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Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

fuze.co.uk

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Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#51

Post by fixermark »

xchaotic wrote: post #49

Sorry to sound so negative, but the closed ecosystem for this is a very bad fit for encouraging young people to code. They won't be able to share it amongst themselves, share to other devices such as smartphones etc. There clearly is a gap in the market and someone with enough resources could come up with an ecosystem that let's young people code in a simplified environment and share those results. in fact there's qu…

Why is "sharing to smartphones" in the set of things we want out of the technology stack that encourages young people to code?

Smartphones aren't the Nintendo Switch, and (for me, at least) wallpapering over the differences in hardware platforms is not an exciting part of the learning-to-code experience.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#53

Post by rocky1138 »

fsloth wrote: post #46
rocky1138 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fantastic that it brings us right back to one of the things that made the first home computers so compelling: the ability to see what you just did on your TV.

Eh, what. You can connect any modern device to a tv through hdmi and hdmi convertor. Pc:s, phones, pads...

I think maybe I'm explaining it wrong. I'm sorry. What I mean to say is that there was a certain wonder and a strange form of legitimacy that writing software on a "real" computer that kids got when they were able to type something into the same device that ran their favourite games/software from "real" developers and see it show up on the screen just like the big boys. There was a sense of "Wow, anything is possible now that I can develop real software!"

The legitimacy of the company that produced Mario, etc. will rub off onto a new generation of kids and make them feel like they are really playing with the big boys.

I don't know how to explain this right. I know that I myself still get this feeling when I see something I wrote running on an actual Atari Jaguar because I was such a fan of that console when I was a kid. It's like, "wow, I'm actually a real developer! I made it!"

I start thinking about all the things I can do and all of the possibilities that are more than just firing pixels on a screen.

It's a form of technological empowerment, and it's something that makes a huge difference in a kid's life. I know it did for me when I first discovered BASIC on the Commodore.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#54

Post by ReverseCold »

speps wrote: post #34
mmjaa wrote: post #29

Does anyone have any experience with developing home-brew or indie games on the Switch here? I've considered getting one, but I'm limited by the rule "never buy a system for which I can't develop my own software" .. to what extent is this true of the Switch? I'd love to put my Lua-based programming IDE on the Switch, which turns out is a bit similar to this Fuze project .. but I'm un-certain just how much of the Swit…

They just got progress last month on homebrew: https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8941-console_security_-_switch

Even more progress yesterday, whole system on FW 3.0.2 and below has private homebrew. There's also a homebrew development library already out that you can use right now (on switch 3.0.0 only).

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#55

Post by ReverseCold »

Angostura wrote: post #3

I so, so wish something like Fuze was available for ioS. I'm an old-school ZX-Spectrum tinkerer and I still miss Basic. I can't help thinking it would still be unsurpassed as a simple (text-based) way of teaching coding to kids.

TiC-80 is pretty cool. It's on Android, not sure about iOS.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#56

Post by ajford »

Is anyone else greatly annoyed by the FUZE/Python comparison block on the homepage (fuze.co.uk, ~halfway down the page) that compares the Fuze loop and Python?

They write the "print" statement like it's damn Java. A simple `print(outstring)` would have been sufficient, instead of two lines of Java-esque sys.stdout.write nonsense.

Not to mention something like `colored` and `colorama` or `click` would solve the colored text thing. Though I'll admit having globals like INK and PAPER makes things a bit more intuitive for kids.

But the fact that they go out of their way to make the Python example more intimidating is a little... annoying.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#57

Post by samfriedman »

ajford wrote: post #56

Is anyone else greatly annoyed by the FUZE/Python comparison block on the homepage (fuze.co.uk, ~halfway down the page) that compares the Fuze loop and Python? They write the "print" statement like it's damn Java. A simple `print(outstring)` would have been sufficient, instead of two lines of Java-esque sys.stdout.write nonsense. Not to mention something like `colored` and `colorama` or `click` would solve the colore…

Including the shebang and encoding at the top, using stdout for some reason, handling all the color formatting in one dense string...

This smacks of the writers trying to intentionally make their comparison language look obtuse. A pattern I've seen elsewhere and am never a fan of.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#58

Post by gadgetoid »

samfriedman wrote: post #57
ajford wrote: post #56

Is anyone else greatly annoyed by the FUZE/Python comparison block on the homepage (fuze.co.uk, ~halfway down the page) that compares the Fuze loop and Python? They write the "print" statement like it's damn Java. A simple `print(outstring)` would have been sufficient, instead of two lines of Java-esque sys.stdout.write nonsense. Not to mention something like `colored` and `colorama` or `click` would solve the colore…

Including the shebang and encoding at the top, using stdout for some reason, handling all the color formatting in one dense string... This smacks of the writers trying to intentionally make their comparison language look obtuse. A pattern I've seen elsewhere and am never a fan of.

This is absolutely what they're doing. It condenses quite easily even to:

    import random
    import time

    while True:
        col = random.randint(30, 48)
        print("\x1b[{}m{}\x1b[0m".format(col, "Hello World"))
        time.sleep(1)
Which is still pretty obtuse, but the "random colours" task seems hand-picked to penalize Python.

It neglects to mention that Fuze has virtually no utility beyond an educational curio, too, versus Python which is used for many, many things.

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#59

Post by felideon »

This looks awesome and I can't wait to give it a whirl with my kids.

I am, however, a little concerned about one of Dijkstra's "unpleasant truths"[0]:

> It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

I'm not qualified to interpret Dijkstra, so how serious of a warning or truth is this? Is he just generally polemical?

[0] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EW...

Re: Fuze for Nintendo Switch: An easy-to-learn text-based programming language

#60

Post by chamakits »

felideon wrote: post #59

This looks awesome and I can't wait to give it a whirl with my kids. I am, however, a little concerned about one of Dijkstra's "unpleasant truths"[0]: > It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. I'm not qualified to interpret Dijkstra, so how serious of a warning or truth…

My first exposure to programming was basic for the TI calculators. Didn’t even really realize I was programming. The second was Visual Basic. The third was C, and that’s when I really took off, got interested in programming and enjoyed it since.

My experience may nor count for much, as I didn’t dive too deep to either of the first two basics. But I’ve read far too many stories of good programmers getting started on BASIC from code samples they read on books and magazines. So I would say it’s fine.

Also, for all the great things that can be said if Dijkstra, he wasn’t exactly known as a positive motivator, so I’d take his statement with huge grains of salt.

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