djdolphin wrote:

Scratch “Advanced Mode”: For when you don't want to look like a stinky 6th grader

You forgot the spinning random 3D models, rapidly scrolling console output, and a “hacking” progress bar

djdolphin wrote:

scratchisthebest wrote:

I do remember making the Scratch window as small as I possibly could and/or sitting up close to the computer screen so people couldn't see my screen in the computer lab when I was making a Scratch project. It looked like it was for “little kids”, and I, as an upstanding BIG GROWN UP 7th grader, was certainly not one of those stinky 6th graders. (Of course once I got into list shenanigans, or rendered some cool pen stuff onto the stage, screen size went right back up. Go figure.)

Scratch “Advanced Mode”: For when you don't want to look like a stinky 6th grader

…I think this might be a little much for me…

bobbybee wrote:

…I think this might be a little much for me…

Of course! I think it's hilarious though I kinda want someone to add that to scratchblocks as an easter egg…

The contrast is all wrong, of course, because the scratch colours are designed to sit behind white. (This is why tosh has a white background, not a black background—although some of the colours are slightly modified from Scratch to make them easier to distinguish.)

Being completely honest, if “Advanced Mode” became an actual mod or custom build of Scratch, I would not be surprised if a demand would be.

That article applies to me to some extent. When I first started Scratch, it seemed like some simple programming jig for kids in elementary school as an intro to programming. Now, I do Scratch all the time, doing complex pen based projects that implement real science.

Just get those kids to look at some of griffpatch's or some complex 3d projects and they'll see. Hehe

AiyanMind wrote:

That article applies to me to some extent. When I first started Scratch, it seemed like some simple programming jig for kids in elementary school as an intro to programming. Now, I do Scratch all the time, doing complex pen based projects that implement real science.

Just get those kids to look at some of griffpatch's or some complex 3d projects and they'll see. Hehe

Well, Scratch definitely brings back some of the challenge of 1970's programming with inadequate underpowered machines :-)

Also I like it for the easy access to graphics.

But what I didn't expect was that the biggest draw is the shared online hosting and community that lets people see what everyone is working on and discuss their programming problems. That makes up for a lot of the technical limitations of the language.

gtoal wrote:

Well, Scratch definitely brings back some of the challenge of 1970's programming with inadequate underpowered machines :-)

Yep, it seems that the Scratch 2.0 interpreter can do ~1 million simple operations per second; less with nested blocks due to an exponential time bug.

But what I didn't expect was that the biggest draw is the shared online hosting and community that lets people see what everyone is working on and discuss their programming problems. That makes up for a lot of the technical limitations of the language.

*opens ideas.txt*

People don't go into a course with a full understanding of everything they expect to learn. Of course they don't - that defeats the purpose of the course.

If a student is going into a trig class, they think, "I'm going to learn trig.“ They don't think, ”I'm going to learn what sin(), cos(), and tan() are, and how they relate to the angles and sides in a triangle.“

If a student is going into a programming class, they think, ”I'm going to learn coding. They don't think, “I'm going to learn about loops, variables, booleans, lists, etc.”

Scratch tries to teach programming concepts in an easy environment. But people don't go into a programming course looking for those concepts. They look for coding. And Scratch doesn't feel like coding to them.

6yh- wrote:

ScratchMan544 wrote:

Scratch tries to teach programming concepts in an easy environment.

Scratch barely teaches any programming concepts. Scratch has no lambdas (or even named functions), no objects, not even arrays or first class lists.

it teaches the basics pretty well though - variables, loops, flow control, etc

This was an interesting research paper on (bad) habits that may be formed while using Scratch. I personally think the ‘forever if’ block should be removed and maybe the repeat-until block too just to minimize the “extremely fine grained programming” habits. I found the high-concurrency problem was actually quite beneficial for me because I can debug programs that my senior developers can't (or at least I can debug it faster) because I have a good sense of timing issues.

Scratch's strongest points are that it's user friendly and teaches programming logic very well. But that also depends on if the student is challenging themselves or not. Challenging themselves meaning creating more technically complicated projects (360 degree scrolling, for example, taught me the basics of trigonometry.. kind of). Cause if they don't run into challenges where they have to correct some of their coding habits in order to improve the program, then of course they are going to continue with those habits. I've noticed that most projects recently have been art based projects which isn't programming.

What really bugs me is when Scratchers don't use the “Clean Up” feature.

Magnie wrote:

What really bugs me is when Scratchers don't use the “Clean Up” feature.

I hate the Clean Up personally, I can't find my scripts after.

Magnie wrote:

I found the high-concurrency problem was actually quite beneficial for me because I can debug programs that my senior developers can't (or at least I can debug it faster) because I have a good sense of timing issues.

Do you program entirely in JS?
Scratch's single-threaded model doesn't really compare at all to concurrency in most languages.

Magnie wrote:

I personally think the ‘forever if’ block should be removed.

It sounds like you're yet to take a good, long look at Scratch 2.0.

Magnie wrote:

But that also depends on if the student is challenging themselves or not.

This is an excellent point. I never had trouble finding challenges in Scratch because I always had new and interesting ideas. It seems that different people have different approaches to learning. I've always been one to ask a lot of new questions about things I'm interested in. Perhaps people who can't find challenges in Scratch aren't really cut out for a career in programming (in the same way that I struggle to find anything interesting about painting or singing). Many “forward-thinking” individuals believe that programming is the future for everyone, but it's important to remember that different people have different interests. This is the only issue I have with your post above: Art projects are great because it allows users to share their own talents (creating artwork) in the same great community as the rest of us.

Magnie wrote:

What really bugs me is when Scratchers don't use the “Clean Up” feature.

Preach.

Firedrake969 wrote:

6yh- wrote:

ScratchMan544 wrote:

Scratch tries to teach programming concepts in an easy environment.

Scratch barely teaches any programming concepts. Scratch has no lambdas (or even named functions), no objects, not even arrays or first class lists.

it teaches the basics pretty well though - variables, loops, flow control, etc

Loops and flow control aren't “the basics” But you're kinda right, Scratch is a good introduction to sequential programming.

Jonathan50 wrote:

Loops and flow control aren't “the basics”

?

Ceo_ wrote:

Magnie wrote:

What really bugs me is when Scratchers don't use the “Clean Up” feature.

I hate the Clean Up personally, I can't find my scripts after.

Well, so long as you use it often you tend to know where your scripts are going. Then again, Scratch 2.0 is a little different in the way it organizes scripts. But everyone has their own preferences. I'm mostly complaining about people who don't organize their scripts and they are overlapping with each other. It makes it hard to learn from their scripts.

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Magnie wrote:

I found the high-concurrency problem was actually quite beneficial for me because I can debug programs that my senior developers can't (or at least I can debug it faster) because I have a good sense of timing issues.

Do you program entirely in JS?
Scratch's single-threaded model doesn't really compare at all to concurrency in most languages.

Professionally I do and in the past I've also worked in PHP (but I'm not a fan of it, but it was a paying job). My favorite language is Python. And yes, they are all dynamic languages.

PullJosh wrote:

Magnie wrote:

I personally think the ‘forever if’ block should be removed.

It sounds like you're yet to take a good, long look at Scratch 2.0.

Haha, yeah. I stopped using Scratch a while ago. But I guess even when using Scratch 2.0 when it first came out, I didn't notice it missing cause I never used it. I should have double-checked that.

Magnie wrote:

But that also depends on if the student is challenging themselves or not.

This is an excellent point. I never had trouble finding challenges in Scratch because I always had new and interesting ideas. It seems that different people have different approaches to learning. I've always been one to ask a lot of new questions about things I'm interested in. Perhaps people who can't find challenges in Scratch aren't really cut out for a career in programming (in the same way that I struggle to find anything interesting about painting or singing). Many “forward-thinking” individuals believe that programming is the future for everyone, but it's important to remember that different people have different interests.

I definitely agree with this. Everyone is different. Unless they show interest in programming I don't encourage them to learn it, because it's not for everyone.

This is the only issue I have with your post above: Art projects are great because it allows users to share their own talents (creating artwork) in the same great community as the rest of us.

Yeah, you are right. I just wish there were more games and creative ideas on Scratch than artwork. I know that Scratch completely supports art based project, but Scratch is meant to teach programming, isn't it? Just a pet-peeve and a little bit why I've stopped using Scratch.

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Jonathan50 wrote:

Loops and flow control aren't “the basics”

?

?++

Magnie wrote:

This is the only issue I have with your post above: Art projects are great because it allows users to share their own talents (creating artwork) in the same great community as the rest of us.

Yeah, you are right. I just wish there were more games and creative ideas on Scratch than artwork. I know that Scratch completely supports art based project, but Scratch is meant to teach programming, isn't it? Just a pet-peeve and a little bit why I've stopped using Scratch.

Artwork is often creative. The goal of Scratch is to be a way to start learning programming, but that doesn't mean it's only meant to be used for that… and is that really a reason to stop using Scratch?

Firedrake969 wrote:

Magnie wrote:

This is the only issue I have with your post above: Art projects are great because it allows users to share their own talents (creating artwork) in the same great community as the rest of us.

Yeah, you are right. I just wish there were more games and creative ideas on Scratch than artwork. I know that Scratch completely supports art based project, but Scratch is meant to teach programming, isn't it? Just a pet-peeve and a little bit why I've stopped using Scratch.

Artwork is often creative. The goal of Scratch is to be a way to start learning programming, but that doesn't mean it's only meant to be used for that… and is that really a reason to stop using Scratch?

I said a little bit. It's just my opinion. I actually tell people that Scratch has the best ‘basic’ art editor I've seen (compared to Paint or something). Which is actually an advantage Scratch has. Combine that with the ability to share and you have an amazingly interactive community. Sorry, I didn't mean to make this a debate on art and its relevance to Scratch and programming, but to tie this back to the original post/discussion and to look at it in a different way: Maybe art is a contributing factor to making it look childish and the “marketing problem” that Scratch has? What makes Scratch different from something like Stencyl (http://www.stencyl.com/) that could be perceived as more “professional” and “less childish”?

My first impression was that Stencyl's UI seems to have more buttons based on the screenshot on the front page