[HN Gopher] Simple programming language with offline usable brow...
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Simple programming language with offline usable browser IDE
Author : chrisjj
Score : 90 points
Date : 2025-05-29 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tiki.li)
(TXT) w3m dump (tiki.li)
| bn-l wrote:
| Who is this aimed at? Kids? If so it is unbelievably far off the
| mark.
| lukaslalinsky wrote:
| It has a similar vibe to the BASIC I was starting with at
| around 10-11 years old. When I first saw this, I was thinking
| it could be a good first language for someone who is actually
| eager to learn more, but doesn't need to be exposed to the
| realities of the IT world.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I made a somewhat similar project for My daughter when she
| was 8 or 9 y.o. It was a turtle that has to turn instead of
| using absolute coordinates like in this article.
| James_K wrote:
| There are people who don't know how to program, not necessarily
| because they are young, but because it hasn't been relevant in
| their lives yet.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| This is most people, and it will never be relevant in their
| lives ever.
| delusional wrote:
| How come? When I was learning HTML 20 years ago it was all
| angelfire sites and w3schools. This seems like a reasonable
| analogue to that. It doesn't have to be for all people in an
| age group.
| hyperhello wrote:
| It's probably just aimed at scratching an itch of the person
| who designed it. Often when I see "for kids" I see a
| simplification of what adults would think. Here I
| see...JavaScript without brackets and parentheses.
| bn-l wrote:
| _If_ it is designed for kids _then_ it is off the mark.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| Depends on the kind of kids. I find the approach perfect
| for the 10-15 years old age group.
| istjohn wrote:
| Why do you say that? It seems like a great halfway point
| between Scratch and Python.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| Why?
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| There are 3yo kids, 5yo, 15yo ... 50yo kids. All are different.
| Don't judge by your own inner kid age.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Although simplistic it does remind me of my dream for a
| simplistic command driven language that actually does the tasks I
| want in a simple manner. I'm not thinking of tcl either, but if
| powershell was a lot faster and included support for a lot more
| things kind of like the graphics language mentioned here. Calling
| out to the Microsoft GUI tools is such a pain and not worth it
| given the glacial performance.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I've actually been using OpenPythonSCAD for this sort of thing:
|
| https://pythonscad.org/
|
| paired with:
|
| https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/
|
| it lets me rough out an algorithm (see the section on arcs in:
| https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview/blob/main/gcodepre...
| ) interactively, seeing the result on-screen --- then once I
| have the rough concept, I can re-write it in Python, retaining
| this interactivity.
|
| EDIT: next step is to work up a batch file which has me running
| OpenSCAD on a series of files to output .png and .svg files to
| read them back in and place the output at the appropriate
| places in the document.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Nice setup to solve a problem. Seems like something I would
| do :)
| WillAdams wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I kind of wish that I could find some tool like to Jupyter
| Notebook which would work for my needs, but I always run
| into some odd limitation.
| jerf wrote:
| This seems a very surprising combination of technologies to
| turn into a visual prototyping language. Do you have a blog
| post or something on this topic that might expand on this
| workflow?
| WillAdams wrote:
| I suppose I should blog about this at:
| https://designinto3d.com/
|
| but I've written a fair number of posts on it at:
|
| https://forum.makerforums.info/search?q=gcodepreview
|
| and it has come up a few times at:
|
| https://community.carbide3d.com/search?q=gcodepreview
|
| and on the OpenSCAD mailing list --- that latter might need
| to be extended back in time to encompass:
| https://github.com/openscad/openscad/issues/2017
|
| EDIT: also see my post history here, and this post might be
| what you are asking after?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44108440
|
| Reasons for the technologies:
|
| - OpenSCAD affords 3D modeling
|
| - Python was added to it which finally got me the ability
| to write out files _and_ mutable variables (programming
| this w/o them was an interesting intellectual challenge and
| resulted in a quite stilted programming style)
|
| - G-code is the _lingua franca_ of CNCs, so modeling that
| seemed a natural fit
|
| - DXFs are imported by many CAD and CAM applications, so
| supporting them was a no-brainer
|
| - LuaLaTeX is the current (La)TeX implementation, and I've
| been using/learning TeX since first checking out a copy of
| _TeX and METAFONT_ from the local college library
|
| Maybe the most important context is what my first project
| on my Shapeoko 3 entailed:
| https://community.carbide3d.com/t/locking-register-
| calipers-... --- drawing in Macromedia Freehand, making a
| one character font in Fontforge, doing V-carving using
| F-Engrave, then the balance of the CAM using MakerCAM (a
| Flash file formerly known as PartKam).
|
| The over-arching name of the project is "Design Into 3D",
| so also see: https://willadams.gitbook.io/design-
| into-3d/programming and you may find the (very early)
| Tugboat article:
| https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb40-2/tb125adams-3d.pdf of
| interest.
|
| Glad to answer any other questions you might have! I'm
| hoping to have a project ready for a "Show HN" before 4
| July.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Seems to be GPLv3
| https://github.com/chkas/easylang/blob/394e29a44458ac67f8483...
| although I _think_ the line right above that stating "All rights
| reserved" is actually incompatible with GPLv3 which is designed
| to grant rights, not reserve them. I am not lawyerly enough to
| know what the story is with that "must contain a built-in
| function" clause.
|
| Kind of sad it's not self hosted yet :-D
| n2d4 wrote:
| "All rights reserved" no longer means anything anymore. In the
| past, you had to state that you want to reserve copyright, but
| now this has become the default even if you say nothing.
|
| Either way, this does not conflict with GPLv3; if the author
| decides to reserve all rights, and then use their reserved
| right to license the work under a certain license like GPLv3,
| that is totally fine. Notably, the phrase "All rights reserved"
| does not recapture any rights that you don't have. It is the
| same logic under which you're allowed to license your _own_
| GPLv3 code under a proprietary, non-FOSS license, but that
| doesn 't revoke the GPLv3 license itself.
| ornitorrincos wrote:
| I'm more worried on the advertising clause, which would afaik
| make it gpl-incompatible for anyone else. (and probably also
| unfit for osi defined open source)
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Kind of sad it's not self hosted yet :-D
|
| Self hosting a language is only really a useful exercise if the
| language is designed for writing compilers. Easylang doesn't
| seem to be intended for that, so there are always better things
| to spend one's time on, as there's an infinite amount of work
| that goes into making a language, and writing a compiler is not
| a trivial task. There are better ways to stress test a
| language.
| xunil2ycom wrote:
| So, basically Logo.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| That was my first thought; that it looks like a version of
| Logo; which holds a fond place in my heart from younger years.
| abjr wrote:
| I've always heard of this as Easylang https://easylang.online/
|
| Is it just a re-branding as Tiki?
|
| Anyway, the author does AoC every year in it:
| https://easylang.online/aoc/ which I admit I have referenced
| during my own attempts.
| bertman wrote:
| >Is it just a re-branding as Tiki?
|
| Looks like it. The source link at the bottom of the page goes
| to https://github.com/chkas/easylang
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| This really resonates for me. I have been thinking for sometime
| that it would be much more useful than scratch, if we could have
| a simple programming language with a simple canvas next to a
| text/console output, both of which were separate from the editor.
|
| And ta da!! You've done it.
|
| I really think this is wonderful.
| layer8 wrote:
| This reminds me of Comal 80:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/c64/comments/1g8gqeu/comal_for_the_...
|
| A programming language halfway between Basic and Pascal, with
| old-style REPL and Logo-like turtle graphics.
| jcmontx wrote:
| It's like a DSL for graphics, really really cool!
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(page generated 2025-05-29 23:01 UTC)