λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study

Here's how teaching kids goes without scratch:

"This is python, we use it to do professional development work. Here's VS code, we use it to do professional development work. Let's learn them."

6 year olds: "Okay!"

Proceeds to mangle whitespace, variable names, scope, indexing, ==, forgets :, doesn't understand what def is, even after they get all that the program is basically "hello world" print to console.

6 year olds: "Programming is hard and frustrating with little payoff, I don't want to do this anymore"

The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "This stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"

Teachers: "I have no idea what I'm doing, the devs keep saying how Python is supposed to be easy and it's built for learning, but I'm just as confused as the kids."

--

Here's how teaching kids goes with scratch:

"This is scratch, you snape these colored shapes together and they do things like make this character move"

6 year olds: "Okay!"

Proceeds to make games and stories with graphics, sounds and interaction, which they share with their friends, fully editable and runnable in a web environment with zero setup: https://scratch.mit.edu

6 year olds: "Wow programming is fun! I can't wait to learn more!"

The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "I agree this stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"

Teachers: "It wasn't hard to get up and running with scratch, it's very easy to teach and I get it."

> like Snap doesn't really provide a way to understand how stuff is actually done... So I don't see how it'd be very useful for e.g. learning CS when it's not really something you'd see in the real world

The point of scratch is not to prepare students for the professional world of computing, nor is it to prepare students for study in a CS program.

Instead, it's to expose students to computational thinking at an early age in an accessible, age-appropriate way. It's the same reason we teach the Bohr model of the atom before exposing kids to orbitals and probability distributions -- the Bohr model is false but at least it can provide a model and scaffolding for future learning. They're not ready for real Python or Javascript yet. You as a child might have been, but scratch is for teaching all students, not just the ones with a preexisting aptitude for coding.

> if it's not really something that's used in the real world, unlike say JS or Python, why use it instead of getting up to speed in a real language?

Why do you feel like exposing young children to professional development tools is important? Have you ever tried to get a class of students up to speed in a real language? Give it a shot and it might answer a lot of your questions.

> it could be that I simply don't get it, or that I'm not the target audience

Yes, this is very likely. Few years back I did a survey of elementary school students and their opinions on programming. Young kids exposed to Scratch reported that programming was "fun", "exciting", "enjoyable" and "something they wanted to continue to do". They viewed it as an extension of art and play. On the other hand, older kids who were then exposed to Python and VS Code no longer reported feeling the same way about programming, instead using words like "frustrating", "hard", "confusing" and most damningly described it "like math class", the least popular subject among students.

Exposing kids to the frustrating and confusing path first is a good way to make sure no one wants to go into the field. You as a child would probably have pursued the field nonetheless, so I can see why Scratch doesn't seem like a good teaching tool to you.

> I feel like there's a reason why these haven't really taken off,

wdym Scratch is wildly popular with students and widely used throughout the world. You see people here in this thread stating it's what got them interested in programming. Something like Snap! is nice because it provides a higher ceiling for Scratch programmers. It's not as popular because it Scratch serves much of the role, but its existence is an important bridge for older students who will eventually transition to Python or Java.

For further reading that can explain the theory better than I can, see the writings of Alan Kay and Seymour Papert, especially Papert's book "Mindstorms".

> Okay but you're stacking your unsubstantiated belief based on a sample of just you against an entire field of research where people have dedicated their lives, so maybe you can understand why some people take it personally when you just call it BS off the cuff?

No, I usually don't understand why people take it personally if it's not directed towards anyone, but I do understand why it would come off as demeaning, so for that I apologize.

However it was not to the degree where this guy's response was warranted at all. Not one bit.

> You're the one convinced you're right no matter what. No. I never said I was right. I've literally multiple times said that it is MY opinion, and my view point, and that I'm simply saying what I think.

Okay, decades of research and whatnot, so is the conclusion that Snap is perfect for what it's intended and that there is no room for criticism or opposing views against it? Would I have to do decades of research in order to say anything about Snap? That would basically mean it's immune from criticism. We can say the same things about SAP for example.

again, I was replying to this comment:

> I 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 am not saying that it doesn't fill a niche, it's literally what I've already said, but I said that it doesn't mean that it is widely applicable, which is *totally fine*

> Have you actually examined if this is true or do you just feel that it is true? Yes, my experience was this. I never said it was for everyone, and you obviously know that, there's no way something will work for absolutely everyone

and I also haven't met basically anyone who learnt programming with Scratch or etc., it was mostly though playing around with real stuff in primitive ways and learning how things work until they became familiar.

I don't understand. There are a few people here who said they learnt programming through scratch, and that's great. However, I'm giving my own subjective experience and my thoughts as to why imo this is not as effective as some might claim, and especially for actually learning programming, not just gaining interest (which would be a small niche)

I think it's totally fine to give your own views, opinions and beliefs on a HN post subject, and I believe that progress happens through people communicating their own ideas and beliefs about things, from which others can then gain new perspectives outside of their own.

I also think it's very much against the hacker spirit to simply shut down everything because there isn't decades of research behind an argument.

You can discard all my beliefs and arguments here and that's totally fine. If they spark some idea or some theory, that's even better. Or if it's something you can relate to and go "oh so it's not just me!" that's also cool. Like how I felt with the original reply.

> However it was not to the degree where this guy's response was warranted at all. Not one bit.

Agreed.

> so is the conclusion that Snap is perfect for what it's intended and that there is no room for criticism or opposing views against it?

That's going too far in the opposite direction, no one has claimed that at all. Your opening post was "this is BS and just a toy, it's got no connection to the real world."

That was a strong negative statement so you've elicited strong pushback.

> and I also haven't met basically anyone who learnt programming with Scratch or etc.,

Well what kind of people do you associate with? What age group? I'm 40, people my age learned Logo as kids, which was the first language of its kind but also quite old by the 90s when I learned it. Before Logo, no one really made languages for kids.

The last student I taught who reported having learned from Logo was in 2020 and he was from Greece, so I think it may have some special appeal there. Beyond that, most of my students (I have taught thousands) report having their first programming experience in Scratch, regardless of whether they are majoring in CS or not. I can count on one hand the number of students who started learning naturally via Python or Javascript or even HTML before being introduced by a teacher to Scratch.

> I think it's totally fine to give your own views

It's totally fine to give your own views and you've spent many posts and many characters doing just that, so you haven't been impeded.

What I and others have are asking is for you to consider something beyond your own views. You've already acknowledged that probably you're not the target audience here, and it's exactly that: Scratch is not for you, and that's okay. That doesn't mean your way doesn't work when it works, but if you want to say something more about how far your method goes or Scratch's efficacy, you need something more than your own views.

Look, I'm actually with you -- I started programming on a mechanical typewriter at 5, and kept going from there. I love running enrichment programs for kids who are like that because you can give them anything and they'll just go with it. But really, only <1% of kids are like that.