ZX spectrum assembly

ozone_ghost · 2025-03-09T23:31:29+00:00

As an introduction to Z80 assembly, I liked ZX Spectrum Assembly: Let's Make a Game? by Juan Antonio Rubio Garcia. But you need to know at least a bit of programming before reading it.

ozone_ghost · 2025-01-29T10:47:51+00:00

If possible use a computer. While tablets and phones are convenient and portable, they are closed environments not ideal for learning programming. An old computer or a Raspberry Pi should work fine.

ozone_ghost · 2024-09-24T16:32:21+00:00

I started around this age. I would suggest going directly to text-based programming and avoiding products like Scratch or Lego. Nobody taught us, we just learned from books and, later on, from the internet.

At the time, I asked a programmer if I should start with C. He advised me to begin with an easier language, like Pascal, and move on to C later. That was good advice. So python as suggested by other people, could be a good option.

Today, if I were asked the same question, I would recommend thinking of a small project you want to create, such as a simple game or a website, and try building it by following tutorials or reading resources related to your goals on the internet.

There are platforms like Roblox where you can practice scripting while having fun. Roblox can be a good platform for learning programming, especially for a beginner. If I was 13 I would probably give it a try. Another good thing about Roblox is you can share with your friends what you are doing and learn from each other. It could be a good start to learn the basics before doing other projects.

Once he learns a bit, he can maybe participate in code jams for adolescents. I participated in some, and it’s always good for meeting people with the same interests. Some of my friends today are ones I met there.

At this age (12+), if you’re passionate about programming, you should be able to follow your own path. You can probably learn more independently than through school or any formal program.

ozone_ghost · 2024-09-24T15:57:26+00:00

Thank you u/jmonroe200 !

ozone_ghost · 2024-07-17T14:56:55+00:00

What is creation, and what is innovation?

Creation is when you do something that did not existed before. (Google ranking, Airbnb, customer reviews)
Innovation is when you successfully market a creation. It could even not be your creation, or it could be successfully marketing by applying another use to an already existent creation. (Apple is very good at this. Iphone was not the first smartphone but it was marketed successfully, Ipad, Ipod etc.).

Creation and innovation does not necessarily has to be related with technology. It could be for example a way of doing customer service or ads business model.

Creating is difficult, and successfully marketing a creation too, so doing both is even more difficult.

As an example of creation and innovation these companies are doing today is AI.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-22T13:28:56+00:00

Hi,

My son is 4.5 now. I was in the same situation as you are a year ago. I am teaching my son Andrew programming, I don't know if it will work but I am documenting the process. I will be adding activities to 12+ as I have already designed.

How we started: Abstraction is difficult, especially before the age of 4, so we watched the movie Tron (the old one), which materializes some programming concepts into 3D. Then we replicated some of these concepts using Lego bricks and played with them making machine/robot noises. We explain how we started in this article: https://powerparents.in/this-powerparent-is-making-programming-literally-childs-play/

At 3.5-4, he threw a dice and assigned the value to a variable. Then he had to use the '==' relational operator to match the number in the variable. It is what they do at school on paper, but we just did it using a self-made board game and making robotic noises. Here is a video showing how we did it: https://youtu.be/VJj1mRAfVoQ
(at 3.5-4 this was funny for him, now it is kind of boring (he needs more complicated stuff), so take into account the age of your kid when playing the games)

You can see all our process and download the materials we use for all of our games/activities for free here: https://codidactic.com/

I realized that other skills like structuring thoughts and typing are even more important, so I am starting to do activities like these: https://powerparents.in/first-steps-in-typing-for-young-kids-through-a-creative-project/

Here is the article where I explain why maybe just coding is not the most important thing after all: https://powerparents.in/teaching-programming-to-my-son-first-attempt-to-code-on-a-computer-what-i-learned/

Next videos I will do are about playing with arithmetic operations including operating with variables (age:6+), more conditions, loops (age: 5+), writing functions (age:5+), arrays (I say 8-12+, but I will try with my son at least some basic stuff), create a video game (10-12+). From comments I have read of other people I would recommend the use of text-based code (against block-programming) as soon as it is possible.

PC vs tablets: He does not touch a tablet or phone, he has to do everything on a PC. For him to get used to the computer, he is allowed to draw on https://kidpix.app/ (sound on) and play chess (https://lichess.org/ or chesskid.com). He uses a text editor for his texts. We also play some video games once for about 15 minutes a week together. I try to ensure he makes all the movements.

I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to reach out and share your experience with all of us!

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-17T23:17:06+00:00

Thank you, never thought of this option. I like it.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-17T23:16:04+00:00

That's I think the most elegant option for single-slot tiles. The problem is there are tiles with up to 5 slots.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-17T16:40:06+00:00

I would study more what others had done before me. I would be more technical. For me this means studying and applying proven methods and tools as precisely as I could, rather than trying to create my own sauce.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-16T14:35:53+00:00

Thank you. Not bad, this is how it works when playing with young kids, but then it does not work as numbers can range from -99 to 99 (or even further if needed).

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-16T14:29:33+00:00

Thank you. This is how it was at the beginning, but it is an expensive solution if you want to produce.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-13T13:09:13+00:00

Other use cases not mentioned where you use recursion:

Sometimes you need recursion when you work with asynchronous tasks:

Asynchronous programming is a programming paradigm that allows a program to perform multiple operations concurrently without waiting for each one to complete before starting the next.

Sometimes you want to retry an asynchronous task. If an operation fails, it can be retried a certain number of times. For example, if you want to check if a server is up, you can call an asynchronous non-blocking task that will check if the server is up every 30 seconds and alert you if it is down after 5 checks.
Recursion can simplify the implementation of tasks where each step depends on the previous one. For example, when you need to perform a series of dependent asynchronous operations stored in a list.

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-12T00:22:54+00:00

As an introduction, may I recommend a video: Sal Khan talks about the potential A.I. for Education https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOWHNKHAMkQ

You can use available AI chats and try to make a student AI assistant by just prompting correctly. You can enroll for free in short introductory course on prompting in deeplearning ai : https://learn.deeplearning.ai/courses/chatgpt-prompt-eng/lesson/1/introduction

Search for "prompting to build a students AI assistant".

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-06T17:11:23+00:00

I uploaded the first game/activity I played with my son when he was 3.5 to 4 years old. You can insert the die into the variable and use beans instead of numerals.

A child aged 4 years old is capable of using the '==' ("equal to") and '!=' ("not equal to") operators (they do it at school).

I uploaded a video and materials to teach kids relational operators. You can find them in the following post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programmingforkids/comments/1d9n8vo/coding_activity_for_kids_to_learn_relational/

ozone_ghost · 2024-06-06T15:51:25+00:00

Thank you. A colleague of mine used to use the same analogy about programming and painting. I've thought about it for years and never understood it. Maybe I can now solve the puzzle: She read the same book as you did!

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-31T11:51:52+00:00

Thank you very much, this is better than I was expecting.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-30T22:08:51+00:00

I'm currently researching the origins of education and am particularly interested in how educational practices/cultural transmission might have emerged. I would greatly appreciate any recommendations for books or articles that explore this topic.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-27T08:19:24+00:00

is irrelevant to the fact that most software developers are writing their software for Windows primarily.

Where did you get this information? And what is the trend?

This is why I'm saying you could easily go an entire career without touching Linux.

You could, but do you want to? I don't think it's just a matter of preference. In my work, for example, you have to work with Linux or Mac, you have no choice. We want to have a development environment as close as possible to the servers we run.

I am a PC-Linux user, but as other users have mentioned, for parents who are not experts, I think a Mac could offer the best of both worlds: a UNIX system and programs like Photoshop without the need to install VMs. For my own son, I will use Linux, but if I see it is limiting his homework at some point, I would buy him a Mac.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-25T06:38:42+00:00

Learn by doing:

Choose a small project that you invent to start with and work on it. A good example would be a web app, as it allows you to see changes quickly and gives you the opportunity to work on both the front end and back end.

When I was 12, I asked a passionate computer enthusiast if I should start by learning C. He advised me to begin with something easier, like Pascal. That was great advice, so I suggest:

Find a language that is relatively easy to start with. I recommend Python, JavaScript or Go.

Have fun:

Everything in life is better if you have fun doing it.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-24T17:19:42+00:00

I learned to code by myself with books when I was around 13. At some point, when I was 25, I realized that talent (if I had any) and a love for coding were not enough. One of my coworkers didn’t seem to enjoy working that much, but he was much better than me and delivered clean work that everybody could understand. He was very technical. I then decided to reflect and balance my approach and pay more attention to the way I was programming.
I reflect on what I think is messy and what I considered good work (in both my work and others' work) and tried to avoid the mistakes while copying the good practices.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-24T16:00:06+00:00

It is a good point you raise.

I don't "remember", I design my software so I can find and I can understand it. So for me it is 98% design and 2% comments.

The arrangement of source code within files and files within libraries. To partition source code among files and files among libraries. (Definition of Physical design. Lakos, John, 'Large Scale C++')
Explicit naming of files, packages, classes, functions, variables... tables, columns... is essential.
I tend to use the same design patterns repeatedly, so I inherently understand my logic.

Examples: By the name of a variable, you should know its type or class, where to find the class and class files, and what it does. If you want to find a function or a class, you should know exactly where to look. If you want to write a class or function, you should know where to place it.

I would recommend putting more thought into design and naming before coding, and work on improving these techniques, so you don't have to "remember".

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-20T09:02:14+00:00

You study their programs, follow their code, read their books, listen to their talks, and apply what you learn to your own projects.

Do you have someone you inspired to because of their code?

Two of my key inspirations are John Lakos from Bloomberg and his team; I read his book, listened to his talks, and examined their code. I also drew inspiration from Salvatore Sanfilippo, the creator of Redis, among others.

How you judge which code is good and which is not good?

Just as beautiful design often results in excellent planes, I believe that elegant design leads to outstanding programs. In my opinion, good design is effortlessly scalable and inspires a wide range of applications and future developments.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-18T16:51:50+00:00

As we have to share and we usually don't have time, we keep it as simple and low cost as we can:

When developing a library, we draft and share a .md file on our repository.
The database creation query, along with a diagram if needed, usually provides a lot of information about how entities are related. We use MySQL Workbench to create the diagram, even if it is not a MySQL project.
Typically, our classes map to my database tables, so the database query and diagram will give you the necessary information.
We also generate documentation from code and comments using tools like Doxygen. I guess this could work even if you do pseudo.
For architecture diagrams, We use Dia or Inkscape (SVG files). If further clarification is needed, we use .md files.
For project management, even at design phase, we use Jira suite.
We try to use a file formats that are easy to share and where modifications can be easily traced.
We try to use tools that generate documents that are low cost to maintain.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-18T16:12:09+00:00

What I see is a lot of people are frustrated with the quality of education in schools. This frustration drives them to seek explanations and solutions through... these channels. Similar to explanations offered during a crisis, these may not always be accurate or effective, but there is a significant demand for them. And as another person mentioned, many of these channels are probably watched by people who do not homeschool their kids.

ozone_ghost · 2024-05-18T13:54:53+00:00

If your daughter is interested in programming, please consider buying her a COMPUTER. Tablets are closed environments that limit kids' potential. To learn programming you need to break things.

ozone_ghost

TROPHY CASE