Andre and me, we had an exchange of thoughts on RUR-PLE and xturtle and their respective goals. Perhaps someone might be interested ...
On 6/25/06, Gregor Lingl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Andre Roberge schrieb: > > On 6/25/06, Gregor Lingl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [snip] > > > > As long as you have a look at rur-ple and tell me what you think. ;-) > > > O.k., I had a short look at it, I liked it, especially the very well > designed > user interface. I don't have time now (before my talk at Europython and > before having finished the second edition of my book, which will have > significant changes because it will use my new xturtle) Thanks for taking the time to have a look at it. I understand completely about the lack of time to do everything that one might want to do. > 20 years ago (i mentioned it somewhen) I wrote a Karel descendant > "The very very tiny robot programming system" (in Turbo Pascal) > for an Austrian schoolbook, which of course now is way out of date. > It was a big success then and was used for about 15 years. You are years ahead of me!... I just started this (and only for fun, I don't use it myself as I don't teach) less than 2 years ago. I just noticed your email address (and your reference to Austria) - I had assume you were from Germany. I had the pleasure last year of visiting briefly your country. I took part in a "trade mission" to the town of Güssing to have a look at the renewable energy infrastructure. I live in a small rural town in Canada and we are thinking of implementing a similar infrastructure here... but that's another story. > In this book Pascal was tought. At the same time in Austria Logo > became popular and I gave seminars for teachers in Logo programming, > and later also for students. > > So I learned both approaches and imo there is one significant difference > between them: The Karel-the-Robot approach has a far more restricted > "universe" than Turtle-Graphics which has a "open universe". This is > reflected > (in Karel, in my tinytiny... as well as in RUR-PLE (how do you pronounce > it?)) > in that they had and have very well designed introductory lessons with very > specific tasks to solve. > 1. I pronounce it like the colour "purple". 2. I totally agree with your statement about "open" vs "closed" universe. I had been thinking of including a "fifth notebook page" within rur-ple, which would have been a turtle graphics one, where the robot world is replaced by a turtle canvas. That being said, I believe that there is an advantage to having a slightly restrictive universe initially. I will explain below. > In contrast to this in the turtle-graphics approach prevails the attitude > to let the students find their own tasks, and the programming environment > must be thus rich that solutions can be found. Therefore I provided > my xtx-examples, which indeed comprise a very broad range of different > problem areas. > > There is one important feature in your RURPLE (as you mentioned > lately) that you do not use a special RURPLE language but Python > (do I rember correctly, that this is also a difference to GvR?), which > I consider a big advantage. This is something I believe in as well. My goal is to provide an introduction to programming which is as "smooth" as possible. We sometime hear the phrase "steep learning curve" to characterize some difficult to grasp concept. I think it is important to have as few "steep learning curves" as possible in the learning process. GvR uses a slightly easier syntax than Python ... but at the expense of having a "step-like learning curve" when one wants to go from GvR's world to Python programming. Since Rur-ple uses Python, there is no transition to speak of. Also, because rur-ple basic instructions [move(), pick_beeper(), put_beeper(), turn_left(), turn_off()] are very limited, they are easier to learn and build from, I think, than the corresponding turtle graphics where one has to contend with arbitrary rotations and arbitrary step lengths right from the start... This is, I believe, one advantage of having a "closed universe", at least at the beginning. What I would like to do (eventually) is to add turtle-like features to rur-ple, with something like move() --> move(length) turn_left() --> turn(angle) and have an open canvas. I think this would combine the best of both worlds. Finally, to go back to the use of Python in rur-ple, I implemented both a procedural approach [move(), turn_left()] as well as an object oriented approach Reeborg = UsedRobot() Reeborg.move() Reebord.turn_left() again with the idea of providing a "smooth" transition to more advanced concepts. I imagine this is what you do with xturtle lessons as well. > I, for my part, now prefer this open approach, where I try to solve > problems that come to my mind with the given tool, if possible, > (if not search for a better tool), instead of devising problems for > a given device - the robot. I agree with having a tool as versatile as possible - and you xturtle is *excellent* in that regard. However, not having had the benefit of reading your book, my *guess* (and it is only a guess) is that the more initially restrictive environment of rur-ple provides an easier learning environment at the very beginning. But I could well be wrong! And I agree with you that, eventually, rur-ple becomes too restrictive (certainly as compared with xturtle). > Example: On June, 22th, the day before I released xturtle.py, > President Bush had a visit in Vienna. He lived in a Hotel approx. > 300 m from my house. Consequently all the streets in this > quarter were blocked and I couldn't leave my house for 24 > hours without going a long way round. In this situation I felt > the wish to produce the peace-logo graphics. It was easily > possible using xturtle and it became the very last xtx-demo. Peace logo: how appropriate! > I definitely feel that both approaches are valuable and can and > should live in parallel. I'm in no way a fundamantalist. (I just had > to decide what approach to use for my book - and there of course > I have to propose lessons in a well designed sequence ...) I think that having different people exploring different approaches may yield better ideas in the end (as long as some communication takes place between the two) > (I wonder if this topic were interesting also for the edu-sig list?) > I think it might be. You have my permission to forward this message directly to the list if you wish, and we can continue this discussion in public, hopefully generating comments from others. > This all said with only a very superfical impression of your system. > Nevertheless I'd be intersted in translating it to German, if nobody > else will undertake it, but i must ask you to understand that I'll > certainly will not have time to do it before September/October. I understand and appreciate the tentative offer of a translation. > I hope that I expressed myself clearly enough - i fear my English is not > elaborate enough for such more 'philosophical' discussions. I believe that your English is just as good as mine, and I feel it is more than adequate to have these type of discussions (however frustrating it might feel when we are looking for the appropriate English idiom to express our thoughts.) And if anyone complains, challenge them to carry a conversation in German if they are not happy! (I'll do the same for French ;-) Thanks for your comments and your xturtle work! Regards, André _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
