4 ms·

I want to see something that grows with you, and you can use it from childhood right up to the enterprise.

by jlebrech 10y ago

thearn4 10y ago
I feel like Python is the closest that we've come to this, though it is imperfect.
- e12e 10y ago
  Yeah, python is pretty great. But racket keeps on getting more and more interesting in my opinion, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up becoming a real cradle to grave system. Compared to python it still seems light on "industry" mind-share - but growing economic systems like python or ruby takes a lot of time.
analog31 10y ago
Having observed kids, including my own, it's unpredictable what will spark their interest, and it's good to have a few things to try. My kids both enjoyed Scratch for a while, before moving on to other things. In my view a benefit of Scratch is that teachers can learn it.
jamesmishra 10y ago
Scratch is not far off from growing with you. Back in 2013, I taught a 30-hour summer class for elementary and middle school students aimed at this. It was bout 20 hours of programming concepts in Scratch, and then 10 hours of transferring their learning of Scratch semantics into Python syntax. Most of the younger students in the class wanted to keep playing with Scratch, but the older ones intuitively understood they could go far with Python -- and that Scratch was a nice place to test/debug algorithms before implementing the "final" version in Python.
- jnicholasp 10y ago
  Do you still have any of your curriculum or class notes? My nephews are in elementary school, and I'm looking for programs that their school/after school organizations could easily adopt.
- jecel 10y ago
  Logo was supposed to have "a low floor and no ceiling" and while Scratch certainly lowered the barriers to entry (floor) considerably it has a very serious ceiling (limits to what can be done in it). An early graphical Logo called Boxer was much better in this regard and there are projects to extend Scratch. John Maloney, who was not mentioned in the article but was the key person to making Scratch happen is working on: https://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/GP_(programming_language) https://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/GP_(programming_language) One of the links on that page is to Snap! which was used to introduce programming at Berkeley. You can use it as a Scratch written in Javascript and so able to run in any web browser. The extensions are a bit clunky, but pretty interesting.

I want to see something that grows with you, and you can use it from childhood right up to the enterprise.

thearn4 10y ago

I feel like Python is the closest that we've come to this, though it is imperfect.

e12e 10y ago
Yeah, python is pretty great. But racket keeps on getting more and more interesting in my opinion, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up becoming a real cradle to grave system. Compared to python it still seems light on "industry" mind-share - but growing economic systems like python or ruby takes a lot of time.

analog31 10y ago

Having observed kids, including my own, it's unpredictable what will spark their interest, and it's good to have a few things to try. My kids both enjoyed Scratch for a while, before moving on to other things. In my view a benefit of Scratch is that teachers can learn it.

jamesmishra 10y ago

Scratch is not far off from growing with you. Back in 2013, I taught a 30-hour summer class for elementary and middle school students aimed at this. It was bout 20 hours of programming concepts in Scratch, and then 10 hours of transferring their learning of Scratch semantics into Python syntax. Most of the younger students in the class wanted to keep playing with Scratch, but the older ones intuitively understood they could go far with Python -- and that Scratch was a nice place to test/debug algorithms before implementing the "final" version in Python.

jnicholasp 10y ago
Do you still have any of your curriculum or class notes? My nephews are in elementary school, and I'm looking for programs that their school/after school organizations could easily adopt.
jecel 10y ago
Logo was supposed to have "a low floor and no ceiling" and while Scratch certainly lowered the barriers to entry (floor) considerably it has a very serious ceiling (limits to what can be done in it). An early graphical Logo called Boxer was much better in this regard and there are projects to extend Scratch. John Maloney, who was not mentioned in the article but was the key person to making Scratch happen is working on: https://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/GP_(programming_language) https://wiki.scratch.mit.edu/wiki/GP_(programming_language) One of the links on that page is to Snap! which was used to introduce programming at Berkeley. You can use it as a Scratch written in Javascript and so able to run in any web browser. The extensions are a bit clunky, but pretty interesting.