I think it depends on age, motivation and a few other factors. Scratch being embedded in an environment with graphics and sound provides motivation, reward a

I think it depends on age, motivation and a few other factors. Scratch being embedded in an environment with graphics and sound provides motivation, reward and problems to solve that are relatable and interesting to many children e.g. "how do I get the monkey to chase the rabbit". The block "affordances" mean kids can get to the part where they make things without needing to learn any formal syntax. A lot of young children who are not ready to reason about syntax can nonetheless handle the ideas of events, conditionals etc. Many young children have difficulty with the motor control required to use a mouse (mostly mitigated on tablets / touch screens). However, many adults also underestimate is how much "implicit" knowledge is involved in using a text editor. I think anyone who tries to teach something "new" to kids will understand the experience of having it not go as planned. Scratch looks weird partly because it's the result of people doing actual "user testing" with kids.