Linguistic challenge: name this program

[Andr? Roberge]

In 1981, Richard Pattis wrote a delightful little book titled "Karel
the Robot, a Gentle Introduction to the Art of Programming." Pattis's
"Karel the Robot" was named after the author Karel Capek, who
popularized the word "robot" in his play "Rossum's Universal Robots".
Pattis's approach was to introduce a robot who could follow 5 basic
instructions and be taught to accomplish tasks of increasing
complexity.

A few years ago, a first implementation of "Karel the Robot" in Python
was created and called PyKarel. A second, newer implementation is
called Guido van Robot (GvR for short), and is available at
gvr.sourceforge.net. Work is currently underway by the developpers of
GvR to produce a new-and-improved version.

I have been working on my own (better ;-) version (sometimes
collaborating with the GvR folks) in order to learn Python. It is now
90% finished. It is meant to be a complete environment to learn about
programming concepts, from simple sequences of instruction to OOP.

Given the origin of Pattis's name (Rossum's Universal Robot) and the
name of Python's BDFL, I find it difficult to think of a better name
than Guido van Robot to name a programming environment in which one
uses Python to teach a robot new tricks! (Hat's off to Steve Howell
for this one). Yet, I want a "clever" name for my version.

Any suggestions?

Andre Roberge

[Phil Schmidt]

> A few years ago, a first implementation of "Karel the Robot" in Python

was created and called PyKarel. A second, newer implementation is
called Guido van Robot (GvR for short), and is available at
gvr.sourceforge.net. Work is currently underway by the developpers of
GvR to produce a new-and-improved version.

This thing is very cool, and it will be great for my kids to learn
with, once they're old enough to read. :)

(I even had fun with it myself, spending much more time with it than I
should have!)

Thanks for the great work!

Phil