Codakido, Lua/SDL programming environment for Kids, with C64-alike editor

by antirez • 14 years ago

98 54 14 years ago

antirez11• 14 years ago

Hi HN!

this is the result of two days of hacking during the weekend, the obvious inspiration is Codea. I and my son have fun with Codea but we can't use it often (we don't have an iPad at home), so I wrote this code. Later I realized that using an external editor was not working so I added a retro-computing alike editor, and now it is much easier for kids to modify and execute the program.

Everything is currently very work in progress, I hope I'll find more time to invest into this project, but even more I hope to get pull requests by interested parents that have children and are interested into teaching some programming.

EDIT: since I used most of the time hacking on the code I was not able to add some decent example. Please if you write some nice one drop me an email, pull request, whatever.

badboy• 14 years ago

I really like the idea and the code is just great. I had fun by just reading the C code and experimenting a bit.

Now that the editor is included it's even more awesome :)

antirez11• 14 years ago

Thanks badboy! The editor was definitely the most fun part to write (but it need more love, there are a few bugs). Since the whole editor only uses setPixel() as basic primitive it will work the same in different operating systems that can be a good point. Probably could be easily extrapolated to be used into games for the same reasons.

gaius2• 14 years ago

This is exactly what I have been talking about! The way to get kids into programming is exactly the same way we all got into it: the 8-bit micro experience. Top marks!

cturner• 14 years ago

The language here is lua, a structured language, rather than a thin instruction layer over hardware. If it more of an API behind it (e.g. ability to work with sound at a low level) then the result could be better.

antirez11• 14 years ago

I agree, I want to add low level things like POKE to write to the screen memory. Sound would also be awesome.

seclorum8• 14 years ago

I think for sound it would be nice to have a little synthesizer where you can specify attack/decay/sustain/release, oscillator type, frequency and so on .. sort of like the SOUND command in the old 8-bit computers, even.

seclorum8• 14 years ago

I agree completely, which is why I have carefully curated my collection of computers over the years, to keep them functioning until the day my sons are ready to code. I've still got my Oric-1 (and now, an Atmos) with all accessories, in fully working order, ready to roll! :)

owlpic• 14 years ago

Has potential on the Raspberry Pi.

antirez11• 14 years ago

That's my target, I hope that when the Raspberry PI will be available enough, Codakido will be functional enough to be a good alternative to the BBC micro BASIC.

asb2• 14 years ago

Hi Salvatore. I'll run it on my alpha board this evening and let you know how it currently performs.

kokey• 14 years ago

I like the choice of Lua and SDL, not only as a modern LOGO/BASIC alternative. I think it can go much further.

I guess as a minimum you want the editor to function to the level of notepad/pico/nano, and then perhaps have helpers with regards to indenting, and after that error marking similar to that of QBASIC, and after that syntax highlighting.

zxdunny• 14 years ago

I'm also hoping to port this to the rPI: http://www.specbas.co.uk which is Sinclair BASIC for modern PCs... Seems the PI is going to be spoilt for choice :)

tluyben2• 14 years ago

Very nicely done!

Zhiz0id3• 14 years ago

From user point of view using flash as GUI is a better idea. http://code.google.com/p/lua-alchemy/

example: http://lua-alchemy.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/demo/index.html

perfunctory• 14 years ago

I'm worried I won't be able to explain to my kid this part:

as3.class.mx.controls.Label.new()

Zhiz0id3• 14 years ago

I'm talking about GUI/Editor and library that helps to use lua in a browser. circles/lines/... functions must be coded on lua or as3

Turing_Machine2• 14 years ago

I disagree.

Flash won't work on iOS or (soon) any new Android device, nor will it work in the default browser on Windows 8. Despite what Adobe may say in public, I expect Flash to be completely dead (except possibly for maintenance/security updates) by this time next year.

noonat• 14 years ago

Incorrect. The Adobe AIR SDK allows you to package Flash content as native apps for both iOS and Android. Adobe only halted development on the browser plugin for Android.

Zhiz0id3• 14 years ago

iOS/Android devices mostly without a real keyboard.

Have you ever tried to write some code without a real keyboard? It is a big pain.

beza1e1• 14 years ago

Reinventing Smalltalk? Nice job.

klez2• 14 years ago

Y U NO READ THE README???

No seriously, are you implying that

a) you consider small talk a language for kids or b) this is a complete and dynamic development environment with live debugging etc.?

I wish the OP best luck with the second, but I think he's not quite there (nor he needs to be, since the very nature of this project seems completely different from, say, squeak)

GeneralMaximus• 14 years ago

Offtopic, but Smalltalk was in fact meant to be kid-friendly. Modern Smalltalks are different beasts, though, with all their enterprisey bullcrap. Squeak is an attempt to correct that.

prof_hobart3• 14 years ago

I've been playing around with Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) and its slightly extended version BYOB (http://byob.berkeley.edu/) over the past couple of days.

It's simple enough that after an afternoon of basic instruction, my 5 year old managed to create this entirely on her own while I was cooking dinner - http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/hobart/2372941 (try pressing various keys - I know that "g", space, "8", "m", up arrow and the green flag all do something, but there may be more in there as well).

bob_kelso• 14 years ago

That's amazing! I would have loved something like this when I was growing up. If you can do that simple games would be no problem, and who doesn't dream of making their own games.

Also, try 'z' and 'p'.

prof_hobart3• 14 years ago

It's absolutely brilliant for kids - and it seems to be avaialble on Linux, so should be runnable on Raspberry Pi - which could be great for the classroom. It's so easy to add new little bits of functionality and see them in action that she never got bored whilst I was showing her the basics - in fact it seems to be her new favourite app at the moment. I can't recommend it highly enough as a first step programming educational tool (the reason I was first looking at it was because my wife's a teacher and was looking at a good app to teach programming to 10 year olds).

It's certainly possible to write very simple games. The tutorial I gave my daughter was a (very clunky) Space Invaders clone, and I'm going to have a go at something a little more advanced tonight - I've got to make sure she doesn't start overtaking me...

The one place it seems to fall down a little is managing multiple identical sprites - I looked at a rather more professional-looking Space Invaders that someone else had written and it looks like they needed a separate sprite with full code behind it for every single alien, although it looks like BYOB may address some of this.

RobertLysik• 14 years ago

Congratulations, that's excellent! I'll have to show this to my daughter. She wants to make her own Hello Kitty game since she's been watching her older brother (8) making games on Scratch :) Its an excellent platform for learning the basics of programming. I was worried that my son wouldn't have the patience to work with Scratch since he sees what's on Wii and XBox and that has set his expectation level. But fortunately he's become very excited by Scratch and can build games with very little or no guidance from me now, w00t!

prof_hobart3• 14 years ago

Thanks. I was expecting my daughter to get bored quickly as well. But having watched her, it strikes me as a software version of Lego - you'll never create a toy/game as good as one you could buy in the shops, but the real fun is the fact that you can create pretty much anything your imagination can come up with.

virtualritz2• 14 years ago

Really nice!

But I do not get the C64 editor look stuff. I mean why not add syntax highlighting and make this more eye friendly (neither requires abandoning a cute color scheme)? I never had a C64, I saved 2 years so I could afford a 286, I used GWBASIC and, soon after, TurboC++. Neither had syntax highlighting. I don't think it helps kids who are getting into programming if the looks of these dev environment were regurgitated either. :)

antirez11• 14 years ago

For now it's just a start ;) Soon I'll add more features into the editor to make it more user friendly indeed.

I don't want to add completion as IMHO does not help learning.

virtualritz2• 14 years ago

Cool. :)

Btw., I assume you know LOEVE? https://love2d.org/ Is is very similar, though the target audience is not kids. :)

Personally, I think time would be well spent making a kids-friendly version of LOEVE (and ofc, porting LOEVE to Android/iOs, finally).

seclorum8• 14 years ago

If you like this, you'll love MOAI: http://getmoai.com/

(For when those kids grow up a little more, perhaps..)

api• 14 years ago

If you want kids to use it, do not call it Codakido. Call it something that sounds interesting, and do interesting things with it. Kids don't want to be kids. Kids want to be kids getting ready to be adults. This is essentially instinctive. Things that are "for kids" are things that are labeled as things kids need to transcend, not things they need to grow into.

I learned on a C64, and was inspired by C64 demo-scene demos and the fact that the C64 was used for industrial process control. I started at age five.

antirez11• 14 years ago

Good point, I think I'll rename it, and extend it enough to make it more interesting than just drawing a few circles ;) good suggestion thanks.

seclorum8• 14 years ago

As a rabid fan of your project, some things I think it needs:

a) cloud storage - somewhere to stash Lua scripts and retrieve them for playback (See moai cloud for inspiration: http://getmoai.com/)

b) sound synthesis - not just .WAV playback, but real synthesis using a small but happy engine. (See sfxr for inspiration: http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html)

c) some sort of network/multiplayer integration - again, with the cloud, it'd be nice to be able to push messages out to a queue and get messages back

d) 3D primitives .. ermm .. maybe this is going a bit too far. Okay, instead of 3D, how about some .png loading and basic sprites management?

Actually, I guess I'm describing MOAI at this point, but yeah .. you're definitely on the right track! Maybe I should go pester the MOAI guys about making a code-editing IDE for MOAI, in MOAI .. ;)

eterps• 14 years ago

The project has moved here: https://github.com/antirez/load81.git

antirez11• 14 years ago

Project renamed as "Load81", so unfortunately now the link is broken. If an admin could fix this it would be great.

jamie_ca• 14 years ago

Make a new codakido repository with just a readme pointing to the new location.

antirez11• 14 years ago

Thank you! done. Github should suggest this in the rename page.

Codakido, Lua/SDL programming environment for Kids, with C64-alike editor

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