7 ms·

SDL-based Lua programming environment for kids similar to Codea

115 points by kristianp 2y ago

mdaniel 2y ago
[flagged]
- VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
  nah, Lua's great.
- dang 2y ago
  Please don't do programming language flamewar on HN. We've been trying since the beginning to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
echelon 2y ago
Did antirez receive any of the upsides from Redis commercialization? Or was that another group that took his code and ran with it?
- dudus 2y ago
  I believe he sold his participation on the redis company far before the shit show.
CodeNest 2y ago
[dead]
fermigier 2y ago
Title should say it's 13 years old and currently unmaintained. BTW: a modern, maintained alternative (With Python instead of Lua) would be Pyxel (https://github.com/kitao/pyxel https://github.com/kitao/pyxel -> discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899520).
- rzzzt 2y ago
  Processing and LÖVE are also similar.
  - dTal 2y ago
    +1 to LÖVE, it's a capable rapid prototyping tool. I learned programming on QBasic, but if I were starting out today then LÖVE is the tool I would want to be handed.
    - JetSetIlly 2y ago
      It's good for final product too. Moonring is an excellent game by Fluttermind, and written in LÖVE
      - musha68k 2y ago
        It's a labour of love - also add Balatro to that list.
  - canadianfella 2y ago
    [dead]
- catwell 2y ago
  There are several alternatives using Lua too, including for instance PICO-8 https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
  - d3VwsX 2y ago
    And TIC-80 (https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/). It can be used with "lua, ruby, js, moon, fennel, scheme, squirrel, wren, wasm, janet or python".
    - toastal 2y ago
      Would be real nice being the open source option to not have their communications locked to proprietary services (Discord, Microsoft GitHub’s forge + discussions) & had alternatives mirrored/bridged.
melon_tusk 2y ago
What is antirez doing these days? His github history suddenly dropped to zero it seems.
- catwell 2y ago
  He wrote a science-fiction book, then did some things with e-ink hardware and some with AI.
- antirez 2y ago
  Hi! Mostly writing, embedded programming and some AI stuff. Thanks for the interest :) and right now enjoying NYC.
  - aa-jv 2y ago
    Hey, what about merging some of the pending PR's on LOAD81, one of these days? I've got a few more I'll clean up and send your way - SFXR support, for sound effects, joystick (already in the PR queue), MIDI, and a first pass at SVG ..
    - antirez 2y ago
      That's a lot of cool stuff. I'll try to merge them. It's not for lack of interest but for focus concerns (too many projects very the years). I'll also check if I can add some official collaborators to the project, so that some merging/development can be performed without any help from myself. Thanks for this message.
chkas 2y ago
Another programming environment for kids with its own simple programming language: https://easylang.online/ide/ https://easylang.online/ide/
jll29 2y ago
I was looking for something to teach 11-year-olds a couple of years ago, and ended up using Python with a turtle graphics library; this would have been another great alternative. Programming using a language like Lua has the advantage over Scratch-like environments (which a friend suggested I use instead) that you can talk about your code more easily if it is based on keyboard entry of keywords and operators rather than GUI events (such as moving graphical blocks by drag and drop) - although that is based on my intuition rather than backed up by any empirical study (please let me know if you are aware of one to support or refute this).
- nxobject 2y ago
  Lua as a teaching language’s got a strength for everyone - if you’re a pragmatic person, Lua offers a fantastic offramp to gamedev; if you’re a theoretically-inclined person, Lua’s an elegant language - and it’s wonderful to formative programming experiences with elegant languages. (I started with SICP Scheme.)
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    I've taught programming to beginners a fair bit, adults, teens, and children, in several languages, and lua is the worst of them. The initial learning hump in programming is difficult and frustrating and lua does nothing to alleviate that. The main resource learners do have is curiosity, and usually an interest in some goal like making a game or website for a particular purpose. Lua gets them bogged down in writing string manipulation functions that aren't in the standard library or whatever. One of the main things learners want to do is make an http request to an api, you need a library for that. There's no obvious & reliable way to get one, now your beginners are trying to configure luarocks or compile C modules. To be clear lua is fine, great even, it's an incredible technical accomplishment. But the spiritual admiration experienced programmers have for the simplicity of implementation does not matter to a beginner. Its minimal standard lib and flexible distribution methods are a liability to teaching. I've never seen a language more reliably kill that learner's spark that is the best asset of someone new to coding. This is somewhat alleviated if you're using it in a controlled environment for a specific goal, like roblox scripting or love. I've had success with that and would do it again. But as a general introduction to programming it's terrible.
ferfumarma 2y ago
the dragonruby game engine looks similar. https://dragonruby.itch.io/dragonruby-gtk https://dragonruby.itch.io/dragonruby-gtk
vitiral 2y ago
Awesome, I'm working on something similar: https://lua.civboot.org https://lua.civboot.org
CyberDildonics 2y ago
Anything like this should be compared to Love2D which is the gold standard. LuaJIT and lots of great libraries wrapped into extremely simple lua functions.
litan 2y ago
Shameless plug for my own offering in this area - Kojo (15 years old and still going strong!): https://www.kogics.net/kojo https://www.kogics.net/kojo It's based on Scala, supports turtle (imperative) graphics, picture (functional) graphics, gaming at different levels (imperative, functional, OO), and more...
stewartbracken 2y ago
Let’s not forget P5js which has a long and esteemed history of helping to teach kids and more to program. It’s browser based so it’s compatible with every OS and requires no install. FOSS with an active community of users and contributors. I personally taught some middle schoolers with zero programming experience how to make interactive monsters in 1 hour. It was awesome! https://p5js.org/ https://p5js.org/
elzbardico 2y ago
Submitting kids to Lua should be considered child abuse.
aa-jv 2y ago
I've been a fan of, and a hacker of LOAD81 since antirez released it, and have put it in tons of places in order to induce hackerdom on kids and adults, alike. Its one of my favourite projects to bust out when someone tells me they want a low-impact, easy way of learning programming. And since then, I've helped a few of those aspiring programmers become Lua gods! LOAD81 is really a gateway to a lot of wonderful things .. easy/simple programming in Lua, to SDL .. to the Lua VM .. to exending LOAD81 .. to an introduction to antirez other cool projects (redis, lol!) and on it goes .. So, thank you antirez, this is probably one of my most cloned repo's over the years. ;) I should probably clean up some of my PR's and give you a bit of a laugh to review, one of these days (I added sfxr for sound effects, joystick support, MIDI and a few other things along the way ..)
bitbasher 2y ago
Isn't this in the spirit of LÖVE? https://www.love2d.org/ https://www.love2d.org/
NathanFlurry 2y ago
I learned to program in Codea since I only had access to an iPad when I was younger. I published my first game on the App Store with it and threw me into the world of Objective-C. I'm really glad to see people are still using it to learn to program. To this day, I still believe it's one of the best ways to learn to program: - You're exposed to low-level primitives instead of complicated high-level frameworks (like Unity) that abstract the fun/educational code away. - The Lua manual is arguably the best programming manual for students learning to program. - Includes a built-in GLSL shader editor makes advanced graphics programming a small stepping stone. - They automatically shipped in-depth examples with the app that are intentionally built for learning by reading the code. - In-app docs encouraged discovering new APIs; I took it as a challenge to use all of the APIs they exposed and learned a lot in the process. - No package managers, no complicated install steps, no security concerns, and a unified editor. P.S. If you have an iPad and haven't played Two Lives Left's Crabitron [1] – it's easily the most creative game shipped for iPad. [1] https://apps.apple.com/se/app/crabitron/id440462182?l=en https://apps.apple.com/se/app/crabitron/id440462182?l=en

115 points by kristianp 2y ago

mdaniel 2y ago

[flagged]

VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
nah, Lua's great.
dang 2y ago
Please don't do programming language flamewar on HN. We've been trying since the beginning to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

echelon 2y ago

Did antirez receive any of the upsides from Redis commercialization? Or was that another group that took his code and ran with it?

dudus 2y ago
I believe he sold his participation on the redis company far before the shit show.

CodeNest 2y ago

[dead]

fermigier 2y ago

Title should say it's 13 years old and currently unmaintained. BTW: a modern, maintained alternative (With Python instead of Lua) would be Pyxel (https://github.com/kitao/pyxel https://github.com/kitao/pyxel -> discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899520).

rzzzt 2y ago
Processing and LÖVE are also similar.
- dTal 2y ago
  +1 to LÖVE, it's a capable rapid prototyping tool. I learned programming on QBasic, but if I were starting out today then LÖVE is the tool I would want to be handed.
  - JetSetIlly 2y ago
    It's good for final product too. Moonring is an excellent game by Fluttermind, and written in LÖVE
    - musha68k 2y ago
      It's a labour of love - also add Balatro to that list.
- canadianfella 2y ago
  [dead]
catwell 2y ago
There are several alternatives using Lua too, including for instance PICO-8 https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
- d3VwsX 2y ago
  And TIC-80 (https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/). It can be used with "lua, ruby, js, moon, fennel, scheme, squirrel, wren, wasm, janet or python".
  - toastal 2y ago
    Would be real nice being the open source option to not have their communications locked to proprietary services (Discord, Microsoft GitHub’s forge + discussions) & had alternatives mirrored/bridged.

melon_tusk 2y ago

What is antirez doing these days? His github history suddenly dropped to zero it seems.

catwell 2y ago
He wrote a science-fiction book, then did some things with e-ink hardware and some with AI.
antirez 2y ago
Hi! Mostly writing, embedded programming and some AI stuff. Thanks for the interest :) and right now enjoying NYC.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  Hey, what about merging some of the pending PR's on LOAD81, one of these days? I've got a few more I'll clean up and send your way - SFXR support, for sound effects, joystick (already in the PR queue), MIDI, and a first pass at SVG ..
  - antirez 2y ago
    That's a lot of cool stuff. I'll try to merge them. It's not for lack of interest but for focus concerns (too many projects very the years). I'll also check if I can add some official collaborators to the project, so that some merging/development can be performed without any help from myself. Thanks for this message.

chkas 2y ago

Another programming environment for kids with its own simple programming language: https://easylang.online/ide/ https://easylang.online/ide/

jll29 2y ago

I was looking for something to teach 11-year-olds a couple of years ago, and ended up using Python with a turtle graphics library; this would have been another great alternative. Programming using a language like Lua has the advantage over Scratch-like environments (which a friend suggested I use instead) that you can talk about your code more easily if it is based on keyboard entry of keywords and operators rather than GUI events (such as moving graphical blocks by drag and drop) - although that is based on my intuition rather than backed up by any empirical study (please let me know if you are aware of one to support or refute this).

nxobject 2y ago
Lua as a teaching language’s got a strength for everyone - if you’re a pragmatic person, Lua offers a fantastic offramp to gamedev; if you’re a theoretically-inclined person, Lua’s an elegant language - and it’s wonderful to formative programming experiences with elegant languages. (I started with SICP Scheme.)
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  I've taught programming to beginners a fair bit, adults, teens, and children, in several languages, and lua is the worst of them. The initial learning hump in programming is difficult and frustrating and lua does nothing to alleviate that. The main resource learners do have is curiosity, and usually an interest in some goal like making a game or website for a particular purpose. Lua gets them bogged down in writing string manipulation functions that aren't in the standard library or whatever. One of the main things learners want to do is make an http request to an api, you need a library for that. There's no obvious & reliable way to get one, now your beginners are trying to configure luarocks or compile C modules. To be clear lua is fine, great even, it's an incredible technical accomplishment. But the spiritual admiration experienced programmers have for the simplicity of implementation does not matter to a beginner. Its minimal standard lib and flexible distribution methods are a liability to teaching. I've never seen a language more reliably kill that learner's spark that is the best asset of someone new to coding. This is somewhat alleviated if you're using it in a controlled environment for a specific goal, like roblox scripting or love. I've had success with that and would do it again. But as a general introduction to programming it's terrible.

ferfumarma 2y ago

the dragonruby game engine looks similar. https://dragonruby.itch.io/dragonruby-gtk https://dragonruby.itch.io/dragonruby-gtk

vitiral 2y ago

Awesome, I'm working on something similar: https://lua.civboot.org https://lua.civboot.org

CyberDildonics 2y ago

Anything like this should be compared to Love2D which is the gold standard. LuaJIT and lots of great libraries wrapped into extremely simple lua functions.

litan 2y ago

Shameless plug for my own offering in this area - Kojo (15 years old and still going strong!): https://www.kogics.net/kojo https://www.kogics.net/kojo It's based on Scala, supports turtle (imperative) graphics, picture (functional) graphics, gaming at different levels (imperative, functional, OO), and more...

stewartbracken 2y ago

Let’s not forget P5js which has a long and esteemed history of helping to teach kids and more to program. It’s browser based so it’s compatible with every OS and requires no install. FOSS with an active community of users and contributors. I personally taught some middle schoolers with zero programming experience how to make interactive monsters in 1 hour. It was awesome! https://p5js.org/ https://p5js.org/

elzbardico 2y ago

Submitting kids to Lua should be considered child abuse.

aa-jv 2y ago

I've been a fan of, and a hacker of LOAD81 since antirez released it, and have put it in tons of places in order to induce hackerdom on kids and adults, alike. Its one of my favourite projects to bust out when someone tells me they want a low-impact, easy way of learning programming. And since then, I've helped a few of those aspiring programmers become Lua gods! LOAD81 is really a gateway to a lot of wonderful things .. easy/simple programming in Lua, to SDL .. to the Lua VM .. to exending LOAD81 .. to an introduction to antirez other cool projects (redis, lol!) and on it goes .. So, thank you antirez, this is probably one of my most cloned repo's over the years. ;) I should probably clean up some of my PR's and give you a bit of a laugh to review, one of these days (I added sfxr for sound effects, joystick support, MIDI and a few other things along the way ..)

bitbasher 2y ago

Isn't this in the spirit of LÖVE? https://www.love2d.org/ https://www.love2d.org/

NathanFlurry 2y ago

I learned to program in Codea since I only had access to an iPad when I was younger. I published my first game on the App Store with it and threw me into the world of Objective-C. I'm really glad to see people are still using it to learn to program. To this day, I still believe it's one of the best ways to learn to program: - You're exposed to low-level primitives instead of complicated high-level frameworks (like Unity) that abstract the fun/educational code away. - The Lua manual is arguably the best programming manual for students learning to program. - Includes a built-in GLSL shader editor makes advanced graphics programming a small stepping stone. - They automatically shipped in-depth examples with the app that are intentionally built for learning by reading the code. - In-app docs encouraged discovering new APIs; I took it as a challenge to use all of the APIs they exposed and learned a lot in the process. - No package managers, no complicated install steps, no security concerns, and a unified editor. P.S. If you have an iPad and haven't played Two Lives Left's Crabitron [1] – it's easily the most creative game shipped for iPad. [1] https://apps.apple.com/se/app/crabitron/id440462182?l=en https://apps.apple.com/se/app/crabitron/id440462182?l=en