[PLUG] Simple graphics programming?

[Technoumena]

John Meissen wrote:
> If you're interested in something to use as
> a teaching language for a kid with no previous
> experience, Tcl/Tk, Perl, Java, etc might
> be a bit much.

An interesting option for introducing kids to
programming is Squeak, a modern, education-oriented
Smalltalk implementation:
http://www.squeakland.org/

After trying Python and even C what worked best with
my kids was actually Mathematica (~$150 academic
license):
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html

They really groked the ideas of functions, input and
output and variables and it was easy to put to
graphics.  This was when they were just four and six
years old.  Octave with gnuplot (I know you said
something that wasn't heavy like that) pales in
comparison but would do the trick in a pinch.

The questions of whether to use TCL/TK, GTK, Qt,
WxWindows, etc bindings for Python is (IMO) more
important for GUI applications than for programmatic
2D drawing.  The reason TCL/TK is often used is that
it is highly cross-platform.  I'd prefer Pygame
(SDL-based) because its library is focused on graphics
programming rather than UI design but there are other
good Python graphics packages such as:
http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

There is another option that might be very interesting
to you: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
http://www.svg.org/

I think SVG could very probably be the one I would
choose if I was looking for a language like you
described.

Regards,
technoumena


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