BigEd wrote:
I think you're on to something there, with the motivation: to write a program, you need to care a bit about the problem you're solving.
Another possibility, other than games, is art. For visual art, there's something which starts as Etch-a-Sketch and works its way up to a pixel paint program. For words, there might be some mileage in story telling or poetry generation. Remember the joy of having the computer do something, perhaps especially something unexpected. In fact, printing "hello world" or "I am the greatest" could be thought of as the smallest possible story, or poem - what's needed is a way to step beyond that.
Not everyone like art and poems
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Back when we had our IMSAI 8080, we were showing it to one of the guys (Gabe).
Code:
10 PRINT "GABE IS A GEEK"
20 GOTO 10
And hilarity ensued. HAHAHAHA
Until Gabe turned the machine off.
You don't turn the IMSAI off. You must ignore the DO NOT TURN OFF sign to turn the machine off.
Gabe turned the machine off.
We were kind of stunned. Just shocked silence.
You didn't turn the machine off because you had to type in a boot loader to load the BASIC tape. So, we just leave it on.
But it was pretty funny.