Scratch

Jens · 2008-09-04 04:43:10

Wow, there are now over 200 K Scratch projects with - even more amazing - over 5 million scripts on site website! The total amount of programming on this site already compares to a full-fledged Operating System like Linux or OpenOffice (link). Scratch seems to be turning into one of the biggest open source projects ever!

Paddle2See · 2008-09-04 05:36:44

That's an interesting way to look at it! Imagine if we could direct all that programming energy towards a common design goal....

fullmoon · 2008-09-07 19:26:40

Paddle2See wrote:
That's an interesting way to look at it! Imagine if we could direct all that programming energy towards a common design goal....

...like a 3,000 foot statue of the Scratch cat made out of cheese? Maybe not, but I see your point; we'd already have an operating system built if Scratch had the capability! There are so many dedicated people on Scratch and I'm lucky to be part of the community; I can't wait to see what direction it takes in a few years. Will it still involve brightly-colored cartoon animals? Only time will tell.

fullmoon · 2008-09-07 19:29:52

In fact, according to the Wikipedia article Jens linked to above, we're approaching the Linux kernel in amount of code written. Of course, a lot of the Scratch website is total garbage, but let's pat ourselves on the back anyway!

Bobby500 · 2008-09-07 19:51:58

Awsome!

coolstuff · 2008-09-07 19:57:58

fullmoon wrote:
Of course, a lot of the Scratch website is total garbage, but let's pat ourselves on the back anyway!

True... Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this did become the biggest open-source project. If, by biggest, you mean community, fame, etc., then after a few years I'm sure it will be. But in lines of code I don't think it counts, I mean, you can't count the entire website's scripts because they're all different projects.

Last edited by coolstuff (2008-09-07 20:00:13)

Jens · 2008-09-08 02:11:08

Of course most of the scripts aren't related to each other, so it's not really one single monolithic "project". On the other hand I'd wager the bet that more people are actually able to read, understand, fix and remix the Scratch scripts shared here than the Linux kernel smile . To me, that's even more "open" ...

terminator355 · 2008-09-08 22:35:07

Jens wrote:
Of course most of the scripts aren't related to each other, so it's not really one single monolithic "project". On the other hand I'd wager the bet that more people are actually able to read, understand, fix and remix the Scratch scripts shared here than the Linux kernel . To me, that's even more "open" ...

see... I think that having people understand the code so that they know what it means, not just typing away from what they learned on YouTube is SOOOO much more fun and is what makes me use scratch. I hope this continues!! big_smile smile wink :p

Hobbs1100 · 2008-09-09 17:07:14

Yeah, it's really hard to find decent projects on scratch. It's like an adventure. One way is to only view certain people stuff because it's good.

JSO · 2008-09-10 09:01:25

It seems Scratch is becoming really huge big_smile

At this moment (see date above) the number of projects on sourceforge.net is
132 985 where scratch.mit.edu has
204 030.

Projects on sourceforge also are open source and unrealted to each other. It's a bit Scratch-like Now imagine the content on this site is programmed by a huge group of kids and teenagers... (I know there are adults on Scratch, but writing that would just break down the sentence. )

I must have made a mistake... I don't believe these numbers...

Joren

andresmh · 2008-09-11 10:05:59

I've been thinking about this for a while. It is pretty amazing. As Paddle2See says, I wonder if there is a way to split a difficult programming problem into smaller and fun pieces that people can help solve using Scratch. Similar to what CAPTCHA has done with images and the rest of Luis Von Ahn's work at CMU on Human Computation.

Jens · 2008-09-12 02:59:23

andresmh wrote:
I wonder if there is a way to split a difficult programming problem into smaller and fun pieces that people can help solve using Scratch.

Now, that's extremely interesting, Andres! Wouldn't that be something...

But it wouldn't just involve splitting up something complex, you would also have to be able to assemble hierarchical structures from simple parts.

I think first steps could be to
1) building your own blocks in Scratch, to reuse them in other projects.
2) sprite aggregation ("nested", "grouped", "clustered" composite objects)

Scratch

archived forums

#1 2008-09-04 04:43:10

Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#2 2008-09-04 05:36:44

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#3 2008-09-07 19:26:40

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

Paddle2See wrote:

#4 2008-09-07 19:29:52

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#5 2008-09-07 19:51:58

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#6 2008-09-07 19:57:58

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

fullmoon wrote:

#7 2008-09-08 02:11:08

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#8 2008-09-08 22:35:07

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

Jens wrote:

#9 2008-09-09 17:07:14

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#10 2008-09-10 09:01:25

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#11 2008-09-11 10:05:59

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

#12 2008-09-12 02:59:23

Re: Towards Becoming The Biggest Open Source Project?

andresmh wrote:

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