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Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

miniscript.org

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Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#31

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

alex_x wrote: post #2

I wonder why all these easy-to-learn languages use indentation to denote scope, not something like curly braces. Isn't it actually harder to explain?

while everyone already pointed out that this time it's not the case, I want to literally answer the question you asked

"easy-to-learn languages" use indentation because otherwise newbies would not indent at all

I you try teaching programming, you'll find that indentation is one of things students "optimize out" - it is not important to the program, it is opposite of lazy and it's not noticeably harmful on the tiny scale of programs you learn programming from

Indentation discipline only starts to matter when you need to work on the same code for quite some time and code itself takes a lot of space - the "read more then written" situation. And most study paths do not encounter this regime

Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#32

Post by prmoustache »

K0balt wrote: post #27

I’d love to see something like this but designed to run on esp32 or raspberry pi 2530. Either can handle basic HDMI and USB. Or a little Easy to think raspberry pi, but with a full Linux you won’t get that intrinsic understanding that you fully control the hardware, you never control the “bare metal” unless you are a much more advanced user. IMHO the feeling of not being in full control of your computing device is no…

why not just use a vintage computer or game console then?

Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#33

Post by tokai »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #19
fivetomidnight wrote: post #7

Free but not Open Source? Did I miss that?

> Free but not Open Source? Did I miss that? The miniscript language itself is MIT License: https://github.com/JoeStrout/miniscript The Minimicro code doesn't seem to have any license in the repository or code: https://github.com/JoeStrout/minimicro-sysdisk

So Open Source but not Free (Libre).

Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#37

Post by Wowfunhappy »

alex_x wrote: post #2

I wonder why all these easy-to-learn languages use indentation to denote scope, not something like curly braces. Isn't it actually harder to explain?

Fifth grade teacher here. Significant whitespace is a major reason I prefer Python for teaching programming.

1. I want kids to indent their code anyway; they may not realize it (or won't admit it), but this makes the code much easier for them to read. Kids will not do this unless they have to.

2. Unbalanced brackets are a major source of mistakes and confusion for my students. Relying purely on indentation resolves this problem—at the real cost of introducing indentation mistakes, but since I want kids to indent their code anyway, this is okay.

By the way, an adjacent recommendation is to configure the editor to indent with tabs instead of spaces (regardless of how you feel about tabs vs spaces in production code). Otherwise, kids will invariably end up with lines indented by 3 or 7 or some other wacky number of spaces. If possible, highlight the tabs in a different color so the kids don't use spaces by accident.

Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#38

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Gormo wrote: post #30
graemep wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think indentation is more intuitive. Even people using languages that use braces or similar usually use indentation to make code readable. If doing that you end up explaining both ideas (use braces and indent).

There's an important form/function distinction here, though. Indentation is useful for human readability, but braces function to give unambiguous direction to the compiler or interpreter. I think conflating these two different purposes together is a mistake: you shouldn't risk altering or breaking the logic flow of a program simply by adjusting its visual formatting. The fact that we use whitespace for layout is prec…

I think this is probably correct for an experienced programmer but incorrect for someone who is new.

Re: Mini Micro Fantasy Computer

#40

Post by jan_Sate »

K0balt wrote: post #27

I’d love to see something like this but designed to run on esp32 or raspberry pi 2530. Either can handle basic HDMI and USB. Or a little Easy to think raspberry pi, but with a full Linux you won’t get that intrinsic understanding that you fully control the hardware, you never control the “bare metal” unless you are a much more advanced user. IMHO the feeling of not being in full control of your computing device is no…

Not sure on the performance but it might be possible to port this Mini Micro to those platforms.
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