My experience building a program in Scratch was that I thought it seemed like a relatively easy program to learn. It’s all done with blocks so there is not actual programming involved. However, with that being said it took me some time to figure out how to make the appropriate instrument do all of the things that were listed in the guidelines for the assignment. Although seeing an instrument move around the screen was funny and making it change colors randomly was actually pretty cool. The drum set I thought was the hardest in making it actually sound like a real live drum. I feel like I got it pretty close and I even got it to make the little lines like someone was actually hitting the symbols.
My difficulties using this program was that it seemed like an easy program when I watched the tutorials but getting things like instruments to sound like they do in real life I thought was difficult. I wanted to create this as a way to push myself and between both instruments, I got to total 30 blocks. I don’t know much about operators or variables, but I did do everything else as outlined by the assignment. I overcame these difficulties by first doing the tutorial and then after playing around a little bit I saw a cool music project, so I tried to utilize the blocks enough to making two working instruments: the guitar and the drum set. Then I tried to create the perfect set of blocks enough to get them to sound like they do in real life. I also picked a background as to make it look as realistic as possible. The insight I got out of this exercise was that even though Scratch is billed for kids it’s actually a handy tool for adults as well. I’ve dabbled in code a little bit, but I think seeing this project puts it all into perspective. The best part of Scratch I thought was the fact that I didn’t need to download a compiler. It’s all done via the internet or you can even download their mobile app for on the go learning.
Scratch I felt was a lot easier to learn than machine language and assembly language which seemed to be a lot of 0’s and 1’s. Those two languages were fascinating to know I don’t believe I could possibly retain what any of those sequences of numbers actually do inside our computers. Python I am sort of familiar with but again scratch is more like an intro to programming languages whereas Python and C++ are on the way high end of the languages. It would be like if I went to France for the first time without having a little background or experience with the language. I would be entirely lost and probably would not have that much fun there.
The difference between languages would be that I believe Scratch is more like a tool to learn problem solving, communicating ideas and designing projects. Machine language is the CPU using a series of 0’s and 1’s to execute instructions like input, add, output and stop. Python is an object-oriented programming language that emphasizes code readability with a notable use of whitespace. C++ is a high-level programming language for graphical applications. “C is what is called a compiled language. This means that once you write your C program, you must run it through a C compiler to turn your program into an executable that the computer can run (execute)” (Pollette, 2000). Javascript is an object-oriented computer programming language used to create interactive effects within a web browser. Java is a general-purpose programming language that is class based and object oriented that also used to create applications on the computer. Assembly language is “a textual human-understandable representation of a machine language's 0's and 1's” (Lysecky, 2017).
I found that Scratch and Python were both easy to use for me. For many languages the ability for them to be utilized in different scenarios is extremely useful. For instance, Scratch would be most effective in places like schools, museums and libraries as it is mostly geared towards children eight to sixteen and is fairly easy to use. Both machine and assembly language are most effective when used with input/output devices. Which means scanners, printers and any external hard drive or optical drive.
Python is most effective when developing desktop GUI applications, web applications and websites. C++ is most effective when developing video games and browsers. C on the other hand is most effective when designing operating systems, compilers and network drivers as well as micro-controllers. JavaScript is most effective when programming effects with web browsers and Java is most effective for machines as whole like laptops, lottery machines, smartphones, gaming consoles, Blu-ray players, car navigation systems, medical monitoring devices, and parking meters.
Right now I think that Java is the most popular right now because it can run on all machines, there are less bugs, and it’s backwards compatible. Android apps are also built on Java and there is a very large community.
My project can be found at: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/364801470
References
Pollette, C. (2000, April 1). The Basics of C Programming. Retrieved from https:// computer.howstuffworks.com/c1.htm
Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2017). Computing technology for all. Retrieved from zybooks.zyante.com/
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