

Berkeley Logo - Immortalin
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html

======
orware
This brings back fond memories of my 1 year at UC Berkeley back in 2005-2006
and getting my start learning about Computer Science fundamentals with
Professor Harvey and CS61A.

Afterwards I always told myself I'd jump in at some point and play around with
Logo (since the books were freely available on his page since forever it
seems) but I had forgotten about those thoughts until seeing this post right
now.

To Professor Harvey :-)!

~~~
keithpeter
"This project really excites me — sneaking the ideas of Scheme into the visual
metaphor of Scratch!"

From [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/)
Scratch section.

What was he like in person? I've used Logo quite a lot in teaching maths and
I've always wondered how bh ran his classes.

~~~
archagon
You used to be able to find the "greatest hits" of his lectures (as well as
the ones from 61B and C) at
[http://wla.berkeley.edu](http://wla.berkeley.edu). Unfortunately, it looks
like the site is down right now... or forever? (The lectures were in
RealPlayer format, so maybe it's for the best.)

~~~
orware
I think they moved off of the older Realplayer-based sites and onto
Youtube...they pretty much have every version of CS61A online from the past
few years...here's a playlist of one of the last ones taught by Professor
Harvey:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28HAzKy0N8&list=PL3E89002AA...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28HAzKy0N8&list=PL3E89002AA9B9879E)

------
thomyorkie
I love Brian Harvey. He sits in on my compilers class and gives Prof Bodik a
hard time. Seems like every other class you hear Harvey yell, "Nooo" from the
back of the room. Its hilarious.

~~~
orware
That's actually exactly what I'd imagine he'd do (it would be even funnier if
he was chucking potstickers at him...for those that don't know that's an
inside joke from his Simply Scheme book...I can't remember if it was also
mentioned in CS61A too :-).

Thanks for sharing!

~~~
mastermojo
Brian ... likes potstickers.

------
gldnspud
I blame LOGO for opening my programming mindset beyond the confines of BASIC
on a VIC-20. In 1986, that was the only tool readily available to me until an
after-school class introduced me and other interested kids a bunch of computer
stuff, including LOGO.

It's a bit rough around some edges, but
[http://turtleacademy.com/](http://turtleacademy.com/) is a decent site for
introducing people of all ages to LOGO.

I love what a few minutes of casually messing around in LOGO can lead to:
[http://turtleacademy.com/program/update/53767042f4585906683c...](http://turtleacademy.com/program/update/53767042f4585906683c9869/gldnspud/en)

------
seanmcdirmid
Chris Hancock designed and implemented languages called FLOGO I and FLOGO II
in the early 00s; unfortunately you can only read about them in his
dissertation:

[https://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/ch-
phd.pdf](https://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/ch-phd.pdf)

This work has been very inspirational to my own research as it introduces a
concept known as live programming. The dissertation is also very well written
and interesting to read even without a deep PL/HCI background.

------
sologoub
The Lego Logo kit in school was my first introduction to robotics:
[http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/1/25/1359115295417/Lego-
Logic-21-09-1985-001.jpg)

Before that, I played around with BASIC, but was only moderately interested in
programming. But as an 8 year-old seeing a set of lego blocks come to life
with just a few simply commands was truly life-changing experience!

Looking at today's Mindstorm, it's just amazing how far things have come!

~~~
dubya
Reading the Mindstorms book made me want the Lego Logo kit for my kids. The
things in the book seemed like mostly basic Lego constructions with a bit of
automation added, which seems more accessible than the Technic based set,
which requires more planning. I may just bite the bullet and get the
Mindstorms set for myself this Christmas.

~~~
sologoub
I don't think they sell the Lego Logo kit. I used it in early 90s :)

~~~
homarp
Lego Mindstorms (the current set EV3) has a graphical language (cf
[http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/content/lego/ev3/preview...](http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/content/lego/ev3/preview/)
) with turtle-ish capability.

There are also alternative firmwares (e.g.
[http://www.ev3dev.org/](http://www.ev3dev.org/) ) which let you use more or
less the language you want, but you loose the IDE integration and the easy
setup. And the original firmware is open-source too:
[https://github.com/mindboards/ev3sources](https://github.com/mindboards/ev3sources)

------
spdustin
Since some are reminiscing, I thought I'd throw in.

I owe my interest in computers to, among other people, Mr. Wizard. It wasn't
frequent, but when he pulled out the old (Apple IIe maybe?) and taught kids
how to write Logo, I knew I had a new mission in life.

That, and the gratuitous use of fire around children appealed my reckless
grade school brain.

------
orware
Here's a link to Professor Harvey's papers page (the link is a little hard to
notice on his main page):
[http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/papers.html](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/papers.html)
(it has a couple of neat Logo essays in there)

------
bobochan
I love that these books are still in print. One of the first things that I did
when Mac OS X came out was download the Unix source and get UCB Logo running.
There was a good discussion group at the time and Professor Harvey was
incredibly gracious with his time answering all kinds of questions.

------
AlexanderDhoore
I just started reading "Logo mindstorms". The book arrived this morning. I
ordered it because Bret Victor _strongly_ recommends it. Hope to learn me some
LOGO this weekend!

------
taylorbuley
Is this anyhow related to NetLogo?
[https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/](https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/)

~~~
tisue
Yes, but there are big differences too; see the "Compared to other Logos"
section at
[http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/programming.html#sy...](http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/programming.html#syntax)

------
asadlionpk
I remember learning this in 3rd grade in my school (back in 98) here in
Pakistan. This might have been my first attempt at 'programming'.

~~~
solistice
Same here, somewhen back in primary school my father installed logo for me to
play around with instead of paint. When I asked him how it works, he told me
in fatherly affection:"RTFM". He later repeated the stunt by handing me a copy
of K&R when I asked him whether he could teach me programming.

Now on the one hand, it taught me to RTFM, but on the other, i got stuck on
something in either language and ended up quitting (drawing chairs in logo,
bit shifts in C since I didn't know how binary really worked or what an
exponent was). It makes me wonder what the better parenting approach is,
letting your children learn to figure things out on their own, or helping them
across whatever bumps they encounter, or some mix between the two.

------
biomimic
It's so insane it's great. I learned logo in 9th at Berkeley High in 86'.

------
GregBuchholz
Are there any lexically-scoped, higher-order, lisp-1 Logo's out there?

~~~
ianbicking
I think NetLogo is lexically scoped, maybe StarLogo too? A really long time
ago I wrote a translator from Logo to Scheme:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20071231105705/http://www.colorst...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071231105705/http://www.colorstudy.com/static/ianb/old/logo-
scheme/) – it translates fairly directly, and so it uses lexical scoping. The
version is also lisp-2 by default, but has a lisp-1 option.

~~~
tisue
Yes, NetLogo is lexically scoped, and it has first-class functions (we call
them "tasks") and higher-order functions. But it isn't homoiconic (unlike e.g.
Berkeley Logo) so it doesn't really qualify as a Lisp IMO.

------
jedp
The UCB Logo logo is adorable

