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Scratch is a big deal

bryanbraun.com

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Re: Scratch is a big deal

#81

Post by djsrv »

yCombLinks wrote: post #73
falcor84 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. I suppose I might be missing something, but if you just care about displaying the number, rather than any particular styling, you can just show the variable, right?

Show the variable how? There's not a console, there's not a way to simply display a string or character. Scratch revolves around programming sprites to do things

Tick the checkbox next to the variable in the block palette. That creates a variable watcher on the stage. You can also right-click the watcher to change it to a large readout, displaying the variable contents within a minimal frame.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#82

Post by Snild »

yCombLinks wrote: post #73
falcor84 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very, very difficult to do things as simple as display a number on screen. I suppose I might be missing something, but if you just care about displaying the number, rather than any particular styling, you can just show the variable, right?

Show the variable how? There's not a console, there's not a way to simply display a string or character. Scratch revolves around programming sprites to do things

Every variable has a checkbox they makes it show on screen: https://en.scratch-wiki.info/wiki/File:Checkbox_to_show_or_h...

There is also a command block to show or hide it dynamically.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#83

Post by jeremyjh »

modernerd wrote: post #56

Is there a reason that visual programming languages haven’t taken off for professional programming? I know of several for specific fields (Dark for backends, TouchDesigner for live graphics/multimedia), but none that are more generalised, open, or in wide use. It feels like an underdeveloped area that’s ripe for exploration and experimentation.

It has seen a lot usage embedded in different tools but just isn’t a good fit for a general purpose language. It actually becomes much more difficult to manage as programs get larger. I’ve tried many of these tools over the past two decades and some are fine for what they are but none left me with hope or interest in seeing it replace the dominant paradigm in general.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#84

Post by CyberDildonics »

modernerd wrote: post #56

Is there a reason that visual programming languages haven’t taken off for professional programming? I know of several for specific fields (Dark for backends, TouchDesigner for live graphics/multimedia), but none that are more generalised, open, or in wide use. It feels like an underdeveloped area that’s ripe for exploration and experimentation.

It's a great question. TouchDesigner and similar programs have a limited number of data types even though touch designer does a great job at being a little more general than other programs. Also TouchDesigner and Houdini both have shader languages that allow someone to make nodes that do general purpose array transformations which ups their utility a lot.

One big aspect is handling state. Connecting nodes without side effects is great when each frame is a cycle and all you have to do is transform data into a final result. When actual state is involved it becomes hacky or impossible to do in with only transformations. Other similar hurdles are branching and IO.

The other is having general purpose programming underneath. Shader languages enable a lot, but using a real programming language like C++ somewhere not only opens the door to whatever you need, but allows you to integrate all the libraries already made as well as call out to OS IO APIs etc.

It is amazing though how nice it is to work with an integrated and fluid environment where iterations are updated in real time and errors are narrowed down for you, not to mention profiling broken down by node.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#85

Post by sdenton4 »

jonplackett wrote: post #38
jawns wrote: post #2

One of my earliest memories of writing code was playing Gorillas, a QBASIC game, on my school's PC in the early 90s. My friends and I would tweak the source code to make the gravity stronger or weaker, or make other interesting mods to the projectiles. For me, it was a perfect introduction, because there was an already written, already playable program, and I could dive into the code little by little and explore. Scr…

QBASIC was also my intro to programming. I think in a way it’s a shame that kids now first see visuals rather than code. There’s something much more thrilling about seeing a bunch of written instructions become a game, than some sprites that already look a lot like the game start moving about. Another awesome QBASIC feature - the help section taught you everything you ever needed to know to learn every feature.

Have you tried scratch? The blocks are written programming instructions, with some puzzle piece connectors which help avoid basic syntax errors. These instructions drive the sprites.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#86

Post by messe »

ryukafalz wrote: post #63
bckr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're an outlier for sure. Wii internals sounds very hard.

Minecraft is also slightly an outlier, I would say; its modding community has put a lot of work into making it easier for people to get started. It’s still a far cry from having a “view/edit source” button, though.

If I remember correctly the early days were painful as well, with it being necessary to manually unpack the jar file, and work with deobfuscated decompiled code. I'm not sure what the state of it is nowadays, but I hope its more pleasant.

My favourite game from a modding perspective is Kerbal Space Program. Just drop a Mono/.NET DLL into its GameData folder and you're good to go, and code completion works automatically during development as long as you have Squad's own DLLs in the right paths.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#87

Post by easrng »

djsrv wrote: post #81
yCombLinks wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show the variable how? There's not a console, there's not a way to simply display a string or character. Scratch revolves around programming sprites to do things

Tick the checkbox next to the variable in the block palette. That creates a variable watcher on the stage. You can also right-click the watcher to change it to a large readout, displaying the variable contents within a minimal frame.

Also if you get Scratch Addons (https://scratchaddons.com/) and enable the Debugger addon it adds a console and blocks to log to it.

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#89

Post by tartoran »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #78

My children did not like scratch (it is taught at school in France). They had much less problems to understand Python which seems more natural in the interactions (displaying things, especially). They are unfortunately not interested in programming but when they have to do something at school they catch up with Python quickly. With scratch not that much.

Python is a bit more advanced in the sense that it’s a more general purpose and you have to know how to type on the keyboard well enough. I started with basic and logo back in the 80s but if scratch were a thing back then I’d have probably benefitted from it quite a bit. I see scratch as a first ramp into programming for tots and am glad it exists but also hope it won’t become a thing to handicap adoption of other programming languages

Re: Scratch is a big deal

#90

Post by messe »

jeremyjh wrote: post #83
modernerd wrote: post #56

Is there a reason that visual programming languages haven’t taken off for professional programming? I know of several for specific fields (Dark for backends, TouchDesigner for live graphics/multimedia), but none that are more generalised, open, or in wide use. It feels like an underdeveloped area that’s ripe for exploration and experimentation.

It has seen a lot usage embedded in different tools but just isn’t a good fit for a general purpose language. It actually becomes much more difficult to manage as programs get larger. I’ve tried many of these tools over the past two decades and some are fine for what they are but none left me with hope or interest in seeing it replace the dominant paradigm in general.

I sometimes wonder if they could be useful for an OS shell, striking a balance between the extensibility of a text-based shell and the discoverability of GUIs. I mean, combined with search/autocompletion, they're really just a slightly more rigid and structured version of text snippets.
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