[HN Gopher] Show HN: TurtleSpaces Web Logo - online 3D Logo impl...
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       Show HN: TurtleSpaces Web Logo - online 3D Logo implementation
        
       Author : empressplay
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2024-09-30 00:26 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (turtlespaces.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (turtlespaces.org)
        
       | dartos wrote:
       | So... a gif?
       | 
       | On mobile, so it's hard for me to inspect.
        
       | qingcharles wrote:
       | It's this in 3D:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics
        
         | pixelatedindex wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | sitkack wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | vincent-manis wrote:
             | 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.
        
           | mschaef wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | 73kl4453dz wrote:
             | There was a book series out of Berkeley that wound up doing
             | things like writing mini Pascal compilers, in Logo.
        
       | jagged-chisel wrote:
       | Keeps restarting/reloading on iOS. It would be nice to see some
       | pre-made examples with source and output.
        
       | mahirsaid wrote:
       | 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> .
        
         | dartos wrote:
         | Not sure why we're getting downvoted for being confused.
         | 
         | Can someone please explain what this is?
        
           | blyry wrote:
           | `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.
        
       | buescher wrote:
       | 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/
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-02 23:00 UTC)