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Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

elearningindustry.com

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Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#21

Post by brakmic »

thinkMOAR wrote: post #17
brakmic wrote: post #13

"Scratch does NOT require syntax" --> this sentence alone disqualifies the whole article.

That plus the word 'believe' in the title. If i simply had to accept what others believe as to be the truth...

Exactly.

Here an interesting quote from Alan Kay:

"The best teacher I had in graduate school spent the whole semester destroying any beliefs we had about computing. He was a real iconoclast. He happened to be a genius, so we took it. At the end of the course, we were free because we didn’t believe in anything. We had to learn everything, but then he destroyed it. He wanted us to understand what had been done, but he didn’t want us to believe in it."

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#23

Post by mcv »

I don't quite agree that there's no syntax, it's just that the syntax is more visual. You need to put the round things in the round holes and the square things in the square holes. I remember when I played around with Scratch (only a little, admittedly) there was still a lot that wasn't immediately obvious. There's a lot of digging around through the many blocks to find the one you need, and then puzzling how to use it.

Also, while being able to create your own blocks is important, you still need to create the blocks before you can use them. There's no top-down approach to programming; you need to build your blocks first.

I gave a small programming course at my son's school last year using Blockly (similar to scratch, but simpler and more guided) for 6 and 7 year olds, and that worked fine, but I still intend to teach my son a real programming language soon. (Ruby or Python, probably.)

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#24

Post by mrob »

onion2k wrote: post #20
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #2

The future of programming is programming. What's described in the article is indeed true, you can build stuff without syntax, you can extend it, etc. But who is this for? I am not a fan of the "Let's teach everyone to code" rhetoric, because this is same as "let's teach everyone to play the piano", or "Let's teach everyone to be good at math!". People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. And most o…

People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. The booming industry of coding boot camps shows that there are a large number of people who want to code but didn't have the opportunity or knowledge to learn until they were old enough and wealthy enough to pay for private tuition. I would argue that is strong evidence that your assertion is wrong - it's a reasonable assumption there are a number of peop…

I suspect the majority of those coding boot camp customers do not want to code, but want money, and see coding as an easy way to get it.

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#25

Post by berntb »

onion2k wrote: post #20
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #2

The future of programming is programming. What's described in the article is indeed true, you can build stuff without syntax, you can extend it, etc. But who is this for? I am not a fan of the "Let's teach everyone to code" rhetoric, because this is same as "let's teach everyone to play the piano", or "Let's teach everyone to be good at math!". People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. And most o…

People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. The booming industry of coding boot camps shows that there are a large number of people who want to code but didn't have the opportunity or knowledge to learn until they were old enough and wealthy enough to pay for private tuition. I would argue that is strong evidence that your assertion is wrong - it's a reasonable assumption there are a number of peop…

Right now it is the same as in the Millennium bubble -- programming is a simple way to get a well paid job.

But sure, some of the people jumping on the train then and now are lifers.

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#26

Post by throwaway29911 »

onion2k wrote: post #20
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #2

The future of programming is programming. What's described in the article is indeed true, you can build stuff without syntax, you can extend it, etc. But who is this for? I am not a fan of the "Let's teach everyone to code" rhetoric, because this is same as "let's teach everyone to play the piano", or "Let's teach everyone to be good at math!". People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. And most o…

People who will code will code even if you don't push them to. The booming industry of coding boot camps shows that there are a large number of people who want to code but didn't have the opportunity or knowledge to learn until they were old enough and wealthy enough to pay for private tuition. I would argue that is strong evidence that your assertion is wrong - it's a reasonable assumption there are a number of peop…

What do you mean by "opportunity"? If they have 3 months to go to a camp, surely they could as well learn at home for those 3 months.

It's the certificate and contacts they're after (and pay dearly for).

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#28

Post by witty_username »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #8
mrfregg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too don't see Scratch as the future of programming but you have to grant that it gets kids interested in programming.

Honestly I think Scratch has as high learning curve as simple programming languages like python or ruby (maybe even higher learning curve), not to mention all the copy-and-paste-able code available online if you learn languages like python (compared to this format which is obscure and not easily shareable). That's why I said if I was teaching my kid to code I would teach python. It's easier to learn, copy and paste (…

No, it has a lower learning curve. I used Scratch about 6 years ago when I was learning programming as a kid.

The blocks are much easier to understand--they constrain what you can create and that avoids syntax errors and many other problems. Also, the visual element is certainly good and makes it fun.

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#29

Post by Steeeve »

I was a little disappointed to see the lack of scratch adoption early on, but it needed a good deal of polishing.

It's not being used by any schools that I have checked out, but the ideas that I first saw with scratch are widely used across all kinds of early education technology.

I wouldn't say that anything like this is the future. RAD tools are fantastic, but they have their place. There's nothing that beats the performance and control of a low level language and they've all gotten better over the years with tooling (save assembly - which from my perspective has remained relatively stagnant).

Still - the ability for non-programmers to get reasonably complex work done given a set of fundamental skills isn't just an inevitability, it's a necessary component for the next era. When the techies aren't bogged down with keeping tracking systems of all sorts up and running, they can focus on innovation that just isn't happening at the same pace that it once was.

Kudos to the Scratch team for seeing the problem that's been glaring at us all since Logo disappeared and made a valiant effort at addressing it effectively. (I know... Logo didn't exactly disappear, but it has faded significantly)

Re: Why I Believe Scratch Is the Future of Programming

#30

Post by smoyer »

mcv wrote: post #23

I don't quite agree that there's no syntax, it's just that the syntax is more visual. You need to put the round things in the round holes and the square things in the square holes. I remember when I played around with Scratch (only a little, admittedly) there was still a lot that wasn't immediately obvious. There's a lot of digging around through the many blocks to find the one you need, and then puzzling how to use…

I've seen Scratch used in several introductory programming classes and while I don't agree with the author's premise, Scratch just might be the future BASIC.
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