[HN Gopher] Strype, a Python frame-based editor
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Strype, a Python frame-based editor
Author : marianoguerra
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-03-15 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (microbit.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (microbit.org)
| tnzk wrote:
| Interesting. Is there an open source and embeddable equivalent to
| this?
| amelius wrote:
| The concept is not new:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame-based_editor
| omnicognate wrote:
| I've never really understood the desire to have high level
| programming environments for the micro:bit - blocks and such.
| I've nothing against those sorts of environments themselves. My
| son has hugely enjoyed Scratch and I think it has been
| educational for him. I just think it's missing out on what makes
| micro:bit awesome.
|
| With a high level programming environment a Micro:bit is just a
| very limited, cheap bit of hardware you can do a few fun things
| with. There's novelty to it but it can do much less than the
| desktop computer you use to program it.
|
| But the Micro:bit is an absolutely genius bit of kit for
| exploring _low level_ programming!
|
| AIUI, the Micro:bit has 2 microcontrollers on it, not one. The
| one you program is actually the less powerful of the two. The
| second microcontroller, which you can't program, is there to
| control the USB port, implement mass storage and feed anything
| you put there to the programmable microcontroller.
|
| This means you have an extremely simple RISC chip, with extremely
| simple hardware (leds, beepers and stuff) attached that you can
| control, and you can program it in assembler or C just by copying
| files to USB mass storage.
|
| I haven't started with this yet, but when he's ready I plan to
| explore this in detail with my son. It seems like a perfect
| opportunity to explore how computers actually work and how
| software and hardware interact, without the huge complexity of
| more powerful hardware.
|
| I mean, this should be educational for _me_!
|
| This book looks like a potential starting point (not published
| yet, though):
| https://spivey.oriel.ox.ac.uk/baremetal/Bare_Metal_micro:bit
| addet0x wrote:
| Interesting. Haven't tried it myself but looks neat.
|
| And here my 2 cents: I would be seriously surprised if Strype
| didn't have any intention of integrating some visual based
| machine learning algorithm to help automate coding. Actually I'm
| quite surprised I haven't seen any project doing that. Github
| copilot comes close but is text-based only. So no end-to-end
| software design. For that you need GUIs and thus more visual-
| based networks. Strype could be helping with that.
| BeefySwain wrote:
| Is this open-source? Couldn't find anything about that anywhere.
|
| Would be awesome to integrate this with some other libraries made
| for beginners.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I didn't realize the "Scratch" interface was called "frame based
| editing" [1]. Interesting.
|
| My experience with novice programmers is that they have the most
| problems with code syntax and formatting. The fact that one
| misplaced comma or semicolon can prevent the whole program from
| running is incredibly frustrating and for many, is a significant
| obstacle that prevents further progress. I've seen with my own
| eyes, 10 year olds break down crying in frustration over a
| missing semicolon.
|
| But I think it's too early to "standardize" on this particular
| solution to the problem just yet. I feel we need a few more
| iterations before it is fully baked.
|
| Millions of people around the world code every day at all levels
| of ability. When a better development system is devised, it'll
| just naturally take over and we'll see it everywhere. This isn't
| it yet.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame-based_editor
| carlosperate wrote:
| Generally Scratch-like languages can be referred to as "visual"
| programming languages, or "block based" languages. "Frame based
| editors" would be this new combined approach.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language
| munro wrote:
| This looks really great, people have been exploring AST editors
| but I feel like this "frame" concept strikes a balanced between
| the structure an AST editor provides, and the need for free form
| text editing our normal text editors provide--I'm really
| interested to see how this feels in practic.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| This would be cool to have a version that creates bash scripts.
| Most scripts are simple logical things like:
|
| - run this tool, send its output to that tool
|
| - if that fails then stop and show an error
|
| - etc.
| toyg wrote:
| Very interesting, will try with the kids.
|
| Bad naming though.
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