Comments on: The importance of visual programming

Comment by: rasmus

2008-02-23T15:29:27Z

If you are interested in another easy to use graphics library for python, I recommend my own, SUMMON http://people.csail.mit.edu/rasmus/summon/index.shtml

Its designed for rapidly prototyping scientific 2D visualizations. You mention you found PyGame too low level (e.g. catching input events etc). SUMMON handles the underlying event loop for you, and lets you specify user interactions in a more declarative way (define areas of the screen to react to mouse-clicks called hotspots).

SUMMON is similar to DrawBot, NodeBox, and Processing, except I use a scene graph representation, and I cater more to easing scientific visualization.

I started this project three years ago when I found my self rewriting the same boiler plate code for many of my projects. SUMMON was my way of abstracting that stuff away into a library I can use in all my projects. I’m curious to hear feedback if you do try it out.

Comment by: Dave Briccetti

2008-03-06T00:17:26Z

Hi Dethe. Thanks for this post. I taught Squeak for a couple years, then discovered Scratch. Now I’m teaching Alice as well: http://davebsoft.com/programming-for-kids/computer-programming-with-scratch-and-alice/

I’ve also taught Python and Pygame for a few years, but I’m thinking of switching to Ruby, especially if I can find some sort of easy to learn graphical/game toolkit for it.

Comment by: Dave Briccetti

2008-03-06T00:21:57Z

Thanks for the informative post. I taught Squeak for a couple years, then switched to Scratch. Some of my students have outgrown Scratch–no subroutines is a major weakness–so I was thinking of showing them Squeak, but then discovered Alice.

http://davebsoft.com/programming-for-kids/computer-programming-with-scratch-and-alice/

I’ve been teaching Python and Pygame but now I’m really interested in Ruby so I think I may teach that instead. I’d like to find an easy-to-use graphical/game library for it. Something about the difficulty of, say, xturtle.py.

Comment by: Living Code » Blog Archive » Processing Critters

2008-03-19T21:22:52Z

[...] been playing around some with Processing, this is the result. As I mentioned in my earlier article, Processing and NodeBox are quite similar. Processing has some more interactivity (better keyboard [...]

Comment by: cefn

2009-07-03T08:29:13Z

A recent project from BT – Rules – inspired by Scratch now has screencasts showing how to program a range of devices with a Scratch-like tile-based programming interface…

Visit the Rules website at http://btrules.com

Given your interest in the area of accessible programming, it could be worth a look and welcome your feedback.

Comment by: TL

2009-09-15T22:43:58Z

Hi Dethe Elza,

Good day.

I am currently working on some small modification on SCRATCH using Squek VM.
But I am facing some small technical problem which I could not change the name of the UI of SCRATCH. I am planning to change the name of the 8 buttons on the left hand upper corner. I am able to modify them all and save the user image file but then after I reopen it all the button refresh back to original name.

Do you think you can help me?
I had asked around in SCRATCH Forum but then no one actually answered me or else no one find out a way for to change that.

Your kind reply is highly appreciate!

Thank you so much.

Comment by: Dethe

2009-09-17T20:17:14Z

Hi Teresa,

I wish I could be of more help, but my knowledge of Squeak is very limited. I think you need to be sure your changes are applied to the image that the Scratch app uses, but how you would go about doing that, I’m not sure. Rather than the Scratch forums, you might be better off getting help from the Squeak community: http://www.squeak.org/Community/

Good luck!