Scratch

[Jourdy288]

Not too long ago, I downloaded an interesting program called Scratch; it prided itself on being a simple platform where you can make basic programs and learn elementary parts of programming. I haven't yet used it, however. It's installed and laying dormant on my iMac.
What was behind Scratch I just learned recently however. It all started...

About 40 years ago, tech legend Alan Kay invented the idea of a lightweight tablet computer that children could use to learn programming...The Scratch app displayed stories, games and animations made by children using MIT’s Scratch platform, which was built on top of Kay’s programming language Squeak, according to MIT.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/#ixzz0lmAYGeRQ...Kay, a former Xerox PARC computer scientist, is credited for conceiving the idea of a portable computer in 1968, when computers still weighed over 100 pounds and ate punch cards. He called his concept the Dynabook.

In his conception, it would be a very thin, highly dynamic device that weighed no more than 2 pounds, which would be an ideal tool for children to learn programming and science. Kay’s Dynabook was never made, but characteristics of his concept can be seen in the mobile computers we tote around today.

As it would turn out, Kay submitted his program to Apple for use on the iPad, which he felt would be an awesome platform for Scratch. Unfortunately, this is Apple .

Apple’s iPad delivers on the tablet part of that vision — but the company has blocked a kid-friendly programming language based on Kay’s work from getting onto the iPad.
Apple removed an app called Scratch from its iPhone and iPad App Store last week...Though the Scratch app wasn’t made by Kay (pictured at right), he wasn’t pleased about the news when contacted by Wired.com.

“Both children and the internet are bigger than Apple, and things that are good for children of the world need to be able to run everywhere,” Kay e-mailed Wired.com...Jobs this month personally mailed an iPad to Kay, who praised Apple’s tablet as “fantastically good” for drawing, painting and typing. But Kay declined to give his full evaluation of the iPad to Wired.com until his question of whether Scratch or Etoys — another educational programming language Kay developed for kids — would be usable on the device.

With the removal of Scratch from the App Store, for now the answer to Kay’s question would appear to be “No.”...“If you follow the chain of where Scratch came from, yes it is a Dynabook app, sadly not an iPad app,” McIntosh wrote in Apple’s developer forums.

McIntosh said that Apple removed the app because it allegedly violated a rule in the iPhone developer agreement — clause 3.3.2, which states iPhone apps may not contain code interpreters other than Apple’s. The clause reads:

An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber, who first reported the removal of Scratch, explained that Apple’s intention with the “no interpreters” rule is to block meta-platforms such as Adobe Flash.
“Imagine a hypothetical arbitrary ‘Flash Player’ app from Adobe, that allowed you to download SWF files — such an app would stand as an alternative to the App Store,
“I think it’s terrible,” said Andrés Monroy-Hernández, a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Media Lab and lead developer of the Scratch online community. “Even if the Scratch app was approved, I still think [clause 3.3.2] sends a really bad message for young creators in general. We have a forum where kids post comments, and they were really upset about this.’”
Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/#ixzz0lmCSc4AA

I'm pretty sure you're wondering where I'm going with this; aside from the port of Scratch I think that we should have on the Pandora, which I'm pretty sure alot of us will appreciate, what about the Scratch community? I think we might get their backing. The Pandora is under two pounds, it should be arriving in about two months :lol: But in all seriousness, I do think that the Pandora could be the Dynabook in one way or another; it's light, relatively affordable, durable, appeals to children (I have tested this on my younger sister, who would prefer a Pandora to an iPhone/Pad/Pod/whatever Nintonysoft is selling) and quite importantly, is an open platform for development.
Just to mention, I do understand that schoolkids aren't the core audience of the Pandora, and I don't expect us to bend over backwards for them. That said, I think that we present the Pandora to Kay for his evaluation as a platform for Scratch, as it's possibly the Dynabook he's wanted all these years. Perhaps with his backing we could get the Pandora used in schools as opposed to the laptops that they give out. It'd certainly be more affordable (depending on the laptops they use :lol: ).

There is the potential problem of the console features of the Pandora preventing it from being taken seriously, but I think that if it's presented as a platform for learning and a brilliant opportunity for the students, this shouldn't be an issue.



http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/images/2008/11/03/dynabook_2.jpg
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/
http://scratch.mit.edu/

EDIT: How did a certain something get in there?!

 

[rabidpoobear]

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

[DasFool]

There should be an android pad sometime in the near future. Since there doesn't seem to be limitations on the android marketplace scratch would fare better there. Not to say that pandora wouldn't benefit from it too, it may just work better on a larger capacitive screen.

 

[Jourdy288]

I noticed the Dynabook illustration has rather largish screens... Nonetheless, I think the Pandora would be the work well for this.

 

[Trickyhero]

I use a simular application called Alice And it is basded on the same actual language, which is called smalltalk. And I was wondering if anyone knows if theres someway to put these games on the Pandora?

 

[Monk]

My boy loves Scratch, but is is very heavily GUI-based and as such the current version needs, I beleive, a minimum resolution that's beyond the reach of Pandora (or indeed many netbooks). While Scratch is quite limited, it's extremely inviting/simple to use to get some basic stuff done and toy with concepts like programming and storytelling. Something like that for a mobile device could be terrific.