Omnimaga

General Discussion => Technology and Development => Computer Programming => Topic started by: Roboman on February 11, 2014, 05:08:23 pm

Title: Scratch Language
Post by: Roboman on February 11, 2014, 05:08:23 pm

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.  It is a programming language designed for teaching programming.
Read, don't ask.  http://scratch.mit.edu/about/ (http://scratch.mit.edu/about/)
I am working at becoming proficient at Scratch so I can teach it to kids for my Senior project service hours.
I have created several projects I am proud of, and would like to share with you :). The young, and novice users their site is flooded with does not make very good company.
This is me: http://scratch.mit.edu/users/RobomanDude/

I spent a lot of time on this particular project: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/16131798/

Teaching programming to a new generation just sounds so cool!  :w00t:

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: pimathbrainiac on February 11, 2014, 06:29:54 pm

I had to teach kids scratch at a robotics club fundraiser summer camp. It's cool to teach, but I hate drag-and-drop a lot (eg. Alice, Scratch, NXT, Labview (well, not really Labview...)). I think that teaching kids Processing is a bit better, since it resembles a "real" language (java/c++).

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: bb010g on February 11, 2014, 10:06:40 pm

If you're going to use Scratch, use BYOB/Snap (http://snap.berkeley.edu/) instead. It has first-class everything and you can make your own blocks (that can take parameters and return things and stuff).
Also, I think Lua (http://www.lua.org/) and LÖVE (https://love2d.org/) are a better system than Processing, as Lua's lightweight, used in the Real World, and much nicer to look at (IMHO).

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: Scipi on February 11, 2014, 11:10:24 pm

Processing is basically Java with a few bells and whistles. It's cool to work with though, and great for prototyping.

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: pimathbrainiac on February 12, 2014, 10:37:41 am

Not to mention the Arduino language is Processing but more like C than Java.

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: Keoni29 on February 12, 2014, 11:27:57 am

Quote from: pimathbrainiac on February 11, 2014, 06:29:54 pm

It's cool to teach, but I hate drag-and-drop a lot (eg. Alice, Scratch, NXT, Labview (well, not really Labview...)). I think that teaching kids Processing is a bit better, since it resembles a "real" language (java/c++).

I completely agree with that. For school we had to use labview for a project this semester. It was pure agony. It is just so hard to make changes to your program without messing up the flow and structure.

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: bb010g on February 16, 2014, 03:33:51 pm

I've used a bit of Labview for FRC, and it's weird. You have to make a new file for each VI (which makes no sense to me), the if block only allows one branch at a time, and control flow is funky and a bit too magical for my tastes.

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: epic7 on February 17, 2014, 08:56:23 pm

Yeah, my FRC team uses labview. I'd prefer to use a something else, but none of the mentors on the team know any other languages.

What do you mean by branching if statements?

Title: Re: Scratch Language
Post by: bb010g on February 18, 2014, 12:42:48 am

You can only view the true or false part (or branch) of an if (unless you use ternary, but that's less applicable).