Live data from Hacker News

Scratch is a big deal

bryanbraun.com

251–260 of 306 posts

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#251

I like Scratch - my kid uses it and I worked briefly with the guy who made Blockly, the underlying visual programming toolkit - but the programming environment makes many things far too complicated with its singular focus on sprites. It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites tha…

Missing these abstract features mean lower barrier to entry, so good for kids

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#252

At work we built a BI tool around Scratch (Blockly) back in 2013. It’s still seeing daily use: https://www.dialogic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/demo1.gif

Please post this gif as a show hn, so it gets some attention and maybe someone builds on top of this idea!

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#253

I like Scratch - my kid uses it and I worked briefly with the guy who made Blockly, the underlying visual programming toolkit - but the programming environment makes many things far too complicated with its singular focus on sprites. It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites tha…

Have not used Scratch, but on first loook it seems very similar to scheme-bricks: https://github.com/nebogeo/scheme-bricks

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#254

I like Scratch - my kid uses it and I worked briefly with the guy who made Blockly, the underlying visual programming toolkit - but the programming environment makes many things far too complicated with its singular focus on sprites. It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites tha…

Constraints are the entire point. Being forced to do things a crappy way is where many lessons are learned.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#255

I like Scratch - my kid uses it and I worked briefly with the guy who made Blockly, the underlying visual programming toolkit - but the programming environment makes many things far too complicated with its singular focus on sprites. It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. My 7yo was making a number guessing game, and to display a two-digit number we had to make two sprites tha…

I agree, my 7 year old is into maths at the moment and he found it easier to just use PHP to do basic maths. I sat down with him for about an hour and I printed a "cheat sheet" for the various arithmetic operators (just the basic ones) and he's now quite able to just whack a simple script together and execute it on the command line. Having said that, he wasn't entering the situation completely blind. He's been using…

I think there is great value in being able to write symbols with your own hand. It’s more powerful to us subconsciously to use extra muscles and see something which is distinctly recognisable as our own making. We are losing a lot of enactive cognition by being on screens in chairs; to societal detriment I would wager.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#258

At work we built a BI tool around Scratch (Blockly) back in 2013. It’s still seeing daily use: https://www.dialogic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/demo1.gif

Blockly is great. We were able to deploy it as an interface for managing complex business rule configuration files, for non-cs types.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#259
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I totally agree with you, on the other hand, a child's first introduction to programming should be easy , intuitive and powerful. What could be worse than an introduction to programming that puts a certain number of children off because it's not those things? Clearly alot of kids manage to drive it enough to their satisfaction, but the failings of Scratch must leave many children behind. I know my son gave Scr…

I have trouble understanding how another language is more intuitive than scratch, indeed you don't provide any examples of more child friendly languages, just that it didn't work for your son.... which could just be because your son doesn't wanna program.

I would like a physical version made of blocks that can be arranged rather than dragging boxes on the screen. Not another language as such but I suspect would be more intuitive.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes true for most people ( I am 13, Started programming in Java with 10 ) but some also do this other stuff. Like I installed ubports on my second phone today ( Writing this on it )

Never heard of ubports. Looks interesting. A 40 year old just learned something from a 13 year old. If this is how you're spending your free time, then you have a bright future ahead of you. Keep it up!

You should consider this interaction as an opportunity to also revisit your ageism. I'm all for encouraging young people, and OP seems a really bright 13 years old person, for sure. But try to keep condescension out of the way. As anybody with children can tell you, we all learn from them all the time. It's not something surprising.
Post reply on HN