Question (serious) - Why teach kids programming anymore?
Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, my nephew loved scratch but he's endlessly devoted to make code. I got him a little Gameboy thing that can play the games he builds, and he keeps sending me games of his and then mercilessly mocking me for not being good at them :( A couple years ago I went through Flexbox Froggy with him out of curiosity, and the really interesting thing was that he was able to complete all the levels but only by dictating to…
What device did you get your nephew? When I was looking for one, those listed on the Make Code website were pretty bad and expensive (or unavailable). I would love to find an affordable retro handheld like Miyoo or Anbernic with Make Code support.
I got the Elecfreaks Retro Arcade for Education, I'm sure it's not as bulletproof as an actual Gameboy so he uses it with his parents around rather than taking it everywhere with him, but it works!
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#23> inviting
My first attempt to place a statement (play sound at Hz) failed with a Type Error.
Android Chrome.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#24Question (serious) - Why teach kids programming anymore?
The same reasons we keep on teaching kids to read, write, do math, sketch, take photos, etc ... because it is fun, empowering and important.
Most of them will never become professional actors, authors, mathematicians, artists, photographers, etc ... and yet they will rely on those skills, on their own or combined, pretty much every single day of their lives.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#25I don't love graphical programming environments like this and Scratch and I can't quite put my finger on why I find them so unattractive. A big part of it is that you can, to some degree, learn programming from this. But you absolutely cannot learn software engineering from this.
LEGO created NXT-G for programming their Mindstorm NXT. It has since, in my opinion, been the best graphical programming I've seen to date.
It did have a slight learning curve, but 5th graders were competing just fine against high schoolers haha.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#26I don't love graphical programming environments like this and Scratch and I can't quite put my finger on why I find them so unattractive. A big part of it is that you can, to some degree, learn programming from this. But you absolutely cannot learn software engineering from this.
I would love to see the opposite emerge, a programming environment focused on teaching architecture, security, separation of concerns, etc. All while letting LLMs deal with the fussy programming bits.
The script is already flipping, with kids making software using AI but they can only fumble forward inch by inch while burning tokens. It would be great to introduce programming in the way it functions in the workplace - we want to make a Mario clone, start with the goal, hammer out the elements to a certain fidelity then let the AI cook.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#27Question (serious) - Why teach kids programming anymore?
Why do we teach them to add and multiply we have calculators?
Why do we teach them to read, we have text to voice?
Why do we teach them to broom, we have Roombas?
Why do we teach them to do the dishes, we have dish-washers?
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#28Any name that you can't type is going to be a problem.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#29I don't love graphical programming environments like this and Scratch and I can't quite put my finger on why I find them so unattractive. A big part of it is that you can, to some degree, learn programming from this. But you absolutely cannot learn software engineering from this.
If you appreciate when keyboard interaction gets added to a GUI, then you might think of a graphical language as the opposite, as it essentially removes keyboard interaction from what is normally a text-based system.
Snap does have a limited keyboard mode (shift click), but it's not really as good as "real" IDE.
Re: Λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study
#30Any name that you can't type is going to be a problem.
> Any name that you can't type is going to be a problem.
Fortunately the name is Snap! so typing it isn't much of a problem. (With the !, which was stripped from the submission title and when most people write about it.)