Programming language for kids - Scratch wins!
Today’s question is what language to use to teach programming to a bright young child? I’ve seen the question before with answers ranging from Java to VB to Squeak.
Slashdot has this MIT Media Lab Making Programming Fun For Kids. Not surprising that there are some strong opinions in the thread.
Looks like Scratch is based on Squeak which in turn is based on Smalltalk. Smalltalk sound about the right speed! I’ll have to look at both and see what I think.
Scratch is perfect for learning to program. I very much like the structuring of control, motion, sense, variable. The visual iconography of control structures wrapping statements is ingenious.
In a few hours we had a pong style game going. It is beautiful. Of course I can also see where some of the limits will occur. I don’t see any programmatic method of sprite creation or destruction.