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There are two things to untangle here: 1) Yes, agree that "blocks" editors are not terribly useful. I brought an Arduino redbot for my daughters (10 and 8) an

There are two things to untangle here: 1) Yes, agree that "blocks" editors are not terribly useful. I brought an Arduino redbot for my daughters (10 and 8) and after a couple of failed attempts at scratch-like programming, they actually found the C code immediately easier. This is so unintuitive! Ideas? 2) that the micro:bit is worse than the arduino; I don't think block programming or sourcecode has any bearing on the choice of board. The micro:bit seems a bit more powerful than an arduino, but not actually powerful enough to impress me. I really think that a much more powerful Raspberry-PI-style board but with decent robot handling would be infinitely better to getting kids hooked. It was a year ago now but my own disappointment with the redbot: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/136598180858/where-are-all-the-raspberry-pi-robots http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/136598180858/wher...

msravi 10y ago
Agreed. The good thing with the Arduino is that there is no OS to navigate - there are just 2 simple functions (setup and loop) where you put whatever you want to in, with some very simple intuitive functions (digitalWrite, analogWrite, ...). Compare that with what you need to do with the Pi for bare metal[1]. [1] http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bare-metal-programming-in-cpt1/ http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bar...
- willvarfar 10y ago
  A nice arduino-like "very simple intuitive functions" API ought be perfectly possible on a raspberry PI, and there ought be no need for bare metal programming of the PI to make that happen. When I blogged about how hard it was for me to find Raspberry PI robots in my country there was a discussion about it on proggit https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3zf04e/where_are_all_the_raspberry_pi_robots/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3zf04e/where_a... The crux seemed to be that nobody is doing real time kernels on the raspberry PI, and this is just a lack of software not an unsuitability of the hardware. I guess this just underlines that people have a £5 Zero and aren't scratching a "kids could learn to program by controlling robots with this!" itch?
tehbeard 10y ago
> This is so unintuitive! Ideas? Are they strong readers? Code as a narrative of what happens might be easier to grok for them than blocks which can have a spatial component to how they proved.
- willvarfar 10y ago
  No, they are not even native English speakers :) They started pointing and clicking on computers before they learned to read anyway: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-tech-savvy-generation http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-te... That was several years ago, and the intervening years they unlearned everything by focusing on the ipad youtube :(
  - e12e 10y ago
    I don't think it's all that unintuitive - I would prefer C to some graphical programming system. Think about it: if the gui programming system was any good it would be used in industry! Beyond the spreadsheet - I don't think we have any successful "graphical" programming systems. And spreadsheets are more of a "4gl" than graphical. Maybe add Hypercard. And Smalltalk (with the object browser etc). But the only real use of "graphical/iconographic" programming is for those that can't read and write. So, 6 years and down? That is, until someone makes a graphical system people will want to use at all ages and level of proficiency. Ok, I guess I can think of a few others: 3d studio max could be seen as a form of graphical programming. As could premier/final cut and flash. And rich manipulation of rich media to "render" new rich media (interactive or not). But notice that with the partial exception of flash we don't call this "graphical programming".
digi_owl 10y ago
Could be because they had watched you at work, and thus recognized things even if they didn't fully understand it.
Jach 10y ago
My idea: just another instance to use this quote. > Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish a sufficiently broad range of tasks. -- Bill Garrett Or maybe it's just that kids are smarter than we like to think and are especially good at noticing what's going on when we try and set up no-failure situations for them, they notice that we expect so little of them we even created this giant special drag-drop-the-blocks interface that we never actually use ourselves just for them and their simple minds. (I'm not a fan of spoon-fed educational substitutes...)

msravi 10y ago

Agreed. The good thing with the Arduino is that there is no OS to navigate - there are just 2 simple functions (setup and loop) where you put whatever you want to in, with some very simple intuitive functions (digitalWrite, analogWrite, ...). Compare that with what you need to do with the Pi for bare metal[1]. [1] http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bare-metal-programming-in-cpt1/ http://www.valvers.com/open-software/raspberry-pi/step01-bar...

willvarfar 10y ago
A nice arduino-like "very simple intuitive functions" API ought be perfectly possible on a raspberry PI, and there ought be no need for bare metal programming of the PI to make that happen. When I blogged about how hard it was for me to find Raspberry PI robots in my country there was a discussion about it on proggit https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3zf04e/where_are_all_the_raspberry_pi_robots/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3zf04e/where_a... The crux seemed to be that nobody is doing real time kernels on the raspberry PI, and this is just a lack of software not an unsuitability of the hardware. I guess this just underlines that people have a £5 Zero and aren't scratching a "kids could learn to program by controlling robots with this!" itch?

tehbeard 10y ago

> This is so unintuitive! Ideas? Are they strong readers? Code as a narrative of what happens might be easier to grok for them than blocks which can have a spatial component to how they proved.

willvarfar 10y ago
No, they are not even native English speakers :) They started pointing and clicking on computers before they learned to read anyway: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-tech-savvy-generation http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/19500788060/my-te... That was several years ago, and the intervening years they unlearned everything by focusing on the ipad youtube :(
- e12e 10y ago
  I don't think it's all that unintuitive - I would prefer C to some graphical programming system. Think about it: if the gui programming system was any good it would be used in industry! Beyond the spreadsheet - I don't think we have any successful "graphical" programming systems. And spreadsheets are more of a "4gl" than graphical. Maybe add Hypercard. And Smalltalk (with the object browser etc). But the only real use of "graphical/iconographic" programming is for those that can't read and write. So, 6 years and down? That is, until someone makes a graphical system people will want to use at all ages and level of proficiency. Ok, I guess I can think of a few others: 3d studio max could be seen as a form of graphical programming. As could premier/final cut and flash. And rich manipulation of rich media to "render" new rich media (interactive or not). But notice that with the partial exception of flash we don't call this "graphical programming".

digi_owl 10y ago

Could be because they had watched you at work, and thus recognized things even if they didn't fully understand it.

Jach 10y ago

My idea: just another instance to use this quote. > Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish a sufficiently broad range of tasks. -- Bill Garrett Or maybe it's just that kids are smarter than we like to think and are especially good at noticing what's going on when we try and set up no-failure situations for them, they notice that we expect so little of them we even created this giant special drag-drop-the-blocks interface that we never actually use ourselves just for them and their simple minds. (I'm not a fan of spoon-fed educational substitutes...)