Microsoft Small Basic
msdn.microsoft.com
msdn.microsoft.com
The first time, the installer installed the French version. I thought it might be some kind of fluke or I'd missed the language option. I redownloaded/uninstalled/reinstalled.
The second time, I had the Russian version.
Microsoft isn't making it easy for me to speak their language.
"Press to stop game"
GraphicsWindow.DrawText(x, y + 320, "Press to stop game")
Edit: and the key they hooked up "stop game" to was not space, it was escape :(
Another one, about v0.8:
The eigth and newest installment of Small Basic...
I would like to see a similar poster with a poor kid shown running linux on an old donated PC (because he can't afford one that runs vista/7) and playing with Python in bpython.
Doing much more than what he/she can do in Small Basic and learning something which would actually get him some money in future if he/she goes in the right track.
I wonder if this is case-sensitive too, I dont like the "To", "EndFor". The title of the current script - "Tetris - Imported", is so confusing, I see no tetris anywhere, all I see is something done to the poor turtle. I also wonder what is the default direction of Mr. Turtle, I just can't guess what would be drawn.
I would like the kid to know that he needs not know wtf is ".NET", teach programming, don't advertize to them. Let them create their own .net if they want to.
I think it is awesome that it is such a small download, and that you can publish to the web too! :) http://smallbasic.com/program/?FHZ097
1. The buttons on the ribbon are insanely large. Almost to the point I think I would be annoyed with this back in 6th grade. (I'm not 6 years old!)
2. The description of the move command is very technical. The same person that is writing docs for MSDN should not be writing docs for kids. (Seriously... "moves the turtle the specified distance")
Especially with the semi-graphics, semi-text mode. Line here, line there - you get the picture. I've got buddy back then who was able to write a whole BASIC application that draws Michael Jackson (yes there was Take One back then, but he wrote a 24kb code doing that).
Anyway... QBasic was fun too, and the MS-DOS one somewhat.
But this is not.
So personally, I'm wondering what the value is here.
I'm still in touch with a lot of them, and it's amazing how many have become incredibly talented, successful, entrepreneurial folks (and we're all mostly in our 20's now).
The interesting thing is that this app was probably the worst way to learn programming. It didn't have operator precedence, functions, arrays, or many other basic features. It was a toy language in the most pejorative sense of the term -- not one carefully laid out for pedagogical purposes. I learned so many bad habits.
But that didn't matter -- the real important bit is that we all learned how fun it is to actually build stuff on your own and release it. I think that's the critical spark that makes the rest happen.
So many people have never experienced this joy and spend their entire careers only working on things other people have assigned to them.
Part of the challenge though was overcoming the engine limitations as you could only display 20 pictures at a time but you were able to use sprites as images and change the sprite being displayed.
Color me jaded.
ValidateMove() ' in: ypos, xpos, h, moveDirection ret: invalidMove = 1 or -1 or 2 if move is invalid, otherwise 0