chadkeck

> Any reason Xcode 2 was chosen? Wouldn't have Xcode 3.2.6 on Snow Leopard but targeting OS X 10.4 and including ppc as an architecture also worked?

I forget exactly why I used Xcode 2.5, but I wanted to do it on Tiger since that OS was the one around the time Xbins started. It probably would've been a bit nicer working in Snow Leopard, but I just chose Tiger.

Here's the prompt I ended up with after several iterations of Claude trying to spit out Objective-C 2.0 code:

"This project must generate code that works with Mac OS X Tiger 10.4, Xcode 2.5, and Objective-C 1.x. The Objective-C code generated MUST NOT have ARC, blocks, @property, @optional, @try, @synchronize, NSInteger, auto-layout, or modern features, NSCharacterSet doesn't have newlineCharacterSet. I know it's an old, obsolete version but I must use it.

Generate clean code with comments and debug logging to NSLog."

I never came across Auto-Xbins, but it's good to know it existed. Hopefully it got a lot of use over the years.

> Basically, just write the software as if it's the year your target platform was released. It shouldn't be more difficult than writing any software was back then. Heck, it may even be easier because you have access to more modern tools, like AI.

I used Claude heavily for this project. I doubt I would've put the time in to get this to an acceptable release state without being able to use Claude. I did buy a few old books and reference them for Xcode things, but most was done with Claude.

> One thing I noticed is that the main menu has some items I don't think apply to your app:

Yep, I'd forgotten about those default menu items and need to remove them in a future version.

> Is it possible the irc server detected your app as malicious activity?

Yes, during my testing I got banned with a similar message from one of the servers. Uppercut randomly selects an EFnet server from a list, so trying again may have everything go smoothly. I'm not sure what exactly some servers are looking for to determine a ban or not.

> Very cool. Is Tiger the minimum bound for the app itself, or just for the Intel Mac? I have 10.1 on a Wallstreet and can give it a shot if not.

I recall seeing stuff in Xcode about building for down to 10.2, but I don't have anything set up to test on 10.2. I'd bet this build won't work on 10.1.

Good to know, thanks for testing on PPC.

1995, not 1955.

Same here for the OG Xbox. Lots of TSOP flashes for friends over SSH after booting a saved game exploit for 007: Agent Under Fire. Reading lots of the forums on xbox-scene.com. Learned to solder with a soldering iron I picked up from the local Radioshack.

Yeah, the cache manifest will be the next feature for Browser Hash :)

Well I guess I'm not so paranoid if you're worried about the JS being MITM'd :D

The code is up on github. I will add the MIT license soon (do what you want with the code).

The hash functions came from Paj here: http://pajhome.org.uk/crypt/md5/

IIRC, Firefox's add-on API already has an MD5 calculation method.

1. Haha, I agree that files will eventually become less accesible for the majority of computer users. Something like how the iPad handles projects/songs/documents instead of the generic "file".

2. Due to HTML5 limitations, you will need to drop the file from your local storage onto the browser window.

3. Yes you can get digests of a file on Windows, but it doesn't come with a built-in program.

I dont' really understand what you're saying here. Other services that calculate the digest of a file online require you to upload your file to the service/site where you don't know what they will do with it. With Browser Hash, not one bit of your file leaves your computer or travels over the network.

Absolutely agreed. It is due to the immaturity of the browser implementations, which will hopefully be fixed soon.

It regularly crashes(!) Chrome on "large" files; thus, the limitation.

Hey Thomas, The itch I was scratching with this tool is that there isn't a built-in way in Windows to get a digest of a file, so... what better way than doing it in the browser?

Also, I'm the paranoid type and don't like the idea of uploading a file to someone else's server if I want the digest.

Very nice! Your sorting by deductible doesn't work correctly.

CanvasXpress has got some pretty cool examples. I am currently using a not-free-for-commercial highcharts (http://highcharts.com). It is pure javascript, depends on jQuery or MooTools and I like it.

Here's an update to my project that I had submitted to HN about a month ago. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions. A comment system is on my list of features to work on.

I think I have been fleshing out an idea like what you are suggesting from the turtle cursor. I would like to add a step-by-step debugging to WizBang that allows the user to watch variable values and step through each Wizzy (with it being highlighted graphically). If I implemented that, I think it would be a great way to visualize different sorting algorithms.

Edit: I'm also not quite a computer scientist! College drop out! :)

I just wanted to know if any actual computer scientists had input on the project's goals. I have looked into Alice, scratch, Popfly (discontinued), and couldn't really find one that was very similar to WizBang, so I was also thinking putting it on HN would dig out any project that was amazingly similar.

Edit: scratch, not squeak

Great! There isn't much instruction on what to do once it's installed, so I recommend opening up the examples (available from the sourceforge files page) to get an idea how the blocks behave.

I don't think WizBang could ever take away the beginner running into compiler errors, but I feel that the beginner programmer has so many problems to face at once that this situation can be improved. By using WizBang, they can interactively learn about looping and branches without worrying about syntax.

It is definitely intended for beginners, but I wanted to let HN know about it since I've seen a lot of posts wondering "how I can teach my kid to program?" and think that this is a good app for that.

WizBang is designed to teach the most basic programming fundamentals: loops, conditional branches, numeric operations, and how these blocks interact with eachother.

I am in no way trying to get any current developer to switch over to building programs in WizBang. This was never an intention. The goal is to present a simple, minimal, visual environment in which to build simple programs.

After the beginner learns the basics, WizBang eases them into the next step of learning a real language, such as C++, Java, or Python, by allowing them to compile their WizBang programs into valid code in any language that's supported.

To answer your final question: the only advantage WizBang has over a textual language is that I think there are more grade school (and even high school) students that would experiment building programs with colorful shapes than typing commands into a text editor, then running a compiler or interpreter to see what they get.

It is much slower for me to build a WizBang program than to fire up vim and write some code. I'm not sure if visual programming could ever be faster than a text editor, as a visual block (in WizBang anyway) usually corresponds to one or two lines of actual code.

But speed is not the point at all in WizBang. The point is to present a clean and simple environment in which beginners can build real programs without having to type more than variable names. I feel it is a much easier way to introduce programming than having someone install Visual Studio and writing a hello world program.

Thanks for the feedback. We looked at scratch and Alice and a few other programs to get ideas about visual programming before we started building WizBang. I have done a few tests with people with no programming experience, but just wanted to let HN know about the project since I've seen lots of posts about "how do I teach programming to someone young?" and I think this is a great tool for that.