Logo: The Programming Language That Taught a Generation to Think
Logo Programming Language
Logo, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its interactivity gives immediate feedback, its modularity lets you build complex projects from small procedures, and its flexibility with words and lists makes programming feel like teaching a language. From turtle graphics to multi-tasking versions like StarLogo, Logo's features follow from its goal of making computation accessible.
Programming in Logo is done by adding to its vocabulary, teaching it new words in terms of words it already knows. In this way it's similar to the way people learn spoken language.
- yogsototh
I myself learned programming with logo, at my school when I was 8 or 10.
And it was a delight, I am so grateful it existed.
But quite surprisingly, when later during my Ph.D. part of my time was dedicated to give exercises to students. And we used logo instead of the more usual programming languages. And I think it really helped them to really internalise programming a lot better. Typically, the latest exercices introduced recursion which is immediately visible as fractals.
HIDETURTLE
PENUP
SETXY -200 0
RIGHT 90
PENDOWN
to dragon :degree :size
setpensize 1
if :size>5 [setpensize 2]
if :size>10 [setpensize 3]
if :size>20 [setpensize 4]
if :size>40 [setpensize 5]
ifelse :degree=0 [
fd :size
][
left 45 dragon (:degree-1) (size/4)
right 90 dragon (:degree-1) (size/2)
left 90 dragon (:degree-1) (size/4)
right 45
]
end
dragon 6 3000
if you want to give a try :)
- jhbadger
Logo is a serious programming language. People maybe only know it as the thing to teach kids programming via turtle graphics, but people like Brian Harvey at Berkley have used it to teach functional programming rather than Lisp or Scheme.
- imb
For many years, our students[0] have used Logo as an integral part of their math circle-style[1] classes. When we started Wally Feurzeig, one of the creators of Logo, was instrumental in helping us incorporate ideas from Logo into the kind of non-standard problem solving that we were striving for. Turtle geometry is a particularly helpful "instrument of the mind" for exploring dynamic geometry. Our co-founder, Victor Gutenmacher, wrote an incredible book[2] on "geometry in motion," which gave a completely different perspective on geometry from the one seen in school and which our students could explore with the help of Logo. For many of our students, especially those with math anxiety, Logo was what enabled them to overcome that anxiety and discover the joy of thinking and tinkering. Many programmers today have fond memories of getting into programming via Logo, but I would argue that despite the current blistering pace of progress, it remains one of the best and gentlest introductions to problem solving and computational thinking.
[0] https://www.gentleknowledge.com/
- ihumanable
I still remember when we learned logo in elementary school. I had to get my mom to go out and buy a 3.5" disk so I could save my programs.
When I realized that all of logo was actually saved on that disk and I could continue playing with the turtle at home, I was amazed.
Drawing little things, realizing that I was repeating stuff and breaking it into little functions so I could draw them again more easily. I was learning the essentials of programming and didn't even realize it.
- Bankq
I'm forever grateful for having the access to Logo programming in early 90s, as a kid from a 3rd world country, for how it leads to where I am today.
My first ever english word that I can spell out is REPEAT.
- lackoftactics
I didn't win logo programming competition in polish equivalent of 7th grade and I am still salty about it
- turtlegeometry
This is on top of HN right now, and there is still nobody who has mentioned the fact that the tier-1 book Turtle Geometry <https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/4663/Turtle-Geomet...> , is in open access.
Do yourself a favor, and read it today : it is that good.
Even though it is quite depressing to see that the revolution in education that the book was predicting in its preface, simply never happened.
- briandw
Logo was created by by Seymour Papert. I highly recommend his book Mindstorms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstorms_(book)
It was written in 1980 but could have mostly been written today. All the same issues with teachers misunderstandings and fear of math and technology and refusal to change to meet the challenges of the age.