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I'll take any opportunity to ask HN what sort of "Hypercard" like options are out there to get kids into programming. I still have many memories of creating my

I'll take any opportunity to ask HN what sort of "Hypercard" like options are out there to get kids into programming. I still have many memories of creating my own "Choose Your Adventure" type game and having the other kids in my class be amazed at what I was able to create. It really stuck with me.

paleogizmo 6y ago
I'd probably say pygame which repl.it now has support for. It's pretty slick and works on a crappy school ChromeBook. For "regular" gui stuff I'd say PySimpleGUI (see my earlier comment above/below).
bjelkeman-again 6y ago
My neighbours kids use https://scratch.mit.edu/ https://scratch.mit.edu/
nickloewen 6y ago
Recently I've had great fun playing with MakeCode for the micro:bit, mostly programming this little robot: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4575 https://www.adafruit.com/product/4575 Also very fun is MakeCode Arcade, which makes it super easy create lo-fi sprite-based video games, which you can play in your browser or on a dedicated handheld console: https://arcade.makecode.com https://arcade.makecode.com Both work like Scratch, which is another great option. When I played with Scratch as a teenager, though, I remember being frustrated that it wasn't just designed to make programming easy, but also to "teach programming to kids"--which meant that it was easy to make games, but basically impossible to "take the training wheels off" and do more serious tasks, because there was no way to access the filesystem or the network or connect with any other software. That was almost ten years ago, so maybe this complaint is out of date--but it does get to what I like about the micro:bit, which is that it's super simple and fun to program, but still lets you make "real" things.
chriswarbo 6y ago
EToys is pretty nice http://www.squeakland.org http://www.squeakland.org It's similar to Scratch (both use drag and drop "blocks", both use Smalltalk, although I think Scratch has a JS version now). The nice thing about EToys is that it manipulates objects in a direct and live way, whereas Scratch separate the "code" from the "scene". For example, EToys lets us draw a character and attach script blocks to make it move and react; but we can also attach script blocks to those script blocks; and so on. I find this more powerful, and reduces the barrier for "graduating" from block-based programming to "real" programming (EToys lets us mix and match scripting blocks with real Smalltalk code).
ianbicking 6y ago
Scratch definitely gets the IDE aspect right: you can edit code, images, create and edit sounds, do layout, all in a sensible combined interface. Something like PySimpleGUI totally misses this point, and juggling different kinds of files will be too complicated for kids. What Scratch doesn't get right is the card aspect. It's like Hypercard with one card, and the patterns involved in making basic shifts from one mode to another, or one level to another, involve lots of global messages and setup code. It's really bad. Making a Choose Your Own Adventure program will be very hard! It's my biggest disappointment. https://arcade.makecode.com https://arcade.makecode.com is quite nice, but is more "program" like than Scratch, where I think Hypercard is more "document" like than Scratch... and so MakeCode isn't exactly a move in the right direction. MakeCode is better for games, but not good for things that aren't games. Scratch is also natural for making videos (Flash-reminiscent), documents, silly music players, etc.
qznc 6y ago
For CYA there are plenty of "interactive fiction" tools. They range in complexity from mere hyperlinking over simple state management to Turing complete programming. https://infinite-story.com/ https://infinite-story.com/ https://twinery.org/ https://twinery.org/ http://inform7.com/ http://inform7.com/ https://www.tads.org/ https://www.tads.org/
sssilver 6y ago
This may sound crazy, but my 7 year old daughter and I had the most fun with TIC-80 (https://tic80.com https://tic80.com) and Lua. She is very comfortable with the notion of writing a program that's later run, as well as the concept of variables. The only thing I wish TIC-80 had is an easy way to prompt user to input a string. This feature would be a game-changer for TIC-80 as a programming education platform.
jamesgeck0 6y ago
PICO-8 [1], a "fantasy video game console" might be good. It simulates something kinda like a C64, with Lua, tile and sound editors, etc. It's not as simple as Hypercard, but it comes with a number of examples and it's relatively easy to get something interesting moving around on the screen. 1. https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php It's inspired a number of similar projects such as TIC-8 and Pixel Vision 8.

paleogizmo 6y ago

I'd probably say pygame which repl.it now has support for. It's pretty slick and works on a crappy school ChromeBook. For "regular" gui stuff I'd say PySimpleGUI (see my earlier comment above/below).

bjelkeman-again 6y ago

My neighbours kids use https://scratch.mit.edu/ https://scratch.mit.edu/

nickloewen 6y ago

Recently I've had great fun playing with MakeCode for the micro:bit, mostly programming this little robot: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4575 https://www.adafruit.com/product/4575 Also very fun is MakeCode Arcade, which makes it super easy create lo-fi sprite-based video games, which you can play in your browser or on a dedicated handheld console: https://arcade.makecode.com https://arcade.makecode.com Both work like Scratch, which is another great option. When I played with Scratch as a teenager, though, I remember being frustrated that it wasn't just designed to make programming easy, but also to "teach programming to kids"--which meant that it was easy to make games, but basically impossible to "take the training wheels off" and do more serious tasks, because there was no way to access the filesystem or the network or connect with any other software. That was almost ten years ago, so maybe this complaint is out of date--but it does get to what I like about the micro:bit, which is that it's super simple and fun to program, but still lets you make "real" things.

chriswarbo 6y ago

EToys is pretty nice http://www.squeakland.org http://www.squeakland.org It's similar to Scratch (both use drag and drop "blocks", both use Smalltalk, although I think Scratch has a JS version now). The nice thing about EToys is that it manipulates objects in a direct and live way, whereas Scratch separate the "code" from the "scene". For example, EToys lets us draw a character and attach script blocks to make it move and react; but we can also attach script blocks to those script blocks; and so on. I find this more powerful, and reduces the barrier for "graduating" from block-based programming to "real" programming (EToys lets us mix and match scripting blocks with real Smalltalk code).

ianbicking 6y ago

Scratch definitely gets the IDE aspect right: you can edit code, images, create and edit sounds, do layout, all in a sensible combined interface. Something like PySimpleGUI totally misses this point, and juggling different kinds of files will be too complicated for kids. What Scratch doesn't get right is the card aspect. It's like Hypercard with one card, and the patterns involved in making basic shifts from one mode to another, or one level to another, involve lots of global messages and setup code. It's really bad. Making a Choose Your Own Adventure program will be very hard! It's my biggest disappointment. https://arcade.makecode.com https://arcade.makecode.com is quite nice, but is more "program" like than Scratch, where I think Hypercard is more "document" like than Scratch... and so MakeCode isn't exactly a move in the right direction. MakeCode is better for games, but not good for things that aren't games. Scratch is also natural for making videos (Flash-reminiscent), documents, silly music players, etc.

qznc 6y ago

For CYA there are plenty of "interactive fiction" tools. They range in complexity from mere hyperlinking over simple state management to Turing complete programming. https://infinite-story.com/ https://infinite-story.com/ https://twinery.org/ https://twinery.org/ http://inform7.com/ http://inform7.com/ https://www.tads.org/ https://www.tads.org/

sssilver 6y ago

This may sound crazy, but my 7 year old daughter and I had the most fun with TIC-80 (https://tic80.com https://tic80.com) and Lua. She is very comfortable with the notion of writing a program that's later run, as well as the concept of variables. The only thing I wish TIC-80 had is an easy way to prompt user to input a string. This feature would be a game-changer for TIC-80 as a programming education platform.

jamesgeck0 6y ago

PICO-8 [1], a "fantasy video game console" might be good. It simulates something kinda like a C64, with Lua, tile and sound editors, etc. It's not as simple as Hypercard, but it comes with a number of examples and it's relatively easy to get something interesting moving around on the screen. 1. https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php It's inspired a number of similar projects such as TIC-8 and Pixel Vision 8.