Re: Writing something.......

[Micah Yoder <lyoder@cyberis.net>]

Doug Loss wrote:

> Well, I'm just starting to come up to speed on Tcl/Tk to start some of these
> things.  What I'd like to do is modify Visual Tcl to work more like Apple's
> HyperCard (which I'm not personally not familiar with, but which I
> understand gets a lot of use in schools).  If that gets done, it could be a

I don't even know what HyperCard *is*... :-)  I've heard a lot of people
like it though.  Could something be made to actually run *real*
HyperCard programs...i.e. no look alike, but actually run the same
executable as the Mac?

I'm sure anything of the sort would be good though. 

> quickly.  I'm not looking for a clone of HyperCard; more a "works similar
> to."

OK...even that would require some re-learning, but oh well.

> > 1.  A simple Q&A/flash card/quiz program.  Administrators (parents,
> > 2.  Similarly, a basic math tutor.  It gave

> Wouldn't 1 and 2 be essentially the same program, just with different
> flashcards/problem sets?  Unless you want 2 to generate the problems
> randomly, which might be a good idea now that I think about it.  Especially

Right....2 would generate the problems, but the way you answer them
would be completely different.  For example, it could give a problem
like:

      ___*____________
   15 |  4389234

The cursor where the * is, and the 15 and the first two digits of the
dividend, 43, would be highlighted in a different color.  Thus, the
program could be asking "how many times does 15 go into 43?"  The kid
would then type 2 - or, if he typed any other digit, it would sound a
buzzer and say try again.  When he types 2, it could put "30" under the
43, subtract and put 13 under that, bring down the 8, and start the
process over again.

> if it could keep track of a users correct/incorrect ratio and adjust the
> difficulty of the problems to continue to be challenging.

Yeah, both 1 and 2 could share code for ratio/difficulty.

> > 3.  Little board games.  Has anyone played the Commodore 64 game "Chain

> These wouldn't hurt.  I'd concentrate on the other educational stuff first,
> though, as I think that's what parents would rather see for their kids than
> more games (even if the games encourage logical thinking rather than just
> hand/eye coordination).

Yeah.  But let's face it, these are more fun.  :-)

> > 5.  A free form note program.  A user could type in anything he/she

> Although I don't know of any, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already
> written something like this.  It's reminiscent of the old DOS TSR program
> Sidekick.

A program called MemoryMate came with my Tandy 1000 a LONG time ago.  I
never used it much, but it looked like that sort of thing.  Seems like
it could be useful for some people, and it should be trivial to do in
Perl.

> to try to gain some familiarity with Tcl/Tk, as it looks like a pretty easy

Shoot, I just learned Perl/Tk.  Will we be shipping that with SEUL?  (I
don't see any reason not to...)  Does anyone else know Perl/Tk?  I guess
the Tcl people and Perl people could group together and work on
different projects.  Or I could learn Tcl if *really* necessary, but
I've been learning too many languages recently.  (And my job is starting
to inflict RPG on me, which isn't helping matters much........  one word
about that......"YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!")

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