This appears to be a pretty complete implementation of the Logo programming language with a web-based IDE. Logo is derived from Lisp and was intended for teaching programming to children. Typical Logo implementations include "turtle" vector graphics, which was the first chapter in the Apple II Logo reference manual and is probably as far as your schoolteacher got with it.
Reminds me of when I was 5 and someone showed me how to program with the turtle (logo language). I got really bored really fast - what is there to do by drawing a bunch of straight lines? And the teachers were quite uninspiring. Later on after I got my CS degree I learned more about Turtle and wish I didn’t jump to conclusions as a kid. But the internet wasn’t a thing then and so my information boundary was quite limited.
Some of it depends on perspective. I was introduced to Logo in 1983 on a Commodore 64, and got a lot of mileage out of turtle graphics. (To the point of experimenting with recursion and circles, etc.)
The other thing to realize about Logo is that it was developed as a version of Lisp suitable for teaching programming concepts to young children. Turtle graphics were added because it was very anthropomorphic - children could more easily do things like give turtle graphics style instructions to other children and visualize themselves in the place of the turtle to debug their problems. It was intended to be close to a 'zero-entry swimming pool' style approach to programming.
But turtle graphics were intended to be only the beginning. The language also has a full set of list and structured data primitives. Children that started learning how to draw squares and geometry on the screen could take that basic skillset and use it to do progressively more advanced computation. Commodore 64 Logo included a version of the Animal guessing game that was built on List manipulation and didn't use turtle graphics at all. That was directionally where learners were expected to take the language, given enough time and appropriate education.
Underpinning all of this was a belief in constructivist education that had kids learning through doing, building, and experimenting. The idea was that Logo was a way to facilitate this sort of thing in an accessible way. How often do children (or anybody) get to define the rules of a 'world' and conduct experiments to see what those rules produce.
There's a lot of idealism in all of this, but I consider myself very fortunate to have been exposed to it when I was.
One of the best-known results in turtle geometry is that drawing any closed path results in you turning exactly (a multiple of) 360 degrees, the Total Turtle Trip Theorem. You get into calculus by considering a circle to be the limit of `forward 1 right :n' as n approaches 0. This all is well stated in an AI memo by Seymour Papert, `Teaching Children About Mathematics vs Teaching Children To Be Mathematicians'.
In another universe, this might have all radically changed math (and other areas of) education. Alas, that is not this universe.
One thing that could have hooked me is if I saw it being used to implement a picture, you know with a house and a sun with the hills or something simple but shows what a “few” lines can add up to.
Why is this a big deal? Does Turtle-Graphics limit the use of 3D rendering or something, Also wouldn't this not be practical for web use? Seems heavy and expensive for rendering purposes to use for initial brand logo use in Web-Development. <Forgive me for not knowing the importance of this shared project> .
`Logo` and more importantly the various turtle cursor IDEs, probably strikes an emotional chord for a large subset of HN users. It was a common elementary/middle-school age first introduction to programming in the 80s, 90s and early aughts.
I have a pentium II machine in my closet, with a 6gb scsi drive and a zip drive (!), that has a years worth of keyboarding and logo projects saved.
This appears to be a pretty complete implementation of the Logo programming language with a web-based IDE. Logo is derived from Lisp and was intended for teaching programming to children. Typical Logo implementations include "turtle" vector graphics, which was the first chapter in the Apple II Logo reference manual and is probably as far as your schoolteacher got with it.
I found this overview on the site: https://turtlespaces.org/tour/
Keeps restarting/reloading on iOS. It would be nice to see some pre-made examples with source and output.
It's this in 3D:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics
Reminds me of when I was 5 and someone showed me how to program with the turtle (logo language). I got really bored really fast - what is there to do by drawing a bunch of straight lines? And the teachers were quite uninspiring. Later on after I got my CS degree I learned more about Turtle and wish I didn’t jump to conclusions as a kid. But the internet wasn’t a thing then and so my information boundary was quite limited.
Some of it depends on perspective. I was introduced to Logo in 1983 on a Commodore 64, and got a lot of mileage out of turtle graphics. (To the point of experimenting with recursion and circles, etc.)
The other thing to realize about Logo is that it was developed as a version of Lisp suitable for teaching programming concepts to young children. Turtle graphics were added because it was very anthropomorphic - children could more easily do things like give turtle graphics style instructions to other children and visualize themselves in the place of the turtle to debug their problems. It was intended to be close to a 'zero-entry swimming pool' style approach to programming.
But turtle graphics were intended to be only the beginning. The language also has a full set of list and structured data primitives. Children that started learning how to draw squares and geometry on the screen could take that basic skillset and use it to do progressively more advanced computation. Commodore 64 Logo included a version of the Animal guessing game that was built on List manipulation and didn't use turtle graphics at all. That was directionally where learners were expected to take the language, given enough time and appropriate education.
Underpinning all of this was a belief in constructivist education that had kids learning through doing, building, and experimenting. The idea was that Logo was a way to facilitate this sort of thing in an accessible way. How often do children (or anybody) get to define the rules of a 'world' and conduct experiments to see what those rules produce.
There's a lot of idealism in all of this, but I consider myself very fortunate to have been exposed to it when I was.
There was a book series out of Berkeley that wound up doing things like writing mini Pascal compilers, in Logo.
If you can recall that book series, I'd love to read about it.
https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html - Probably this one. There's a BASIC to Logo compiler in Volume 2, and the Pascal compiler is in Volume 3.
What would now you have shown or explained to then you? Random walk would have been a pretty cool demo. Maybe some funny automata?
I too made similar mistakes of not enjoying the medium we have at the time. Have fun and ship something, anything.
One of the best-known results in turtle geometry is that drawing any closed path results in you turning exactly (a multiple of) 360 degrees, the Total Turtle Trip Theorem. You get into calculus by considering a circle to be the limit of `forward 1 right :n' as n approaches 0. This all is well stated in an AI memo by Seymour Papert, `Teaching Children About Mathematics vs Teaching Children To Be Mathematicians'.
In another universe, this might have all radically changed math (and other areas of) education. Alas, that is not this universe.
Could be the future universe!
https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5837
Super peace!
One thing that could have hooked me is if I saw it being used to implement a picture, you know with a house and a sun with the hills or something simple but shows what a “few” lines can add up to.
So… a gif?
On mobile, so it’s hard for me to inspect.
Why is this a big deal? Does Turtle-Graphics limit the use of 3D rendering or something, Also wouldn't this not be practical for web use? Seems heavy and expensive for rendering purposes to use for initial brand logo use in Web-Development. <Forgive me for not knowing the importance of this shared project> .
Not sure why we’re getting downvoted for being confused.
Can someone please explain what this is?
`Logo` and more importantly the various turtle cursor IDEs, probably strikes an emotional chord for a large subset of HN users. It was a common elementary/middle-school age first introduction to programming in the 80s, 90s and early aughts.
I have a pentium II machine in my closet, with a 6gb scsi drive and a zip drive (!), that has a years worth of keyboarding and logo projects saved.