MathlyCat wrote:

benjopogi wrote:

*cough*

Please don't necropost; yes this is the suggestions forum, but only necropost if it's a duplicate and you have something to say. Thanks!

No support, Scratch is designed for all ages; just branch off from Scratch if you feel the time is right.

Or use tosh.

BookOwl wrote:

MathlyCat wrote:

benjopogi wrote:

*cough*

Please don't necropost; yes this is the suggestions forum, but only necropost if it's a duplicate and you have something to say. Thanks!

No support, Scratch is designed for all ages; just branch off from Scratch if you feel the time is right.

Or use tosh.

I've been meaning to try tosh for a while now

Definitely will help me from going back to Scratch after learning a language like BASIC.
[/offtopic]

support, fine programming practice

Cyoce wrote:

What makes Scratch, Scratch is that you don't type. Take that away, and you have a mediocre programming language with very limited applications, and the inability to interact with other code.

it is optional

pvz_pro wrote:

support, fine programming practice

Cyoce wrote:

What makes Scratch, Scratch is that you don't type. Take that away, and you have a mediocre programming language with very limited applications, and the inability to interact with other code.

it is optional

NEIN
So what if it's optional? It's basically dividing the community into 2 parts: Those who use text, and those who don't. This opens up possibilities for people saying stuff like

Random User who uses text wrote:

Haha Lythium! I'm better than you because I use text!

Scratch is meant to be a programming language for beginners. Adding text would:
1. Confuse the heck out of new kids
2. Make Scratch a mediocre programming language with very limited applications, and the inability to interact with other code. as if it wasn't already

Prinseskat wrote:

Scratch is easy, but (for me at least) other “easy” text-based programming languages are just confusing.

You probably won't respond (as you said this 2 years ago), but Javascript and Python do seem pretty easy.

KingOfAwesome58219 wrote:

Scratch is a language meant for 4-year-olds, including that feature would ruin the point.

>being 7 years old is the minimum age to join scratch
ok

The problem is that you wouldn't be able to run the script since all the blocks have to be defined somehow and the sprites and assets can't be converted into text easily

This discussion sounds crazy. A mere view allowing to swap from visual mode to text mode for code does not seem to be something that would divide the scratch community in two. There are already two community anyway, those who only know scratch and no other programming language and those who don't use it at all because it does not allow text view and mouse only editing is so hard for hand muscles. Those who don't mind or already know other languages could use any mode.

I don't understand where text should be in any way harder to understand for kids than mathematical expressions. We are merely speaking of a handful of variable names (isn't it already text ?) and a dozen of keywords… And maybe some symbol to mark opening and closing blocks.

Of course such “text view” would only have any meaning if code entered using text mode could be viewed as visual objects (which really doesn't look hard).

Is it really visual editing that defines scratch ? Isn't it also the whole ecosystem allowing easy management of sounds and images, and event driven processing ?

Epicness123 wrote:

KingOfAwesome58219 wrote:

Scratch is a language meant for 4-year-olds, including that feature would ruin the point.

>being 7 years old is the minimum age to join scratch
ok

No.. It says in the statistics that 4 yos join Scratch, either that or they're creepers trolling us. 7 years old is a recommendation not a requirement.

Scratcher1002 wrote:

Epicness123 wrote:

KingOfAwesome58219 wrote:

Scratch is a language meant for 4-year-olds, including that feature would ruin the point.

>being 7 years old is the minimum age to join scratch
ok

No.. It says in the statistics that 4 yos join Scratch, either that or they're creepers trolling us. 7 years old is a recommendation not a requirement.

And Scratch is recommended for ages 8-16.

all millennials want to these days is text, text, text…

m_n_e_k wrote:

all millennials want to these days is text, text, text…

… Most common programming languages (C, C++, C#, Java, Python) are text-based. It's not exactly a “millennial” thing.


I support having an option to input text and then have it turned into blocks. I think it's in fact a great way of introducing common Java/C++ syntax to children, as well as writting a project with just the Notepad. Of course, they don't necessarily have to use that in order to code in Scratch, but it would be an interesting feature.

Now I'm wondering how you would store sprites, costumes or sounds. Maybe it could work by just making this function for commands only, then having to specify which commands go where after implementing them into the project.

Also I don't really understand the reasons people have to not support this suggestion. Just because Scratch is educational, it doesn't mean that a text-based version would make things extremely difficult and therefore make this website lose its purpose. I'd say it's quite the contrary. The block-based environment would remain the same, we wouls just have an add-on to it. Kids would be welcomed to the text-based environment as well, in a friendlier approach, so that in the future they could get a better understanding of other programming languages.

Divide the community? Nobody would need to know which type of programming you use. Besides, there are already plenty of other elements that could lead people to feel “superior”, like followers, love-its, blocks with advanced functions; all of those being dealt with reports. Nothing we aren't used to.


TL;DR Support

Why would anyone *want* to use text-based scratch when you can learn something far more powerful? If you are willing to use a text-based scratch, then you're probably ready to learn a more powerful language…

-stache- wrote:

Why would anyone *want* to use text-based scratch when you can learn something far more powerful?

Why not? I would have loved to gain text-based programming experience from Scratch during my first years on this website.

NoxSpooth wrote:

-stache- wrote:

Why would anyone *want* to use text-based scratch when you can learn something far more powerful?

Why not? I would have loved to gain text-based programming experience from Scratch during my first years on this website.

Thanks for the rhetorical question!!11!1eleven!!!one!onehundredeleven!11!!!!!
But other languages are more powerful and *can* be equally easy

-stache- wrote:

NoxSpooth wrote:

-stache- wrote:

Why would anyone *want* to use text-based scratch when you can learn something far more powerful?

Why not? I would have loved to gain text-based programming experience from Scratch during my first years on this website.

Thanks for the rhetorical question!!11!1eleven!!!one!onehundredeleven!11!!!!!
But other languages are more powerful and *can* be equally easy

So we should just stop using Scratch?

NoxSpooth wrote:

-stache- wrote:

NoxSpooth wrote:

-stache- wrote:

Why would anyone *want* to use text-based scratch when you can learn something far more powerful?

Why not? I would have loved to gain text-based programming experience from Scratch during my first years on this website.

Thanks for the rhetorical question!!11!1eleven!!!one!onehundredeleven!11!!!!!
But other languages are more powerful and *can* be equally easy

So we should just stop using Scratch?

Thanks for the rhetoric again!!11!1eleven!!!one!onehundredeleven!11!!!!!
No. Scratch is to help people to get rid of their fears of programming by making things big chunky and colorful.

-stache- wrote:

Scratch is to help people to get rid of their fears of programming by making things big chunky and colorful.

And why couldn't it be able to do that with text-based programming as well?

NoxSpooth wrote:

-stache- wrote:

Scratch is to help people to get rid of their fears of programming by making things big chunky and colorful.

And why couldn't it be able to do that with text-based programming as well?

I think that @-stache-'s point was that if you are willing to learn text based scratch, just go ahead and learn a “real” text based language like Python or JS, which are both much more powerful than Scratch.