MR LOGO Proramming Environment

[Hutchboy]

Hi,

I am working on a LOGO programming environment as a fun project and to try my hand at more complex stacks. The attached files include a partially working LOGO programming environment stack and an HTML Developer Tutorial. Almost all of the code is in the stack script.

In the Direct Command input field you can type LOGO commands directly and then press the Execute button. This works fairly well. Here you can type commands like FORWARD 100 and see the turtle move and draw a line.

Currently I am debugging how the program handles user defined procedures. Toward the end of the stack script are a number of test and debug functions that can be called from the message box should you want to explore.

The test LOGO program I have listed in the Program Editor is fairly tough and currently chokes. When you run it you can watch the progress in the lower right debug output field. I've made no effort yet to optimize for speed, although that is next after everything else is working. Here is a smaller LOGO program that you can run from the Program Editor and see the turtle move and line drawn:

TO TEST
FORWARD 50
END
TEST

This project is open source (MIT license) and I welcome suggestions.

-Mike

P.S. The MR in the name are my first and last initials ("Mister LOGO" also works)

[bobcole]

I commend you for such a large effort. It looks great.
I began playing with it a little and some things did not seen right.

For example, I tried to execute the RIGHT 90 command. The first time it worked.
The second time the turtle ended up pointing the wrong way.

This may be a symptom of other errors in the logic of the program that affect the difficulty you see.
Bob

[dunbarx]

Hi.

I started with HC in 1987. I knew about SuperCard. I am intrigued now by the broad differences that must exist between LC and other current RAD programs, such as XOJO.

To me, LC, ahem, seems perfect. But can you say, briefly, what you like most about LOGO?

Craig

[Hutchboy]

Hi,

The only time I actually used LOGO was when it was included as a scripting language in an early version of HyperStudio and it intrigued me. LOGO was designed for education and there are numerous examples on the web of its history and current offerings.

My interest for this project was just to tackle something fairly complex in LiveCode for fun and to see how far I can take it. Also, there are many LOGO programs that illustrate what can be done in LOGO and easily accessible for testing in the stack I am developing.

- Mike

BTW, I started with HyperCard GS on the Apple IIGS. When Macs became a little more capable I started using HyperCard in earnest and eventually picked up SuperCard as well. I was eventually frustrated by Apple's handling of HyperCard and that they didn't make a natively colored version (discounting the AddColor hack). LiveCode is what I had imagined an evolved HyperCard would be.

[dunbarx]

MichaelBluejay is leaving us.

I know one language. Does anyone have an example of what some other program does much better than LC?

Apart, that is, from pricing.

Craig

[FourthWorld]

Does anyone have an example of what some other program does much better than LC?

There are SOOOO many languages and toolkits, each with their own trade-offs, each invented to do something better than the others.

Too many to list. Visit the Wikipedia page for just about any language to learn why a language was invented.

Here's just one: as the only scripting language available for all browsers, and given the role of the browser as the scriptable rich-media engine pre-Installed on every GUI device, the amount of development resources devoted to JavaScript (and its GUI counterparts HTML and CSS) by the wealthiest software companies in history is staggeringly unmatched, and possibly unmatchable for at least a generation to come.

[stam]

MichaelBluejay is leaving us.

I know one language. Does anyone have an example of what some other program does much better than LC?

As Richard mentions, Javascript is universally present.
Python is another - and probably closer to the LC paradigm than JS is. However you'd need to learn TKinter or some such, or get into Qt for GUI applications and you don't get a nice IDE to create the GUI. But there is a reason this is extremely widespread (having said that, its language seems a bit childish compared to LiveCodeScript).

However if you mean another language like LC in the context of a a GUI design and general purpose programming language that does cross-platform, then here are other options:
Lazarus - based on object oriented Pascal - Free
Xojo - based on object oriented Basic - commercial
B4J - based on object oriented basic - free/low cost, x-plat but IDE is Win only but works well with Wine/CrossOver on macOS -- a good choice for free, good quality x-plat IDE.

There are many more...

[dunbarx]

Just as I thought. LC is the best.

I know this conversation really cannot go anywhere, but what does LC not do as well as any of the others mentioned? Speed? Does it lack certain native capabilities? What task simply is beyond it? Controlling a manned spaceship? Running the New York Stock Exchange?

Craig

[stam]

Just off the top of my head:

Speed is definitely an issue for apps that push graphics around for example. Associated with this, a notable deficiency is lack of support for 3D (even just openGL), which almost all other languages support to some extent.

Lack of multithreading is another deficiency. You can fudge this by creating helper apps but it’s clunky.

Otherwise the biggest issue is the lack of 3rd party libraries.
The LC crowd have not been great at creating commercial level libraries to share with developers. There are some - but vastly fewer than the popular languages.

The biggest obstacle for non-LC coders I think is that talks are just too different from c-style languages/OOP. And while LCC is going a long way to modernising the IDE, the promises of updated IDE for v10 and compiled scripts never will materialise. Not great for visitors from other languages…

[dunbarx]

Stam.

...the promises of updated IDE for v10 and compiled scripts never will materialise.

This sounds ominous. Is it really true?

Craig

[stam]

...the promises of updated IDE for v10 and compiled scripts never will materialise.

This sounds ominous. Is it really true?

As far as I know, yes, although I of course do not speak for LC Ltd...

My understanding was that the selling point for v10 (the new interface) was subsumed into LC Create and no further actual development on v10 is scheduled, as it's entered a 'maintenance phase' for the the next 3 years (or is it 2 years now?) and will then be decommissioned.
As for compiled scripts, the preview release was slated for summer 2022.I believe, rightly or wrongly, this too was sacrificed at the altar of LC Create.

I do not mind LC create as a concept, but my impression from using this is that it is still a long way from being a finished product. It does however ship with a 'Classic' version you can switch to, which is basically the old v10 along with all the new widgets that come with LCC.

The v10 included in LC Create is pretty nice actually, but I would have preferred to just have the promised v10 with complied scripts...