[deleted]
Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#22Ah, this brings back memories from my childhood. The first programming language I ever used was Logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) . This was sometime back in 2002-2003 when I was 7 or 8 years old. We had very basic PCs in my school, many of which were purely DOS based. This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
I remember when teaching a subset of LOGO that we wanted a cool input program for students. So I built reverse logo [1] to turn an image (black-and-white, contiguous) into a logo program that draws it.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#23Ah, this brings back memories from my childhood. The first programming language I ever used was Logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) . This was sometime back in 2002-2003 when I was 7 or 8 years old. We had very basic PCs in my school, many of which were purely DOS based. This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
It was my first programming language as well, here in India. Around 1996s had it in school.
Brings back memories of those huge monitors with the turtle on the screen ;)
They were magical back then.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#24Ah, this brings back memories from my childhood. The first programming language I ever used was Logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) . This was sometime back in 2002-2003 when I was 7 or 8 years old. We had very basic PCs in my school, many of which were purely DOS based. This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
> This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
One would think so! It was taught at our school (didn't take the course myself, about 15 years old at the time) and I only remember my classmates complaining, that it was boring. Some of them wanted to learn "real programming" instead. Drawing shapes with a turtle felt overly childish and pedagogic even then.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#25Ah, this brings back memories from my childhood. The first programming language I ever used was Logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) . This was sometime back in 2002-2003 when I was 7 or 8 years old. We had very basic PCs in my school, many of which were purely DOS based. This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
> This is a great tool to teach kids programming! One would think so! It was taught at our school (didn't take the course myself, about 15 years old at the time) and I only remember my classmates complaining, that it was boring. Some of them wanted to learn "real programming" instead. Drawing shapes with a turtle felt overly childish and pedagogic even then.
I think it's a good introduction but would be very boring to stay focused on for any length of time. But my first thought upon seeing this was if someone, especially a younger person wanted to go from 0 knowledge of programming to a little bit, just get the idea of what it's like so they can see it's not magic, this would be a great start.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#26Shelly looks cool, thanks.
There was a discussion on HN a few years back about Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), which may be relevant if you're interested in the history of Turtle and Logo. [1]
I've been collecting resources for self-directed programming/learning that kids can use for at-home, project-based learning. Some family members are looking for ideas for their children.
I'll playtest it with a young learner and see how far they get through the tutorial.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18361665
[edited for clarity]
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#27Ah, this brings back memories from my childhood. The first programming language I ever used was Logo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language) . This was sometime back in 2002-2003 when I was 7 or 8 years old. We had very basic PCs in my school, many of which were purely DOS based. This is a great tool to teach kids programming!
> This is a great tool to teach kids programming! One would think so! It was taught at our school (didn't take the course myself, about 15 years old at the time) and I only remember my classmates complaining, that it was boring. Some of them wanted to learn "real programming" instead. Drawing shapes with a turtle felt overly childish and pedagogic even then.
I think 15 is too old to teach Logo. It works better when the kids are ten years old or so.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#28I was looking to file some issues with the project but couldn't find a repo. Guess I'm too used to expecting things to be open source. Anyway, I'm hoping the authors see this. I tried Shelly for a while and here's what I think: 1. The tutorial needs background. Its text displayed over more text and that's tough to read. For the first point in the tutorial, I couldn't locate where it was visually and had to carefully…
Thanks for the feedback!
1. the background should be almost-opaque, with very little transparency. Can you share which browser/OS? Probably some missing CSS :)
2. Ha :D Maybe a grace period? Did you mostly mind the squiggly underline errors, or the red box that appears at the bottom? Giving feedback soon enough but not being aggressive is a delicate balance, there's probably room for improvement here.
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#29Shelly looks cool, thanks. There was a discussion on HN a few years back about Seymour Papert’s Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), which may be relevant if you're interested in the history of Turtle and Logo. [1] I've been collecting resources for self-directed programming/learning that kids can use for at-home, project-based learning. Some family members are looking for ideas for their child…
Thanks! Would be great to get feedback once you get an occasion.
The tutorial is only a start for what we are planning, so this is an area we'd like to work on next. Hence any pointers or ideas are welcome :)
Re: Shelly – a programming language to draw in the browser
#30I wonder why there's not a single reference to Logo (see the Wikipedia topic mentioned in another topic) to be found?
No reason :) The language is of course Logo-inspired. Once we'll have an "About" page or sth like that, we'll mention Logo of course.