
Scratch Helps Kids Get With the Program - robg
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/scratch-helps-kids-get-with-the-program/
======
jasongullickson
I turned my daughter on to this at age 4 and within an hour she had figured
out loops, variable and collision detection. I'm particularly impressed with
the way they modeled loops, which is always a hard thing to explain to new
developers.

The only problem we had to do with the amount of screen real estate needed,
she had a 12" iBook with a 1024x768 display and it was almost unusably
cramped. On modern machines, I'm sure it would be no problem.

The great thing about Squeak is it lets you do some cool stuff first and learn
the hard stuff later, once you've built up some momentum without throwing away
the principles common to almost all software development platforms.

~~~
andresmh
Version 1.4 will be able to fit better in smaller screens, such as netbooks or
older computers.

~~~
jasongullickson
That is great news. I considered getting her an OLPC to replace the Mac but
this particular limitation made me pause.

------
andresmh
I'm part of the Scratch Team and it's great to see our project here on HN!
I've been leading the development of the web site and I'd be curious if there
are any HN volunteers who might be interested in contributing their expertise
in this effort. We're particularly interested in people with experience in
scaling up web applications or Linux experts that could help us iron out some
of the issues we have with Scratch on that platform (Ubuntu specifically).

~~~
utefan001
andresmh, I don't see any contact info when I click on your username. Can you
put your email address there?

~~~
andresmh
all set :)

------
spoondan
If I had to pick just one thing that Scratch gets right that other programming
languages should strive for, it would be the immediacy with which a beginning
programmer can get compelling results through trying things. I've seen many
would-be programmers lose interest because the process to get a desired result
is too abstract and prolonged; the inertia is too great. The ability to get
results quickly reinforces further exploration of the system. Novices can
build up to an understanding of data structures, algorithms, and how to
structure code.

------
krupap
See also Alice, a Java-based collaboration between CMU and Sun Microsystems
(<http://www.alice.org>).

------
danteembermage
There are some grown-ups who play with scratch too; on the project page they
have a numerical procedure for speeding up the built in functions like square
root and sin to implement collisions off round objects.

~~~
andresmh
You're right, there's a good number of adults. Check out the age distribution
chart at <http://blog.scratch.mit.edu/2009/01/now-blogging.html>

