scratch-www VS blockly

and https://codecombat.com, which has been around for a while now.

I think this paradigm (navigating a character using "move" function invocations) is good but kind of exhausts its usefulness after a while. I question whether my daughter learns coding this way or just is playing a turn based top down platformer. The most code like thing is when you use 'loops' to have characters repeat sequences of moves. I think when kids grok these things these apps become just types of glofiried education flavoured video games. There are a lot of things in kodable for instance that I feel are just basic web games with coding terms slapped on it.

https://scratch.mit.edu/ is more like 'programming' imo, even at the level of the objective -- having a blank canvas to create something. It seems a little advanced for my kids right now though.

+1 Scratch! My son started with it, then expanded into Roblox/Lua.

Children can download other people's games and experiment there. Scratch also has pre-made art, sounds, music.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch.mit.edu is a highly-recommended place to start [1] https://scratch.mit.edu/

> Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and a coding language with a simple visual interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations. Scratch is designed, developed, and moderated by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organization. [2]

1: https://scratch.mit.edu/

https://scratch.mit.edu/ (Scratch version 2)

Someone who uses scratch.mit.edu (like me)

Now that I think of it, I did start game development on scratch before going right into java (because of minecraft).

I'm looking for the best systems to help a 4/5 year old get the basics of programming. My daughter has shown interest in what I do, and loves puzzles and building things. Looking for something visual and fun that can start her down the path of logic and creating with computers.

I have a passing familiarity with Scratch [1], which I'm now looking into more, but am hoping others can share their knowledge and experience in this area.

[1] https://scratch.mit.edu/

Perhaps blockly

https://developers.google.com/blockly

Unless it would contradict canon, every stage is very bright, highly interactive, full of pre-placed items, and so huge that you can usually run from your NPC opponents and enjoy exploring the stage in peace while they catch up to you. All buildings have Linux computers with actual internet access that allow you to program and print out your own projectiles/books/flags/UNO reverse cards/shinigami eyes/soupcans/cis TERF tears/masks/custom-made programs which can then be inserted into a different computer, but all without tracking any of your browser history; closets that you can enter; bookshelves containing the books mentioned in Masterpieces that you can either read in-game or throw to make random sentences/verses/comics from the book appear; and bathrooms with working mirrors that you can enter but their exact content and whether they're gendered or not depends on the stage.

Google made bockly It works with 5 languages. I think #C PHP and JavaScript. I know JavaScript for sure . But not sure about the others. blockly

And as a corollary, Blockly: https://developers.google.com/blockly

https://developers.google.com/blockly/ Blocky with Javascript

https://developers.google.com/blockly (Block programming, very good with helping learn the logic)

Another block environment Blockly does compile to Javascript, and you can add your own block sets and use it in your existing webapp as a sort of workflow programming tool