[Coco] Conway's game of life

[Aaron Wolfe]

Thanks.  I wrote one not too different earlier, but mine didn't have the
fancy predefined shapes :)

I'm teaching a class where the game of life comes up, and I remembered
reading an article at age 10-12ish that both compelled me to learn about
this thing and also explained it in a way that made perfect sense.  I've
probably written the game of life in a dozen languages over the years,
never for any reason other than because it's fun, and ever since reading
Bill Barden's article I just always knew how.

Not sure if I can translate it into terms that will work as well now as his
did then, but the 1986 article that Robert pointed out definitely worked
for me.  I dont think there is the same quality of directly usable
information available to kids today.  The rainbow contributors taught me
things that I could try right then and have a real chance at actually
understanding.  There was no memorization of facts or tedious abstract
study, it was always "hey, let's *do* something".  You just looked through
articles until something looked interesting, and then the article would
teach you that thing.  It surprisingly hard to find ways to do that with
modern gear.

Anyway, thanks for the fancy glacially slow program :)


On Mon, Aug 1, 2016, 9:01 PM Jim Gerrie via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
wrote:

> If you’re interested in a glacial Basic Conway’s life here’s one:
>