Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD

(tau.dev)

32 points | by andrewjanke 5 days ago

4 comments

  • moffers 23 minutes ago
    I loved MUDs as a kid, and really do miss the sense of immersion and depth that came from joining a long established server and just exploring.
  • compacct27 13 minutes ago
    A MUD got me into programming, just wanted to make one myself. I was too young then. Now that I’m “grown”, every five years I feel like the kids these days have so many tools to make it easier or at least more knowable.

    Also, that ASCII art(or pixel art?) as the header looks serene. Any tips/rabbit holes on achieving that art style?

  • zabzonk 16 minutes ago
    I honestly think the child would be far better served with Scratch rather than some half-assed adventure writing language (having created several such languages myself).

    Edit: To clarify, the languages I created were also half-assed - it's very difficult to create a good one.

    • a022311 6 minutes ago
      I'd say Canon and Scratch are different tools with different purposes. Both are simple and interactive enough for children to love. The main difference I see is that Canon abstracts away a lot of the game state management logic and you get to focus on creating characters, items and having lots of fun. Scratch looks like it has a steeper learning curve and while it is a good introduction to programming, it gets pretty hard to navigate once project size increases. As someone who started programming with Scratch, I think that making a text adventure game like the ones Canon does in Scratch would be much more complicated and the end result wouldn't be half as nice.
    • hombre_fatal 7 minutes ago
      I think the only thing that matters is whatever the kid finds appealing enough to do at all.
  • groffl 22 minutes ago
    Wow, using legit computer lore in the first 95% of the article and then admitting LLM at the end.

    Kiddo is not creating anything, that's a delusion.

    • clemailacct1 20 minutes ago
      Yikes, this is a bit too harsh.
    • skinfaxi 20 minutes ago
      What? The article even states there's only one use of AI. What are you talking about?

      > Wish is the only AI feature in Canon, and it’s strictly limited to a single tutorial item per day. In a gameworld where everything else is explicitly written by humans for humans. And that alone was instantly polarizing.

      • philipwhiuk 3 minutes ago
        It's the only AI feature available to users in Canon but the entirety of Canon itself is also vibecoded.