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Scratch is a big deal

bryanbraun.com

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Re: Scratch is a big deal

#301

Post by jecel »

antiterra wrote: post #238
jecel wrote: post #202

It is great that Scratch can be used as an introduction to programming, but that is not why it was created. It was part of the MIT MediaLab "Computer Clubhouse"[1] project where it would be used to enable a remix culture of cute animations and even simple games. Scratch's implementer, John Maloney, had already helped create a programming environment for kids called EToys[2] using Squeak Smalltalk, just as in the firs…

> that is not why it was created. It was part of the MIT MediaLab "Computer Clubhouse"[1] project > so it is just a matter of using the tools for what they were created to do. Ah yes, the vaunted historic MIT culture of 'using things for what they were created to do.'

I enjoy using stuff for things they were not created for. In my HN profile I claim to be a hacker in the old sense of the word, and this is a big part of old style hacking.

But I am not then surprised when it takes a lot more effort than using something that had been created for that would take. For example, in 1983 I wrote a fancy Logo implementation using TI99/4A Extended Basic. It was far more complicated than the implementation I wrote in C. But the Basic version actually ran while the C version was just on paper since I didn't have access to any computers with C at the time.

I think it is great that people end up doing in Scratch things that you would expect would need Python or something like that. But if some 5 line Python program becomes a monster in Scratch, that is to be expected. The opposite is also true: a 5 line Scratch program might take pages of Python to replicate.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#302

Post by liveoneggs »

ModernMech wrote: post #21

Scratch is great, but the problem is: where do kids go after scratch? Often they are transitioned directly to professional-grade languages and developer tools, which has the effect of turning what was once fun to something scary and frustrating. Many kids stop their PL development right then and there, writing it off as something “not for me”. I find this sad, as it means a lot of people who might otherwise benefit f…

This happened with my niece. She loved playing with scratch and took classes and then just got dropped at the end when her tutor got a regular job, she asked me how to use python for real and then immediately quit.

She learned scratch and was told it was "coding". This was a massive lie.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#303

Post by fennecfoxy »

mbrodersen wrote: post #283
sfjailbird wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's different. You were learning from first principles, using the lowest level primitives, and how putting them together made it possible to do an almost infinite number of things. That is powerful and intoxicating. With Scratch you are given a limited set of blocks that are designed for a limited set of solutions. It is at the same time not particularly powerful nor does it feel like you can grow your solutions t…

Yep I agree. I don’t think learning Scratch is a good way to learn programming. The intentions are good but IMHO misguided. Scratch is too “abstracted away” from what is really going on. Learning about the lowest possible abstraction (machine code) made it easy for me to understand everything else in programming. And the humble BASIC programming language taught a whole generation of kids how to program. So I think it…

Scratch is great for learning programming for kids/people who it doesn't come naturally to.

Natural developers like myself and plenty of others spent our childhoods hunched over a zx81/spectrum/commodore/whatever because we thought it was _cool_.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#304

Post by abrax3141 »

It is impossible to do anything substantial in Scratch because it does not have text-based representation, and so cannot be comprehended by programming tools which are critical to modern programming (or even just programmers). If it had a comprehensible ETL language, it might be possible to use for significant engineering, but the current export format is just a JSON morass, worst in some ways than byte code. As usual with ETL hacking of a primarily graphical representation, there could be significant issues where the VUI is unable to represent changes made "behind its back"...all of which is to say, forget it.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#305

Post by bryanbraun »

piceas wrote: post #259
vxNsr wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This reminds me of Code-a-piller. It's a toy designed for pre-schoolers, so definitely not a full language, but it's physical and lets you sequence basic instructions in an intuitive way. More here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYEKD1Befg8

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#306

Post by dkmn »

Observations:

- among many thoughtful comments, a search for "fun" yields mostly comments about functions and expressivity; I think this is a key aspect that isn't as apparent to many experienced people here. The fond recollections of ZX80/81's captures some of that idea, though.

- Scratch is blessedly non-commercial and immensely approachable. It's educational mission is not top-down, but bottom-up.

- The mix of 3GL expressivity with enough constraint to get a person started is great. Kind of reminds me of the generativity I see in kids playing Minecraft.

- The pure old-schoolness of it all keeps you from being mugged in a dark semantic alley by a gang of monad-botherers.

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