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Context: These visual programming tools were not in fact available but had to be custom-made. EDIT: This is what custom-made refers to: > Undergraduate Fuchun

Context: These visual programming tools were not in fact available but had to be custom-made. EDIT: This is what custom-made refers to: > Undergraduate Fuchun Wang created a great set of blocks explicitly designed to look like SQL for manipulating CSV files. We used these blocks to talk about queries and database design in the class. If you want to learn something, you need lots of examples. You have that with javascript and SQL, and today you even have ChatGPT. If you want to deploy websites you need something well-supported.

DonHopkins 3y ago
Snap! is hardly a "custom made" visual programming language -- version 9 was just released, it's been widely available for many years, many people and schools are using it, many papers have been written about it, there are many extension packages and forks for network, game, AI, and embedded device programming, even controlling embroidery machines and robots, and much thought and experimentation and learning from experience in the real world of college and high school classrooms has gone into it: https://forum.snap.berkeley.edu/t/whats-new-in-snap-9/14534 https://forum.snap.berkeley.edu/t/whats-new-in-snap-9/14534 I've been writing about Snap! on Hacker News for years, including just recently, comparing it to Logo and Scheme and Scratch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755852 Here's the discussion of Version 5 from four years ago, and it's come a long way since then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309162 There's a whole book of computer science curriculum that's being taught at UCB and many other high schools and universities: https://snap.berkeley.edu/bjc https://snap.berkeley.edu/bjc >The Beauty and Joy of Computing >The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) is an introductory computer science curriculum using Snap!, developed at the University of California, Berkeley and Education Development Center, Inc., intended for non-CS majors at the high school junior through undergraduate freshman level. It is a College Board-endorsed AP CS Principles course. It is offered as CS10 at Berkeley. Your mischaracterization of Snap! as "not in fact available but had to be custom-made" is only true in the narrowest sense that every programming language, including JavaScript and SQL, were once not in fact available but had to be custom made.
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  This is the custom-made part: > Undergraduate Fuchun Wang created a great set of blocks explicitly designed to look like SQL for manipulating CSV files. We used these blocks to talk about queries and database design in the class.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    So is writing a JavaScript function or library the "custom-made" part of developing a web application? What's wrong with that? >If you want to deploy websites you need something well-supported. That's not what Paul Graham believes. https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt

DonHopkins 3y ago

Snap! is hardly a "custom made" visual programming language -- version 9 was just released, it's been widely available for many years, many people and schools are using it, many papers have been written about it, there are many extension packages and forks for network, game, AI, and embedded device programming, even controlling embroidery machines and robots, and much thought and experimentation and learning from experience in the real world of college and high school classrooms has gone into it: https://forum.snap.berkeley.edu/t/whats-new-in-snap-9/14534 https://forum.snap.berkeley.edu/t/whats-new-in-snap-9/14534 I've been writing about Snap! on Hacker News for years, including just recently, comparing it to Logo and Scheme and Scratch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755852 Here's the discussion of Version 5 from four years ago, and it's come a long way since then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309162 There's a whole book of computer science curriculum that's being taught at UCB and many other high schools and universities: https://snap.berkeley.edu/bjc https://snap.berkeley.edu/bjc >The Beauty and Joy of Computing >The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC) is an introductory computer science curriculum using Snap!, developed at the University of California, Berkeley and Education Development Center, Inc., intended for non-CS majors at the high school junior through undergraduate freshman level. It is a College Board-endorsed AP CS Principles course. It is offered as CS10 at Berkeley. Your mischaracterization of Snap! as "not in fact available but had to be custom-made" is only true in the narrowest sense that every programming language, including JavaScript and SQL, were once not in fact available but had to be custom made.

amadeuspagel 3y ago
This is the custom-made part: > Undergraduate Fuchun Wang created a great set of blocks explicitly designed to look like SQL for manipulating CSV files. We used these blocks to talk about queries and database design in the class.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  So is writing a JavaScript function or library the "custom-made" part of developing a web application? What's wrong with that? >If you want to deploy websites you need something well-supported. That's not what Paul Graham believes. https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt