I really ought to get out more . . .

[richmond62]

Dunno why, feeling a bit bonkers this evening:
-

Screenshot 2024-03-10 at 19.50.01.png (93.11 KiB) Viewed 191 times

[xAction]

Please stop using repeat loops, they are blocking and wait is just bad news.
I have piles and piles of your stacks from over the years and they all leave the same bad impression;
THIS SOFTWARE IS SLOW AND LOCKS UP THE COMPUTER

I appreciate that you make them, it's great that someone presents something, but please make a good first impression.

Action is in the card script
Stack scaleFactor set to .5 in the inspector

Drops Of Brandyv2_LOOPS.oxtStack

(3.92 KiB) Downloaded 9 times

DropsOfBrandy.gif (295.06 KiB) Viewed 177 times

[richmond62]

Repeat loops are the "bread and cheese" of starting computer programming.

[xAction]

10 Print "Loops are best"
20 goto 10

LOOPS are the grain from which the bread is produced and feeds the cow or goat from which the butter is made

If you do :

on Line10
put "print this line of text forever"
end Line10

on Line 20
Line10
end Line20

You will hit a nice safe recursion limit if you do not control the flow of messages in a more thoughtful way

if you do

on ThisIsMadness

repeat until x = false -
put "This is Sparta!"
end repeat

end ThisIsMadness

It will freeze up the software forever. Can't select tools , can't get into menus.

If you do

on PleaseNoStopDoingThis
repeat with x = 1 to 10000000
put "Seriously, just stop doing it"
end repeat
end PlaseNoStopDoingThis

It will spit out about 50 lines of text, then freeze up everything until it completes all 10000000

[richmond62]

MY stack was NOT meant to be "state of the art programming" (err: how could anyone think it was that?), but an illustration of how one can do something interesting with very basic programming skills.

I am not sure how much of that book I will get through: particularly as I have about 5 other books in 3 languages "on the go" at the moment.

Oh, dear: I need my second cup of coffee: I just typed "Boobs in 3 languages" . . .

[xAction]

The point is you're producing 'examples' that make the whole programming paradigm look bad.

You're leaving landminds in the playground.

[richmond62]

that make the whole programming paradigm look bad.

I wish you would not dish out your subjective opinion as if it were fact.

[xAction]

I have come across your stacks for at least 10 years, and every time you've driven me away from using the software, because I assumed that the slow, clunky, blocking way of doing things was just the way the software worked.

Every other software option out there works better. It was depressing, 20 years of software development with 2Ghz computers and 8gigs of RAM and they could not exceed or match the performance of BASIC programs from 1983 running at 1 mhz.

That's the impression you are leaving.
The 9 and 11 year olds you subject to your teaching are too terrified of you to say "This is bad, you're wrong."

You need adult supervision when at the keyboard.

[richmond62]

The 9 and 11 year olds you subject to your teaching are too terrified of you to say "This is bad, you're wrong."

The 9 to 11 year olds have never programmed computers before: having done my short course (which means they have learnt computational thinking) go onto high school where they work with C++, Python, Java, and so on: so they do NOT come to me to learn about SPEED, they come to learn far, far simpler things: once they have learnt those the speed can come.

Remember my first considerations are teaching ones: and teaching to children who are still in a stage of cognitive development where they are not capable of abstract thinking.

Have you any idea how difficult it is to get children to understand things when they ask questions about statements like

Code: Select all

put 5 into A

of the type, "Where does 'A' come from?" AND statements like

Code: Select all

put A & B into C

really "throw them off."

While 9 to 11 year olds where you live may be sufficiently 'sophisticated' to see that my "rip off" of 'Snail Bob' is slow (actually xTalk clones of Snail Bob are no slower), over here where what passes for "programming classes" constitutes children copying example programs with no explanation whatsoever (that's in the 5% of schools that have computers), what I offer is EXACTLY what 9 to 11 year olds need.

As to "subject to your teaching": that is hilarious for the simple reason that none of those children are cpative in any way: when I run my summer schools they come on a daily basis (i.e. pay for that day), and the drop out rate is 10%: and as 10% of children will not 'get' computer programming regardless of where or how it is taught, that does not fuss me.

[richmond62]

Also, xAction, it is clear to be seen that you have a 'need for speed', and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

HOWEVER, as this is NOT LiveCode, and we are not trying to convince people to part company with lots of money for it, we don't ALL have to push the 'need for speed': there are people who might need a programming environment for other things: not everyone is writing programs to process Gigs of data, or, for that matter, World of Warcraft clones.

I assumed that the slow, clunky, blocking way of doing things was just the way the software worked.

That might say more about your tendency to assume things than my pedestrian style of programming.

I would NOT assess a toolset on the basis of what one person produced with it: that would be daft: The awful botches people make with chisel sets didn't stop me buying a chisel set as I also looked at some of the really wonderful wood carvings some people managed with that set.

Perhaps I should also point out that one of the very few complaints I have had about my Devawriter Pro software is that it compiles Devaganari and Grantha conjunct consonants rather too fast for end-users to keep up with it. This is with SWITCH statements with literally thousands of CASES!

[tperry2x]

I hope you don't mind, and I know it was intended as a joke - but I've just deleted that image above. Just because we might have additional eyes on the forum soon, and it did not look very.... professional, for want of a better word.
I hope you get my reasoning for moderating that.

[richmond62]

No, I don't mind: although I would be surprised if people would be put off by what was 'modest'. There should be some limits to prudery.

[richmond62]

Oh, and as HyperCard was marketed as "programming for the rest of us", perhaps we should consider OXT as 'programming for the rump of the rest of us'.

And as LiveCode (a.k.a Runtime Revolution) went from being an improved front-end to MetaCard (which was a UNIX clone of HyperCard), through an attempt to be "programming for the rest of us", to what it seems to be now: something attempting to be not "programming for the rest of us" but "programming for them" with a dwindling clientele, then OXT has to be "programming for the rest of us" . . . and that means for clunky programmers like me as well as speed-freaks. AND if OXT is not speedy enough, there are plenty of alternatives.

[richmond62]

If anyone round these parts has any doubt about the role of "clunky and slow" they should look no further than here:

https://www.greenfoot.org/overview

"Greenfoot teaches object orientation with Java. Create 'actors' which live in 'worlds' to build games, simulations, and other graphical programs.

"Greenfoot is visual and interactive. Visualisation and interaction tools are built into the environment.

"The actors are programmed in standard textual Java code, providing a combination of programming experience in a traditional text-based language with visual execution."