Scratch

wow that would be pretty cool!!!

support*

I'd have to agree. Actually, here's another idea. What if you just had scratch "beginner" and you could download more blocks and then import them into scratch?
We could have two separate versions so it would be less confusing, but then users could create their own blocks and other users could import them. (sorry, that's not related to the topic.)
Still, more advanced features would be nice no matter how the scratch team gives them to us.

Buddy_ca111 wrote:

it would be a cool idea. Maplestory has two different versions of it's program(different type of program I know) And Game maker has an beginner or advanced option at the beginning. But that would be cool if it could do that.

@hmnwilson - If people made their own blocks to put into Scratch then it won't work online(would it?)

No, it wouldn't.

hmnwilson wrote:

coolstuff wrote:

Buddy_ca111 wrote:

it would be a cool idea. Maplestory has two different versions of it's program(different type of program I know) And Game maker has an beginner or advanced option at the beginning. But that would be cool if it could do that.

@hmnwilson - If people made their own blocks to put into Scratch then it won't work online(would it?)

No, it wouldn't.

I didn't think about that 

The blocks have a javascript "underlay" which would translate into java as it entered the player (I think) so when people make their own blocks, they are technically writing in java which would be fine online.

jackrulez wrote:

I might make a mod called Scratch: Pre to Pro. The default mode will be beginner, but then you'll be able to switch to normal Scratch, then advanced mode.

Wow - I never thought this thread would get revived.

Thanks for your opinion! I really like the idea of "Scratch Pre" and "Scratch Pro." It's got that kind of ring to it 

I like the idea, but however, I would feel kinda weird if online, people shared from Scratch Pro, but I used Scratch Pre, and didn't understand half the blocks in scratch pro.

technoguyx wrote:

laser100 wrote:

I like the idea, but however, I would feel kinda weird if online, people shared from Scratch Pro, but I used Scratch Pre, and didn't understand half the blocks in scratch pro.

Maybe projects would be categorized depending in the blocks they use, along with a notice like "This project was made with Scratch [Pre/Pro], a more [basic/advanced] version of the original Scratch".

Nice idea.    But I don't see how can multidimensional lists be difficult, if I understand well how one works it should be like an Excel sheet, and to refer to an item in it you'd just pick a row and a column (the only thing that might be hard for kids would be precisely that, maybe you should be able to click an item of the list when you click the dropbox).

I wasn't going to make it uploadable because I don't know Java... Anyone who does is free to help though! 

BTW, multidimensional lists wouldn't be spreadsheet-type things, they would be like lists of lists.

Last edited by jackrulez (2010-06-02 21:15:57)

This has been brought up time and time again, and I think the issue is that the people who developed Scratch are really reluctant to divide the community this way. Think about it: if you're an advanced user, you will tend to interact mostly with other advanced users, leaving new users to fend for themselves. The new users would approach projects built with the "scary" advanced version of Scratch with a sense of trepidation, which is exactly what we don't want. By fragmenting the community into, essentially, people who can understand all the code on the website and people who can't, Scratch loses some of its uniqueness as something everyone can understand.

On the other hand, many new users would see the capabilities of Advanced Scratch and probably feel the need to start using it almost immediately. They would either: catch on pretty fast, which means that having a basic version is sort of useless, or they would be driven away from Scratch as a whole by the complexity.

That's not to say I don't support adding more advanced features to Scratch. I just don't think that advanced features should be presented as such. I think mods, especially BYOB and Panther, demonstrate that Scratch is a great way to teach many programming concepts without making them seem like programming concepts. If, for instance, it was possible to broadcast to a specific sprite, pass arguments with the message, and have the broadcast script return a value, you've just implemented functions, basically, but it would seem just about as simple as a basic broadcast because you're still using the concept of broadcasts. In the same vein, if the only way to create a list in Scratch were with the first-class list block from BYOB3, I think the payoff would well outweigh the extra few minutes it might take to learn the concept.

So my answer to this idea of two versions of Scratch is, why teach just some programming concepts when you can just as easily teach all the programming concepts you want? Everyone would benefit: the new users would have more programming skill, and we'd get our multidimensional lists!

jackrulez wrote:

BTW, multidimensional lists wouldn't be spreadsheet-type things, they would be like lists of lists.

Oh ok. But that doesn't sound very complex either >.>

fullmoon wrote:

This has been brought up time and time again, and I think the issue is that the people who developed Scratch are really reluctant to divide the community this way. Think about it: if you're an advanced user, you will tend to interact mostly with other advanced users, leaving new users to fend for themselves. The new users would approach projects built with the "scary" advanced version of Scratch with a sense of trepidation, which is exactly what we don't want. By fragmenting the community into, essentially, people who can understand all the code on the website and people who can't, Scratch loses some of its uniqueness as something everyone can understand.

On the other hand, many new users would see the capabilities of Advanced Scratch and probably feel the need to start using it almost immediately. They would either: catch on pretty fast, which means that having a basic version is sort of useless, or they would be driven away from Scratch as a whole by the complexity.

That's not to say I don't support adding more advanced features to Scratch. I just don't think that advanced features should be presented as such. I think mods, especially BYOB and Panther, demonstrate that Scratch is a great way to teach many programming concepts without making them seem like programming concepts. If, for instance, it was possible to broadcast to a specific sprite, pass arguments with the message, and have the broadcast script return a value, you've just implemented functions, basically, but it would seem just about as simple as a basic broadcast because you're still using the concept of broadcasts. In the same vein, if the only way to create a list in Scratch were with the first-class list block from BYOB3, I think the payoff would well outweigh the extra few minutes it might take to learn the concept.

So my answer to this idea of two versions of Scratch is, why teach just some programming concepts when you can just as easily teach all the programming concepts you want? Everyone would benefit: the new users would have more programming skill, and we'd get our multidimensional lists!

You bring up some really good points - thanks for the post!

iCode-747 wrote:

I don't know what to say. I don't know how to explain how I feel.

I just don't agree. Fullmoon sums it up for me. 

Also, I essentially suggested this a year and a half ago