Three Letter Acronym (TLA) (An introduction to programming concepts for children) Neil Sarkar, Cody Hess, Jide Atoyebi1. TLA White Paper Introduction: TLA is a programming language designed to help children learn the basics of programming: control structures, functions, problem solving, and proper programming convention. Children are believed to develop abstract reasoning skills by the fourth/fifth grade. Given our current level of technology and the extent to which it has permeated everyday life it is not uncommon to see young kids browsing the web and installing software. Children are capable of learning much faster than adults. It is these abilities we wish to take advantage of as we decrease the code barrier. "Programmers" (children) will use Three Letter Acronym to give movement instructions to an inchworm so the inchworm may draw a picture with its silk. Imagine a perfectly trained pet inchworm that went exactly where you told it according to commands like 'step' and 'turn'. This incredibly fun concept will motivate students to learn 'until' and 'if' to move their inchworm to greater achievements! Design: The program will tell the inchworm how to move within a predetermined environment. The language will implement the following features: Commands - The inchworm receives commands that tell it how to move. All programs are built around these commands: • 'inch' - the inch command makes the inchworm move forward according to the direction it is facing by a predetermined amount of space. • 'right' and 'left' - each of these commands will change the direction the inchworm is facing by 90 degrees right or left. • 'sright' and 'sleft' - each of these commands will change the direction the inchworm is facing by 45 degrees right or left. • 'silk' - this command will turn the inchworm's "silk" on or off - allowing it to draw pictures with its silk or to move across space without drawing - or to change the color of the silk output. It will accept parameters 'on', 'off', 'green', 'red', 'blue', 'white', and other colors.Control Structures - A for loop will allow the child to give more detailed instructions to his or her inchworm. • 'for' - The keyword of a for loop is 'times'. Children can execute a function or command multiple times by typing "command number times". For example, "inch 10 times" would make the inchworm move forward 10 times. Functions - • 'function' - Functions will create reusable code named according to "name" that executes according to "code" like "function name start code end". For example, "function square start inch 10 times right inch 10 times right inch 10 times right inch 10 times end" would draw a square whenever "square" was called in the code. • 'scale' - This will accept a number and a function as an argument, and change the size of the function's drawing according to the number argument. For example, "scale 2 square" would draw a square twice as big as the one defined in the function "square". • 'flip' - This will accept a function as an argument and draw a mirror image according to the shape of the function, as though the function was reflected opposite the direction the inchworm was originally facing. An example is "flip square". • 'rotate' - This will accept a function and a number as arguments and draw that function's shape with as many 90 degree clockwise rotations away from what was originally intended as is signified by the number argument. Syntax: Tokens are separated by white space. Each keyword has similar syntax as described in its definition, and functions execute code within the keywords "start" and "end". We've given syntax as few limitations as possible so children can understand the concepts without worrying about the language. Still, we've added two elements of syntax for expert programmers - comments and parenthesis. • Comments - Any time a line includes a // token, the // and everything after it on the line will be ignored by the parser. • Parenthesis - Parenthesis can group any set of commands to be repeated by a for loop. For example, the square function could be shortened by typing it as "function square start (inch 10 times right) 4 times end". Example Program: //DRAWS A SMILEY FACE IN TLA//drawing face scale 10 square //getting to spot to draw left eye silk off right 2 times inch 2 times left inch 2 times //drawing left eye silk on scale 2 square //getting to spot to draw right eye silk off inch 4 times //drawing right eye silk on scale 2 square //getting to spot to draw smile silk off inch 3 times right 2 times inch 5 times //drawing smile rotate 2 smile //function for square function square start silk on (inch right) 4 times end //function for smile function smile start silk on sright inch 2 times sleft inch 5 times sleftinch 2 times end Conclusion: Three Letter Acronym should be an exciting language to introduce young people to computer programming. Heck, we're old and we had a great time writing the sample program! 2. TLA Language Tutorial Introduction: TLA is a straightforward language that makes use of control structures, functions in an easy to use fashion. The language has been designed to facilitate ease of use to that end we have introduced functions. These functions enable programmers to nest their desired silkworm commands. Variables were omitted to keep pace with the children’s in school knowledge. Circumventing the variables detracted from the power of the language so TLA offers scalability; which enables users to effectively draw according to scale rather than a variable size. In conjunction with the nested functions the language offers users children real choices as to what and how they create their respective masterpieces. Van Gogh’s Hello World: Far from the traditional hello world we’ve come to know and love, the silkworm performs this task with due diligence. Using a series of nested inch and right and left commands it is possible to output Hello World for all to see. Hello World code: //drawing HELLO WORLD //function for hello world function hw start //drawing H silk off right 2 times silk on inch 2 timesleft 2 times inch right inch right inch left 2 times inch 2 times silk off right inch 2 times right silk on //drawing E inch 2 times left inch left 2 times inch right inch right inch left 2 times inch right inch right inch silk off //drawing Ls ( inch 2 times silk on right inch 2 times left inch silk
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