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LOGO Still Lives -- New Java-Based Version Released

Posted by timothy on from the turtles-aren't-just-for-soup-any-more dept.

farrellj writes "Many people were introduced to computer programming using a virtual turtle, or if you were lucky a robotic turtle. Created in the '60s by a bunch of people at MIT, including one of the formost experts on computer aided learning Seymour Papert, it gave a good grounding in programming in a day when BASIC and PASCAL were the only other easily available languages...I use to teach LOGO at a computer lab in Ottawa, but have lost touch with LOGO for many years. Today, a email appeared in my mailbox announcing a new release of LOGO called StarLOGO from MIT...wow...it is done in JAVA, and looks pretty snazzy. It runs on just about any platform, and I think that it again may be a great way to get young kids interested in programming. It took me about 2 minutes to get it running...just untar it, and run a shell script, and I had the enivronment up and running. In a couple more minutes, I was writing programs that created graphical displays that would look great at raves. So I guess it's for kids of all ages!"

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Turtles by whimdot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Woohoo, I just love writing shell scripts.

  2. Name for this? by pokeyburro · · Score: 5, Funny

    Based on current naming conventions, this shouldn't be called StarLOGO.

    It should be called J-Logo.

    Then you need an even shorter name, that rolls off the tongue. I think you see where I'm going with this.

    --
    Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
  3. Re:Logo and Pascal by Diabolical · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hmmm... i couldn't care less about that pascal program and your teacher...

    How Logo got you dates with girls is what i would like to know...

  4. Care to guess what's next ? by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 4, Funny

    Next up : Microsoft releases their own version of Logo, called Logo#, and they are paying elementary schools thousands of dollars to use it in their computer classes.

    --

    In Soviet America the banks rob you!
  5. Re:Samples of your art?? by farrellj · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sure!

    repeat 100 [fd 5 rt 23 fd 5 lt 23]

    ttyl
    Farrell

    --
    CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
  6. It's just obvious by dbrower · · Score: 3, Funny
    that someone needs to put a Logo runtime into the lego mindstorms controller, so you can make a Logo Lego Turtle, or would it be a Lego Logo Turtle?

    (running from the bricks)

    -dB

    --
    "It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."