31 ms·
I learned a lot about programming and debugging from Rocky's Boots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots)
by smlacy 9y ago
I learned a lot about programming and debugging from Rocky's Boots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky%27s_Boots) , so at least you have that.
I don't think there has been enough time to say if any "great programmers" (ugh, that's a horrible horrible term) have learned from graphical tools. MIT's Scratch came out (just) 15 years ago, and was quite primitive. Many career developers really start programming at around age 10, so even if they started on scratch, they would be just 25 now. Only beginning their journey to becoming "great". There just hasn't been enough time to say if this is an effective introductory tool or not.
- ballenf 9y agoAnother fan of that gem. I really wish I could get my hands on a port or emulation. Spent hours upon hours with that game. The advanced logic required in the harder levels wasn't trivial. One thing that I remember is that with longer circuits you had to factor in propogation and lag times which basically forced you to refactor down to simpler solutions. To me the game felt more real or organic than any modern equivalents, although I haven't tried them all.
- sea6ear 9y agoIt looks like a version is now playable on archive.org https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Company https://archive.org/details/Rockys_Boots_1982_Learning_Compa...
- cr0sh 9y agoAs a kid, I never played "Rocky's Boots" - but I did fall in love with their other game, "Robot Odyssey": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Odyssey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Odyssey There used to be a fan-made online version, done in Java, called "DroidQuest" - but apparently it is only available via github now: https://github.com/ThomasFooteDQ/DroidQuest https://github.com/ThomasFooteDQ/DroidQuest