I'm going to give a small introduction to programming to adults (using
PC and Windows). I'm hesitating between MSWLogo and CL.
The advantages I see in MSWLogo:
- it's free
- it doesn't need powerful hardware
- as all the Logos, it has the Turtle which means fun from the first
lessons
- the existence of a Logo community devoted to teaching and learning
of programming and the immediate availability of teaching material.
On the other hand there would be a lot of advantages to use CL. There
are free CL on WIndows and taking profit of the Logo teaching material
would be easy. It remains the Turtle and hardware points:
- are there turtle extensions for CL on Windows (and possibly Logo to
CL translators)?
- what are the real minimum hardware requirements for the free Lisp on
Windows?
--
www.algo.be
Logo programming : www.algo.be/logo.html
Francis Leboutte wrote:
>
> I'm going to give a small introduction to programming to adults (using
> PC and Windows). I'm hesitating between MSWLogo and CL.
>
For an introduction where you only have a few hours with the students,
I prefer Logo (Lisp without parenthesis), because the syntax is easier,
and it's error messages are clear. MSWLogo is based on UCBLogo that
includes mapping functions, optional inputs and macro capability.
Brian Harvey's three books called _Computer Science Logo Style_ (CSLS)
supports a one year high school class. The text dialog in MSWLogo isn't
as nice as UCBLogo. UCBLogo runs on Windows, Dos, Mac, Linux and Unix.
If you use CSLS, you can give an introduction to Lisp at the end of the
class and the students will get it.
http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/
Thanks,
Jeff Sandys
"Francis Leboutte" <··········@algo.be> wrote
> I'm going to give a small introduction to programming to adults (using
> PC and Windows). I'm hesitating between MSWLogo and CL.
>
> The advantages I see in MSWLogo:
> - it's free
> - it doesn't need powerful hardware
> - as all the Logos, it has the Turtle which means fun from the first
> lessons
> - the existence of a Logo community devoted to teaching and learning
> of programming and the immediate availability of teaching material.
>
> On the other hand there would be a lot of advantages to use CL. There
> are free CL on WIndows and taking profit of the Logo teaching material
> would be easy. It remains the Turtle and hardware points:
> - are there turtle extensions for CL on Windows (and possibly Logo to
> CL translators)?
> - what are the real minimum hardware requirements for the free Lisp on
> Windows?
I've found that with MSWLogo, after the first excitement, people get
disappointed with the graphical quality and possibilities. The turtle is an
interesting thing though. Next time, I will try to use CL +CL-PDF with some
kind of turtle. I'll tell you if it works well...
Marc
"Marc Battyani" <·············@fractalconcept.com> wrote:
>I've found that with MSWLogo, after the first excitement, people get
>disappointed with the graphical quality and possibilities. The turtle is an
>interesting thing though. Next time, I will try to use CL +CL-PDF with some
>kind of turtle. I'll tell you if it works well...
Thanks, I would like to hear about.
>Marc
>
--
www.algo.be
Logo programming : www.algo.be/logo.html
It's too bad Apple abandoned HyperCard.
Francis Leboutte wrote:
> I'm going to give a small introduction to programming to adults (using
> PC and Windows). I'm hesitating between MSWLogo and CL.
>
> The advantages I see in MSWLogo:
> - it's free
> - it doesn't need powerful hardware
> - as all the Logos, it has the Turtle which means fun from the first
> lessons
> - the existence of a Logo community devoted to teaching and learning
> of programming and the immediate availability of teaching material.
>
> On the other hand there would be a lot of advantages to use CL. There
> are free CL on WIndows and taking profit of the Logo teaching material
> would be easy. It remains the Turtle and hardware points:
> - are there turtle extensions for CL on Windows (and possibly Logo to
> CL translators)?
> - what are the real minimum hardware requirements for the free Lisp on
> Windows?
>
> --
> www.algo.be
> Logo programming : www.algo.be/logo.html
Francis Leboutte <··········@algo.be> writes:
> I'm going to give a small introduction to programming to adults (using
> PC and Windows). I'm hesitating between MSWLogo and CL.
(snipped)
This wasn't one of your choices, but the other day I was introduced to
the Squeak system, built by Alan Kay (of DynaBook and Smalltalk fame.)
It's aimed at kids through adults, plus educators, and there are lots
of interesting demos.
http://www.squeakland.org for demos and end-user descriptions.
http://www.squeak.org for code and developer-related stuff.
It looked to be an accessible and powerful authoring tool. That is,
Alan made it do some pretty impressive stuff, very quickly. Under the
hood it's Smalltalk, rather than Lisp, but you can't have everything.
On the other hand, choosing a system that works with very high-level
abstractions may not convey the ideas you're interested in, compared
with a programming language.
--
Rob St. Amant
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~stamant