The name Logo comes from the greek word logo, which means "word". In contrast
to earlier programming languages, which emphasized arithmetic computation, Logo
was designed to manipulate laguage __ words and sentences.
Like any programming language, Logo is a general - purpose tool that can be
approached in many ways. Logo programming can be understood at different levels of sophistication. It has been taught to four years old and to college students.
Most of the books about Logo so far have been introductory books for young
beginners , but this article is different. it's for somewhat older learners, probably
with some prior computer experience , although not neccessarily Logo experiance .
This article was written using the berkeley Logo dialect, a version of Logo that's
available at no cost for PCs, Macintoshes , and Unix Systems. Recent Commercial
Logo dialects have emphasized the control of real - time animation, robotics,
and other such application areas, somewhat at the expense of more traditional
Logo features designed to be useful in the development of larger and more complex
programs. berkeley Logo follows the traditional design, so you may miss some
" bells and whistles " that you associate with Logo from elementary school.
In fact, we will hardly do any graphics in this article!
Some of the details you will have to know order to work with Logo depend on the
particular kind of computer you are using. This article assumes you already know some
things about your computer:
1. How to turn on your computer and start Logo
2. How to type a command, ending with the RETURN key
3. How to use control keys to correct typing mistakes
4. How to use a text editing program
