SCRATCH : An excellent tool for learning the basics of programming

General Discussions
#1

I encourage every one to look & try for fun this project :

I found it fun and very interresting to help people understand basics of programming

You program just using the mouse and can publish your project via Java Applet

(a JGO contest for fun on this tool may be very fun ^^)

#2

Count me in! Looks very user friendly.

#3

It looks like an interesting concept, might have to check this out at some point :stuck_out_tongue:

#4

If you like visual design like Scratch, you should check out Unreal’s Kismet. Scratch is kind of basic, and the puzzle shapes are hardwired for simple control flow constructs you get in any other language.

#5

Scratch is for learning basics and IMO really well done for kids and to help people understand, a fast look let me think that Unreal’s Kismet look a bit complex ans less user friendly

(nb: we used sracth for a young trainee (13/14) in our company and in less than one day without having any knowlege in programming he was able to nearly produce a litte game and start to understand basics of programming)

#6

Alice is also a tool for learning the basics of OOP, by designing animated movies and games.
We use it in a gaming class I’m taking, and I’m not a great fan of it.

I guess if you don’t know anything about OOP it could be useful, but it’s also very limited and terms of actual programming (obviously).

#7

I have heard this tool before, and it reminds me to Game Maker. Good tool for learn basic.

#8

I actually had to use Scratch in a college class my first semester. I found it pretty useful for learning the basics but don’t expect to do anything too exciting with it. I believe my university uses it in a tutor program to teach third graders the basics of programming.

#9

[quote]I found it pretty useful for learning the basics but don’t expect to do anything too exciting with it
[/quote]
yes sure, It is not really what it is intended to do, I am more looking at this soft like a game rather than a program IDE, I found it fun to manage to get something interresting from it that’s why I was saying it may be fun for a contest (with this soft as the constraint of the contest)

#10

I adopted the Scratch interface for Stencyl a while back. It took a lot of iteration to adapt it for games, and we’re still learning and refining the approach a few years later…

#11

wow stencyl looks very nice

#12

Thanks!

(For those who don’t know the backstory, Stencyl started outputting games using Slick2D, then PulpCore, then switched to Flash via Flixel and now also supports Objective-C via Sparrow. We dropped Java game support a while back, but the toolset is still Java-based.)

#13

As Adobe is progressively dropping support of its products for GNU Linux, using Flash is a bad idea in my humble opinion.

Flash won’t be supported anymore in Firefox under GNU Linux soon:

#14

Check out Microsoft’s Kodu too. Very high level, game-like interface. Allows to very easily create environments, add agents with programmed behaviours, player controlled aspects etc and have it all turn out rather playable and pretty.

#15

Also mobile obviously, which is perhaps more of a pragmatic concern for many game developers (although of course you can build mobile apps with Flash).

#16

I’ve heard about Scratch before. They are using a modified version (called BYOB) at Berkeley in one of their computer science lectures.

BTW. Stencyl does look very interesting.