[HN Gopher] Generating random terrains with Enu - a Nim lang bas...
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       Generating random terrains with Enu - a Nim lang based interactive
       sandbox
        
       Author : fork-bomber
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2023-12-04 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (moigagoo.svbtle.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (moigagoo.svbtle.com)
        
       | esafak wrote:
       | Looks neat. How old a kid do you think would get this? My
       | preschooler can only handle Scratch at the moment. I tried Logo
       | but realized she would not be able to deal with the angles, which
       | requires some understanding of multiplication and division.
        
         | dsrw wrote:
         | Enu author here. I taught it to a group of 11 year olds at a
         | community coding club a few years ago, with reasonable success.
         | At the time Enu didn't work very well, but by the end the kids
         | were able to code simple structures and make monsters chase
         | them around. I just started teaching it to my 8 year old and
         | he's picked up a few things, but so far he's mostly interested
         | in building things with blocks. We've only been at it for a
         | couple of hours though.
         | 
         | Enu was designed to be usable by non-readers and new typists.
         | There's a shorthand version of common commands, and as long as
         | you're happy with 90 degree angles you can specify direction
         | without numbers. For example, a box could be:                 f
         | 10 # forward 10       r 10 # right 10       b 10 # back 10
         | l 10 # left 10
         | 
         | or:                 4.x:    # 4 times         f 10  # forward
         | 10         t r   # turn right
         | 
         | It can also be configured to interpret both `;` and `:` as `:`,
         | which makes it possible to type a lot of common Enu code
         | without needing the SHIFT key.
         | 
         | Enu only recently got to a state that I'd consider usable, so
         | whether or not this is enough to make it work for younger kids,
         | I'm not sure. But I'm hopeful.
         | 
         | http://getenu.com
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | So great. I grew up on BASIC and logo and it's so weird that we
       | haven't been able to converge on a fun learning thing that's
       | reasonably accessible.
       | 
       | Am excited to check this out.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-04 23:00 UTC)