-mindstorms/
On 1/27/07, Matt Lawrence <matt@technoronin.com> wrote:
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Gregory Brown wrote:
> Mindstorms is a decent approach because you could move from graphical
> programming to something like nqcOr Forth.