[Edu-sig] PythonCard and turtle geometry

[Kevin Altis]

PythonCard http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/ AFAIK still has the most
complete turtle geometry routines for Python, though Guido's turtle.py
included with Python is fine if you're using tkinter. I think Guido
experimented with the PythonCard turtle, so maybe he can chime in on what he
liked and disliked and what improvements he would like to see.

There are over twenty scripts included with the turtle sample, the docs
directory even includes documentation on Logo commands and the most
important issues to be aware of while converting old Logo programs to
Python. You can have as many turtles as you want, each is independent, so
you should be able to do artificial life experiments similar to what is
possible with Starlogo. You can drive the turtle from the shell which has
command-completion as well as toolTips for all of the turtle commands. There
are screen shots at:
http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/samples2.html

I've brought up the the turtle library before on this list, but didn't get
much feedback, so I assumed there wasn't any interest. Turtles are fun, so
I'm happy to work on this part of PythonCard.

I would love to get feedback from people interested in using the turtle
library with PythonCard. Note that there is an abstract turtle class, which
is suitable for making a tkinter, wxPython, PostScript or serial-port based
turtle, say for driving a Legos robot. The abstract turtle api will be
improved along with the PythonCard turtle api depending on user demand. In
fact, on a related note, in preparation for making SciPy and PythonCard more
integrated (SciPy already works with PythonCard and the PyCrust shell) I'm
integrating the turtle directly into the PythonCard framework. I posted a
message to the list about this last night:
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/PythonCard/802606

The latest release version of PythonCard is always at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=19015

PythonCard requires Python 2.1 or higher and wxPython 2.3.x, and yes I bug
Robin regularly about the Mac port.

ka
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Kevin Altis
altis@semi-retired.com