Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk • Hacker News Board

Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

#1

Post by musiciangames » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 3:52 PM UTC

Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk
chirp.scratchr.org

Re: Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

#2

Post by amoeba » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 5:21 PM UTC

This looks extremely interesting but I don't know Smalltalk. Can a Smalltalker offer an opinion?

Re: Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

#3

Post by tptacek » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 5:59 PM UTC

amoeba wrote: post #2

This looks extremely interesting but I don't know Smalltalk. Can a Smalltalker offer an opinion?

Have you ever played with Scratch? My (then) 8 year old son loves it. You don't need to know any Smalltalk to use it.

Re: Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

#4

Post by musiciangames » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 6:30 PM UTC

amoeba wrote: post #2

This looks extremely interesting but I don't know Smalltalk. Can a Smalltalker offer an opinion?

This fits a niche between Scratch and Squeak Smalltalk. Scratch is a very neat visual development environment aimed at learners. When you hit the limits of what Scratch can do, there is no easy path into Squeak. Squeak is also neat and powerful, but can be a bit overwhelming. This gives you the simple visual programming paradigm of Scratch for programming in Squeak itself.

The interface is very fast and crisp; I look forward to seeing it progress.

Re: Elements - a Scratch-like Smalltalk

#5

Post by greggraham » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 7:56 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #3

amoeba wrote: post #2

This looks extremely interesting but I don't know Smalltalk. Can a Smalltalker offer an opinion?

Have you ever played with Scratch? My (then) 8 year old son loves it. You don't need to know any Smalltalk to use it.

Scratch has been used with great success in the 5th grade computer class at our school. Last year they were slogging through Logo with little motivation. When we switched to Scratch, they loved it.