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212 Comments
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+104maybe you learned C++ because you learned logo and basic. they were well documented gateway drugs to code addiction.
(i started with basic on a commodore 64.) - JhAgA, on 10/11/2007, -10/+52It is kinda old - Windows is made with it.
- orelses, on 10/11/2007, -2/+43Port this with AJAX so I can be a desired web designer again.
- Charlotte_Web, on 10/11/2007, -2/+41"This is programming in the same way paint by numbers is art."
You're right, it's not true programming, but it teaches programming concepts (like object-oriented coding) and helps kids to think in terms of a logical sequence of events and conditionals as they develop their own animation. It also helps them to explore programming to see if this is something that might interest them as a hobby or career choice that they can pursue further.
In a lot of ways, computer software for kids has stagnated. Ten or twenty years ago, software companies took a lot more chances with educational titles. Carmen Sandiego and SimCity were the last big breakout hits of the educational market, and those are pretty old now. Most of what passes for educational software these days seems very formulaic. - smspence, on 10/11/2007, -2/+30orelses,
Java and JavaScript are two different things. You want JavaScript. Just google it. There are millions of tutorials out there that can jump start you on JavaScript and AJAX, and are made for people who have no prior experience whatsoever. Again, do some google searching. Also w3schools.com is a good resource. Try these two links:
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/ajax/default.asp - kevyn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+23http://scratch.mit.edu/
link to the scratch homepage - amonroy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+22We are getting so much traffic from the BBC report that our server is crashing. You can check our old website here: http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/llk/scratch/
We also have a video on YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=ix6Hlt8xL3E - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -5/+25This is programming in the same way paint by numbers is art.
- Robotsu, on 10/11/2007, -1/+18@orelses, who said, "Port this with AJAX so I can be a desired web designer again."
This would actually be an amazing web development tool. Combine those editable/dragable blocks with a WYSIWYG editor style interface and you would have one slick program to pump out interactive pages. - johnhummel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16You know what I'd like to get my kids?
A Big Trac.
Most of you probably don't remember it, but Big Trac was this little tank with a number input. Using that, you could tell it "Forward X, rotate Y degrees, fire laser Z times", etc. I had that thing figured out with a routine that would take it down the hallway, shoot my Grandpa 10 times, then come back, accounting for the carpet (so you had to tell it "turn 62 degrees" to get a 45 degree turn, things like this.
It taught basic programming of an algorithm and sequence of instructions in its own little way, and if nothing else, it was a fun idea. I wonder if I can find one of those anywhere. Yeah, I know, there are the Lego Mindstorms and I'll get them when the kids are older (8, 5, and 2 right now), so Mindstorms might be a little beyond them, though I guess I should check that out as well. - burdalane, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18This sounds like a good way to introduce kids to programming. I wouldn't mind giving it a go myself.
- MioTheGreat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+14@orelses
Do you mean ASP.NET? If so, there is an AJAX.NET library from Microsoft.
Otherwise, what the ***** are you doing programming in old school ASP? - Pushkin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Also to teach your kid to be a nerd means you had enough social skills to aquire a kid - so what's the problem?
- junkyinny, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13doesnt anyone remember LOGO? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_programming_language
- cdtoad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11I learned COBOL using punch cards when I was a kid... you young whipper snappers don't know what it was like in the good old days.
- TheCheeta, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11Funny you ask that, because most geeks/nerds that were made fun of in school are earning well over the current average salary of their classmates. In addition, many of the "socially awkward" former kids are no longer awkward and have become socially adept. So, it might suck for the kid for a few years of school, but it definitely pays off in the end.
- Fordi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Because I'm a damned good programmer, will very soon be married to a very pretty girl, and make about twice the national average yearly doing *freelance* work - I.E. I have most of my life free to spend that money and love that girl.
Teach a boy to pimp, and he'll be happy for his adolescence. Teach a boy to geek, and he'll be hapy for the other part of his life. - OverloadUT, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11I think it's hardly fair to call this a programming language. I guess it is in a sense, but you can't make anything besides animations from the sound of it.
There was an old program I had when I was really young called "Klik & Play" - it was a fantastic way to get introduced to programming. It was very visual like Scratch is, but the whole thing was centered around making interactive games instead of barely interactive animations. At one point I even made a (barely functional) Bomberman clone in Klick & Play.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik_&_Play - Charlotte_Web, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10This is pretty exciting. I don't think schools don't teach much coding anymore, aside from maybe HTML, which is a shame. I think the conventional wisdom these days is to minimize the amount of time that kids spend on computers, it's become something akin to TV watching in people's minds.
I started off learning AppleSoft BASIC, back when every Apple system came with a BASIC interpreter. It was a big disappointment when the Mac didn't follow suit, but a few years later they came out with Hypercard, an awesome tool that never got a chance to realize its full potential. If Apple had popped in TCP/IP support in the early to mid-90's, added color support, and made the tool cross-platform, Hypercard might have beaten out Flash to become the predominant multimedia browser plug-in.
I remember when I was in college and taking some language classes, I built a stack that would quiz me on hundreds of vocabulary words as well as pronounce each one using the Mac Speech system file. Not bad for a Mac Classic in the early 90's. - smspence, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Fordi,
You are an idiot. orelses is obviously not going to know what the hell you are talking about. But, I hope you are really impressed with your own lengthy, technical comment... because no one else is. - ItsDrew, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Isn't this violating 632 Microsoft patents?
Microsoft should buy them out and integrate these features into the next Visual Studio release. - maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7I learned to program writing BASIC on a spectrum 64k with no tape drive. I couldn't save my programs so I just had to write them execute them then throw them away. It was a lesson in the impermanence of the everything (I'm thinking, like sand paintings). To add to the difficulty, if anyone came into my room without warning the door would pull the power cable out and I would lose everything.
- vrillco, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7The important thing about any "learning" language is that there has to be NO WAY to compile the code into standalone executable files. The problem we see with software is many people will learn the beginner's language, then stop learning and jump into the world of con$ulting with their baby tools, spreading horribly buggy code and amateur algorithms, and worst of all doesn't interop with anything else on the market.
Visual Basic was a very useless tool in its first incarnations. You could do simple interfaces but there was very little functionality in the language, as you were supposed to link to DLLs built in Visual C. When MS realized the world has more idiots than smart people, they proceeded to build up VB into a more complete development platform and now with VB.Net, it's quite rich and versatile though I still wouldn't use it for large projects, simply because it doesn't lend itself well to team development and modularization.
Besides, the world doesn't need more coders. We need more idea people... true CS graduates, not IT. There's a huge difference. Computer Science is about designing algorithms and solving complex problems. Information Technology is about fixing everyday computer issues whose solution is already known. CS is like an architect, IT is like the hammer-wielding meathead that actually builds the house. - ddrace, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9@orelses-
You're confusing Java with Javascript. They're two totally different things. (The J in AJAX stands for Javascript, not Java). If you want to get started learning Javascript, I would recommend this: http://www.w3schools.com/js/ - insovietrussia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Damn that stupid turtle. I said go in a spiral!
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Yeah, I had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get the printout from my COBOL lab. I still have some Hollerith cards I use for bookmarks.
- amonroy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Alternate download: http://web.media.mit.edu/~andresmh/tmp/
- amonroy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5We are getting slashdotted and digged at the same time. I put up a static page on http://scratch.mit.edu/ that should be working now. There are links there for downloads, documents and other things. Feel free to download and try the website later.
- DarkPrince11, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Hmm....seems reasonable...I myself started off with BASIC when I was 9 years old..this seems like well a more basic version of BASIC...
- imightbewrong, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4like scratch from cowboy bebop?
- t35t0r, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4those blocks that he is using look exactly like the blocks in this gui perl programming application called SProg: http://sprog.sourceforge.net/screenshots/images/01_assembly.png
- amonroy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4The site is still very slow. For download go to http://web.media.mit.edu/~andresmh/tmp
It would be great if someone could post the installers as bit torrents while we get the site back up.
Thanks on behalf of the Scratch team. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Bitch, you are so blocked.
- Billkamm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3CMU tried something like this called Alice (drag and drop programming). There have been all sorts of "easy" programming languages out there, but in my opinion isn't that what BASIC was invented for?
Let's teach our kids BASIC. That's what I learned to program when I was 7 years old. I think we just aren't giving our children enough credit for how smart they actually are. - elclipo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Same here. I started with BASIC back in the day. This seems interesting. My son would get a kick out of it.
- ezweave, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I should add that OO-ness is not a goal of the designers... instead they want to get kids to think algorithmically without having to learn a complex programming language. http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Emres/papers/scratch-proposal.pdf
- McLurker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I don't know to what extend this will introduce kids to coding. It's a way to make programs, but it doesn't seem to involve writing any code. It seems to be a way to introduce kids to using scratch.
- ArmchairAthlete, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Maybe it'll work better than smalltalk did with Alan Kay but I doubt it.
- NGliam, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I started 'programming' by learning ActionScript, which is the built in scripting language for Macromedia (and now Adobe) Flash. That isn't a programming language per se, but that led me to start learning HTML, JS & PHP and then also C++ and Java. ActionScript is really easy and fun, but the package is a bit costly - educational versions ftw ;P
I've seen a programming language called Kids Programming Language which was designed to help kids make games and stuff, so I tried it out and it's really stupid. I expect this to be the same, but I'm not the target audience so I guess I can't comment on it sufficiently. - fedak, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3I was cleaning out some old papers recently and I found a couple Family Computing, Nibble, and Compute mags from 83/84.
This is also exactly how I learned to program, countless hours of typing in programs from the hobbiest mags in the early 80's.
Nothing like typing in 3 pages of hex code and then trying to figure out what line you typo'd :) - edtruckell, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3i thought that was the idea behind LOGO, to teach the concepts to enable you to grasp BASIC.
- loquax, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Kick ASS! I've often thought that the next realm of programming needed to be purely visual-symbolic. One of the biggest issues people have with programming isn't the logic involved, its the syntax and encapsulation of ideas as objects, etc.
Also, this looks like a great tool for making machinima. All we need is a scratch 3d engine... I'm checking this out. - tvh2k, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3You don't happen to go to RIT, do you? So right, but typical IT vs CS argument.
- Angostura, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3If you are looking for Logo, there is an excellent freeware version available for the Mac from http://www.alancsmith.co.uk/. I highly recommend it, it was last updated last month.
- amonroy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Scratch is based on Squeak.
- Ryosen, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Because not all 6-year olds can grok C++?
- vulgrin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Bring back Family Computing magazine!
This was how I learned - pecking in 300 lines of basic code into my Apple II. They used to print out code listings for new games every month, and I'd painfully enter them all in, and once I'd played it a couple times, I'd set about modifying and changing the rules of the game. - Nateon, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3This is great stuff, computers are a very large part of our society and I think that it's a good thing for kids to learn programming. Learning programming helps me out way more than learning Spanish or French.
- rszrama, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Played with this for a couple hours last night. Came up with a simple "platformer" example:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/rszrama/3188
Feel free to read about the experience here:
http://ryan.grinhost.net/2007/scratch_programming_itch
My basic feeling is that this is a rebirth of Klik 'n Play, just a little prettier. It does teach programming concepts, which is cool, but it does it in such a stifling environment that it would've been discouraging to me or kept me from moving on. Kids can start in this but then transition into a real language where all of a sudden there aren't native graphics, interactive GUIs, or easy input handling. I can see this being good and bad, and hopefully it's an effective gateway for generating interest.
The main problem is the community site is going to be cluttered with crap, so good projects will be hard to find and most of it will be a waste of time to view.
It seems to still have some bugs and be under development. I don't diss them for all the press releases, but they should upgrade their server before calling the BBC next time. : P -
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