Learning from scratch - any recommendations?

[Richmond Mathewson]

I have a radical disagreement with Scratch and its ilk as, while it does
allow one to run up simple computer games, it does not let users see the
"guts" of a program, and seems not to give children transferrable skill for
non-block programming languages. I have successfully started kids from 9
years old and upward on programming with both BBC BASIC and Livecode.

On Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 6:00 PM kee nethery via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> My recommendation is to have them start with scratch.mit.edu and spend a
> month making stuff with that language. Scratch is built for 1st graders to
> pick up and it is extremely satisfying as the starter language. They get
> exposed to all sorts of concepts, message passing, variables, flow control,
> multi-processing, it’s a great starter language. A month making stuff and
> then move to livecode.
>
> Kee
>
> > On Nov 1, 2019, at 3:23 AM, Graham Samuel via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >
> > I was disappointed that I only got one reply to my query about LC as a
> platform for learning programming - I thought this was a big thing with
> quite a few people on this list, some of whom are actually educators. Since
> I’ve failed in this, can someone suggest a better way of getting an answer
> (e.g. forums, mother ship)?
> >
> > TIA
> >
> > Graham
> >
> > I wrote:
> >
> >> I have been approached by one of my family to ask what would be the
> first steps for someone (a young adult) to enable them to enter the world
> of app design and programming. Obviously I need to ask more questions
> myself, such as whether this would be to get a job, or simply as an
> educational exercise, or maybe to provide a launchpad for a startup idea.
> However, even at this stage, of course my thoughts turned to LiveCode.
> >>
> >> So my question to the community is, how would such a person start off -
> assuming they’re intelligent, very familiar with consumer-level technology
> such as smart phones, tablets, laptop computers for study etc. and social
> media, but probably have never seen or thought about what is involved in
> designing, implementing and publishing an app (I would just say “a
> program”, but that shows how old I am) on any platform? If it is LC (and
> why not?), are the published lessons sufficient? What is the view of those
> on this list who do actually teach this stuff?
> >>
> >> The trouble for me is that I have been around all this for 50 years
> (more, to be truthful) and so can’t project myself well into the mind of
> that kind of newbie. One guess is that one way to start would be to find a
> cheap hardware platform (probably an Android tablet) and try to use the LC
> Community Edition to allow me to create something for that; but that idea
> may be stupid, particularly as one would need a different platform to
> actually do the development work.
> >>
> >> Hoping for some insights
> >>
> >> Graham
> >
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