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> 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: > Undergradu

> 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.

DonHopkins 3y ago
You're moving the goalposts. You said "custom-made visual programming kit" not "custom-made functions in a visual programming language". It's strange that you would object to writing "custom made" functions in a visual programming language, while you seem just fine with writing functions in JavaScript. Why are "custom made JavaScript functions" ok but "custom made Snap! blocks" aren't? It sounds to me like you originally misunderstood that Snap! has already existed for many years, and that you could "build your own blocks" with it (which was its original name: BYOB), and mistakenly thought the teachers wrote their own entire block based visual programming language just to generate html. And now you're trying to move the goalposts when it's clear that simply isn't true, because Snap! and the other block and text based programming languages that inspired (like Scratch, Logo, and Scheme) have decades of experience and widespread use in education. And you're also totally missing the point that this is about a multidisciplinary university, not a trade school for pumping out code monkeys and search engine optimization "experts".

DonHopkins 3y ago

You're moving the goalposts. You said "custom-made visual programming kit" not "custom-made functions in a visual programming language". It's strange that you would object to writing "custom made" functions in a visual programming language, while you seem just fine with writing functions in JavaScript. Why are "custom made JavaScript functions" ok but "custom made Snap! blocks" aren't? It sounds to me like you originally misunderstood that Snap! has already existed for many years, and that you could "build your own blocks" with it (which was its original name: BYOB), and mistakenly thought the teachers wrote their own entire block based visual programming language just to generate html. And now you're trying to move the goalposts when it's clear that simply isn't true, because Snap! and the other block and text based programming languages that inspired (like Scratch, Logo, and Scheme) have decades of experience and widespread use in education. And you're also totally missing the point that this is about a multidisciplinary university, not a trade school for pumping out code monkeys and search engine optimization "experts".