From: "M. Schulter" <mschulter AT value DOT net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Teaching a child to program in C
Date: 12 Sep 1998 20:22:06 GMT
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John S. Fine <johnfine AT erols DOT com> wrote:

:   Can anyone give me any ideas for programming projects
: that would be simple enough for a 7 year old to follow,
: but interesting enough for a 7 year old to care about?

Hello, there.

Please let me caution that personal computers weren't available when I was
child (stylus-powered calculators being my nearest equivalent), so what I
say might or might not have any relevance to a youngter of 7 years old.

Anyway, I'm tempted just for the sake of variety to mention PostScript, a
language designed specifically for defining high-quality type characters
and other graphical shapes. It remains my favorite language, and has the
advantage of offering _lots_ of primitives for drawing, geometric
distortions, and so on.

How does this tie in with DJGPP? One solution for introducing a child to
PostScript, where a small number of commands can draw various interesting
things, would be to set up DJGPP's port of GNU Emacs 19.3x with a Shell
Command macro that calls a DOS batch file to run a PostScript interpreter
and translate the PostScript file being edited into a displayable graphic
for viewing on screen. Some interpreters might actually display directly
to screen, or you could produce a PCX or GIF output file and view that
with a freeware viewer such as PICEM -- automating the interpreting and
(if necessary) then calling the viewer as part of the batch file.

If you map this Shell Command macro to a function key such as F7, then
it's possible to edit a PostScript file in GNU Emacs, press F7, and in a
few seconds see the drawing that results from the code.

One free PostScript interpreter is Ghostscript, and I recall that there's
a DJGPP port available, as well as other freeware versions on the
Internet.

In itself, PostScript has an incredible range of drawing operators, and
also fine support for text. The language itself handles the problems of
mapping shapes to pixels, so you avoid a lot of "nuts-and-bolts" issues of
the kind that can arise with C/C++ graphics, for example.

Also, you could use a PostScript prologue (somewhat analogous to a
library) to define procedures for drawing common shapes, simplifying the
process for a beginner.

The visual reinforcement of being able to write a few lines of code and
_see_ an impressive visual result has really kept me fascinated with this
language, my favorite, although I can't speak for a seven year old.

Whether or not it would be the ideal language at such a young age, it
seems to me very attractive a bit later on, because it has lots of
geometry and trigonometry with fast visual feedback. Designing a shape,
and then distorting it in various ways just by changing a number or two,
is quite an experience.

One caution is that PostScript is an interpreted language which takes some
seconds to interpret, usually, as opposed to an animation-type tool of the
kind discussed in other remarks.

Anyway, this is just an odd remark to add a less-mentioned language to the
list, and to express my appreciation for DJGPP and GNU Emacs.

If PostScript seems at all of interest -- maybe for a few years down the
road -- please feel free to get in touch with me via private e-mail.

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter AT value DOT net