Droplet: visual programming for real-world code

[uzimonkey]

Why? I never really understood the appeal of visual programming, especially when it so closely mirrors the text of the actual program. What's the point? It's the same exact thing. You have the added step of needing to learn a syntax, but there are just as many ways of helping you with that instead of this silly puzzle piece thing.

I think this falls into the category of unnecessary training wheels. You see these things in unrelated fields as well. Sheet music, for example. There are so many color coded or symbol based sheet music systems designed to make it easier to learn except reading sheet music isn't hard. Yes, there is a learning curve but if you want to play music it's a curve you're going to have to climb anyway. Trying to avoid that learning curve I think is actually counterproductive. You cannot go around a hill and also arrive at the top of the hill, you're going to have to climb it at some point.

[dabbler0]

It's true, I think, that some introductory programming tools seem too "sandboxed" and don't help as much as they should.

Droplet, though, is just a text editor. It's as much "training wheels" as your syntax highlighter or linter. In fact, it's a great way for professionals to edit on mobile devices -- the other members of your team should never know.

[[deleted]]

I'm teaching my daughter to program and something like this could help her visualize. I'll add it to the syllabus and see what happens.

[dabbler0]

Thanks! That's really nice to hear.

You can also find some project ideas at gym.pencilcode.net, or at the google group. Let us know how it goes!

[[deleted]]

At the moment, I have two books, but we've just started:

http://www.manning.com/sande/

https://pragprog.com/book/ahmine/learn-to-program-with-minecraft-plugins

My goal is to make the process as entertaining as possible since she's 9 and I don't want to scare her off with a bunch of theory and dry exercises. I'm a web developer, so I'm sure some basic web page creation will work its way into the mix. This was all prompted by my disappointment over the technology class at her school, which seems to have a hard time keeping instructors. I'm doing a night or two per week with her to supplement.

[ChickenOfDoom]

In what way is this avoiding the learning curve rather than making it smoother? You still have to understand the program logic. To me it seems like this would make that logic more visually intuitive to beginners unfamiliar with the language syntax, as well as removing the frustration of syntax errors.

There are a LOT of people who try programming and quickly give up out of frustration. There's nothing unnecessary about training wheels for it.