3 ms·

You're wildly mischaracterizing and misunderstanding where the people who developed and inspired Snap! are coming from, and what their background and experience

You're wildly mischaracterizing and misunderstanding where the people who developed and inspired Snap! are coming from, and what their background and experience in teaching computer science and other subjects to kids and college students really is. If you'll please take the time to read some of the things they've written, especially the The Beauty and Joy of Computing, and the long history of Scratch and Logo and Scheme that led to and inspired the development of Snap!, you'd probably find that you agree with a lot of things they say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Harvey_(lecturer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Harvey_(lecturer) https://bjc.berkeley.edu/team/snap/ https://bjc.berkeley.edu/team/snap/ https://snap.berkeley.edu/research https://snap.berkeley.edu/research https://www.snapcon.org/users/5 https://www.snapcon.org/users/5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Solomon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Solomon https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755836 Seymour Papert, introducing "The Turtle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V_OPfmbbCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V_OPfmbbCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTO-Ruby-Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTO-Ruby-Uo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlRGe5QGhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlRGe5QGhs Also thanks to Lars Brinkhoff's research: Here's a video uploaded by Cynthia Solomon. Seems legit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kMzrDr4jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kMzrDr4jQ Definitely check out the rest of Cynthia Solomon's youtube video treasure trove, with lots of great stuff by Marvin and Margaret Minsky, Seymour Papert, and others from MIT and Atari Cambridge Research: https://www.youtube.com/user/cynthiaso/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/cynthiaso/videos Seymour Papert on Logo, Turtles and Giraffes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maDzjHIiXZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maDzjHIiXZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDyym_9-E-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDyym_9-E-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha8sTgtUejM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha8sTgtUejM A gestural programming system developed by Margaret Minsky, Danny Hillis, Daniel Huttenlocher, David Wallace (Gumby), and Radia Perlman at the MIT-AI Lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wq6SQTVM9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wq6SQTVM9M Marvin Minsky demonstrating a Logo Machine with an acoustic modem and cassette tape, talking about education theory, and showing a part of his first "thinking" machine: a simulated nerve synapse (1 of 40) with an adjustable knob that he built in 1951 out of WW-II surplus hardware, and discussing playing with Tinker Toys as a child: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kMzrDr4jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4kMzrDr4jQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S72xF3gd-mI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S72xF3gd-mI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZRQQl8mA0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZRQQl8mA0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfKRNHRyD64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfKRNHRyD64 David Levitt demonstrating his musical improvisation software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocwsVkqEKys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocwsVkqEKys List of Logo memos from MIT AI Lab: https://github.com/pdp11/sits/wiki/List-of-Logo-memos https://github.com/pdp11/sits/wiki/List-of-Logo-memos Brian Harvey’s Personal Narrative on Snap!: Scheme Disguised as Scratch https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1623m1p3 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1623m1p3 >In 2009, the University of California, Berkeley, was one of several universities developing a new kind of introductory computer science course, meant for non-CS majors, to include aspects of the social implications of computing along with the programming content. Scratch wasn’t quite expressive enough to support such a course (it lacked the ability to write recursive functions), soProf. Daniel Garcia and I thought “What’s the smallest change we could make to Scratch to make it usable in our course?” After 20 years teaching Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs [Abelson et al.1984], the best computer science text ever written, I knew that the answer to “what’s the smallest change” is generally “add lambda.” I joined forces with German programmer Jens Mönig, who had developed BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), an extension to Scratch with custom (user-defined) blocks, including reporters and predicates. [...]

amadeuspagel 3y ago
I'm not criticising snap, I only question whether it's a good way to make websites.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  What do you mean by characterizing Snap! and its HTML extensions as a "custom-made visual programming kit"? How is it "custom-made", and what's wrong with that? The HTML extensions to Snap! are essentially just block based macros. Are Lisp macros a "custom-made domain specific language", therefore it's bad to make websites with Lisp if you use macros because they're "custom-made"? Paul Graham would probably disagree. What's wrong with using "any language you want", what's so "custom-made" about Snap!, and why is that a problem? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=606619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=606619 https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt Lisp in Web-Based Applications Paul Graham (This is an excerpt of a talk given at BBN Labs in Cambridge, MA, in April 2001.) Any Language You Want One of the reasons to use Lisp in writing Web-based applications is that you can use Lisp. When you're writing software that is only going to run on your own servers, you can use whatever language you want. [...]
  - amadeuspagel 3y ago
    > What do you mean by characterizing Snap! and its HTML extensions as a "custom-made visual programming kit"? This is what I mean by custom-made: > 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. To me the fact that someone had to create this for this class indicates that this is not a common and well-supported way to build database-backed websites. > Are Lisp macros a "custom-made domain specific language", therefore it's bad to make websites with Lisp if you use macros because they're "custom-made"? I'm not saying that making websites with any tech is bad, but I think students should learn how to make websites using standard tech. And that's how I understood the goal here: My students build websites. And maybe a freelance web developer would be a better teacher then a CS professor.

amadeuspagel 3y ago

I'm not criticising snap, I only question whether it's a good way to make websites.

DonHopkins 3y ago
What do you mean by characterizing Snap! and its HTML extensions as a "custom-made visual programming kit"? How is it "custom-made", and what's wrong with that? The HTML extensions to Snap! are essentially just block based macros. Are Lisp macros a "custom-made domain specific language", therefore it's bad to make websites with Lisp if you use macros because they're "custom-made"? Paul Graham would probably disagree. What's wrong with using "any language you want", what's so "custom-made" about Snap!, and why is that a problem? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=606619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=606619 https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt https://ep.turbifycdn.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt Lisp in Web-Based Applications Paul Graham (This is an excerpt of a talk given at BBN Labs in Cambridge, MA, in April 2001.) Any Language You Want One of the reasons to use Lisp in writing Web-based applications is that you can use Lisp. When you're writing software that is only going to run on your own servers, you can use whatever language you want. [...]
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  > What do you mean by characterizing Snap! and its HTML extensions as a "custom-made visual programming kit"? This is what I mean by custom-made: > 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. To me the fact that someone had to create this for this class indicates that this is not a common and well-supported way to build database-backed websites. > Are Lisp macros a "custom-made domain specific language", therefore it's bad to make websites with Lisp if you use macros because they're "custom-made"? I'm not saying that making websites with any tech is bad, but I think students should learn how to make websites using standard tech. And that's how I understood the goal here: My students build websites. And maybe a freelance web developer would be a better teacher then a CS professor.