I am a fan of block based programming languages for younger students. And yes
I think the transition from TNG to Netlogo is pretty straightforward and
painless…
The biggest advantage I see in block languages, and this may seem minor but I
can tell you from experience it isn’t, block based languages let you program
before you are a consistent speller because it doesn’t matter how you spell
W0lF or RaBbit, once you have declared the variable or procedure new blocks
are created for you with that spelling…
Helps with understanding program flow as well as blocks clearly belong to other
blocks in a way that {} and () (or indenting) just don’t.
With TNG there is a middle place where once you are proficient with the
language you can begin to type the blocks into existence which is a lot faster
than searching through ‘drawers’ of blocks.
—joshua
On Dec 18, 2013, at 12:05 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote:
More from the pencil code author:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coffeescript/EFwDMClKKh0
.. about the effectiveness of Blockly .. like StarLogo TNG.
So here's the question: if I learn in blockly-style programming, will it
impede the jump to text based programming?
Steve tells me that the super computer challenge uses TNG for the younger
students, and text based NetLogo for older students. Does anyone have an
opinion or experience, especially on whether block programming is useful at
all and if it is, is the transition difficult?
-- Owen
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