Dustyscript... a new educational tool

Question

I am starting a project to create a new pseudo-scripting language for 3rd graders on up called Dustyscript...
My intention is to create a converter (~compiler) and an interpreter (~runtime) both written in Java.. (Java, is, after all, a language I am familiar with)...
My hope is that in addition to teaching my eight year old some rudimentary programming ideas, an 'upper-elementary' level curriculum can be created for teaching these concepts to others...
Anyone is welcome...
The project is located at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dustyscript/
~Dave/Xiarcel

Answer 1

Yeah... kinda like what you were saying..
((A Third (3rd) Grader is an 8/9 year old in their Third Grade of public school))
For anyone still looking, the below are only my ideas, thoughts (and they have been flying around all over the place for awhile... some of them might not work):
My idea was to start simple (with only a few supported commands).. Something like:
say "hello"~
/*this yields:*/
hello
/*Then, my idea was to:*/
string b = "hello"~
say b~
say "b"~
/*the above, for example, would yield:*/
hello
b
/*Then I would move on to more detailed...*/
x:count(1 to 10): say("x is "+x)~
:x is 1
x is 2
x is 3
x is 4
x is 5
x is 6
x is 7
x is 8
x is 9
x:count(1 thru 10): say("x is "+x)~
:/*this one would include 10*/
Then I would broaden to concepts like:
File f = "log.txt"~
link say:f~
/*this would write all output to file*/
create String{a,b,c}:Popup("Enter name:","Enter age:", "Enter weight")~
/*that would create a popup frame with a the three labels above, textfields next to them, and a button to send the information on, for example, and then:*/
string aa = "Your name is:"+a~
string bb = "Your age is:"+b~
string cc = "Your weight is:"+c~
say aa~ say bb~ say cc~
Anyway... I want it to be 'half-way' between Java and human-speak... He still, for example, needs to know what an int is (I think), but all int(s) could be long. He doesn't necessarily need to know that a long is a BIG int.
a string of letters or numbers or both is a "string"
one single letter or number is a "char"
Eventually, concepts like:
An Object is a thing...
type_of_thing:Person(int x,int y,string s)
/*ex.. x is age, y is weight, s is name*/
string name = s~
int age= x~
int weight = y~
>'say_name'>:say name
}~
Person p = (27,200,"David")~
p.say_name
David
(Or not, it might never get that far...)
I have ideas for the back-end of this... and I think that I would like as much help as possible:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dustyscript
I've set up two mailing lists
dustyscript-devel
dustyscript-keywords
(keywords is announcing a new 'script' feature, devel will be for discussion of development)
~Dave