Hello Erik, very valid points. I agree that young people would benefit from a "higher level" tool that focused on games. I think it should be a separate thing, though. In fact, several years ago, after I made Nightcode, I built a tool just like that, called Nightmod. My latest project, Nightcoders.net, is kind of a web-based equivalent of Nightcode. Based on this pattern, guess what project I'm thinking of working on next =)
Zach On Sunday, January 15, 2017 at 4:35:04 AM UTC-5, Erik Assum wrote: > > Hi Zach, > > I just stumbled upon your blog post about this at > https://sekao.net/blog/nightcoders.html, by the way of Shaun LeBron > retweeting Josh Burkes tweet which cited "We should try to be the next > Geocities, not the next Intellij". > > Last night, I spent some time coding with my son over on http://code.org. > We started out with some flappy-bird thing, and ended > up on https://codecombat.com/play?hour_of_code=true which is some kind of > strange mix between coding and playing a game. > > Since I don't play games, but program, and my son doesn't program but > plays games, this thing hit the sweet-spot for us, and I guess > it's an example of an idea I've had for quite some time, make a game where > the main interaction with the game is through coding. > > I'm not sure where I'm going with all this rambling, but here is a couple > of points: > > 1) The flappy bird thing https://studio.code.org/flappy/1 essentially > provides you with hooks into an event loop with predefined functions > to call so kids can play around with stuff and see results easily. > > 2) The drawback with this approach (the graphic coding approach) is > highlighted in Tommy Halls euroclojure talk from 2013 > https://vimeo.com/100425264, which basically states that these approaches > are not turtles all the way down and that that is a bad thing. > > 3) Knowing that you create games ( > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GzzFeS5cMc), I'd love to see some kind > of more fleshed out > game example in Nightcoders to start, well, playing with. > > 4) For kids (at least my 9yo), it seems like giving them an IDE and say > here, code some stuff, doesn't work. But give a kid something like > http://dragonbox.com/products/algebra-5, and they cannot stop solving > equations. > > I'm not quite sure why I'm writing this, other than to say Nightcoders > seems like a step in the right direction, and that I agree with the > quote from the blog, and here are the thoughts it provoked. > > Erik. > > On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 5:20 PM, Zach Oakes <zso...@gmail.com <javascript:> > > wrote: > >> Cloud IDEs are becoming more common. To quote the rifleman's creed, there >> are many others like it, but this one is mine: >> >> http://nightcoders.net/ >> >> It's basically a hosted version of Nightlight, running the compiler on my >> server so you can build CLJS projects using nothing but a web browser. I'm >> aiming at beginners, much like I did with the original Nightcode, but this >> time I'm going further by eliminating all setup requirements. >> >> Please be gentle with it. I've only been working on this for the past few >> weeks while vacationing in mexico...mostly as a distraction while my body >> convulsed over the somewhat unhygienic street food I gave it. I spent a lot >> of time in the bathroom. That may be oversharing. Oh well. >> >> Enjoy! >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Clojure" group. >> To post to this group, send email to clo...@googlegroups.com >> <javascript:> >> Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >> your first post. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Clojure" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to clojure+u...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
