Programming Languages 

This being the first time I have ever attempted some type of programming, I found Scratch to be very helpful with building a simple program. I found it to be extremely fun and challenging. I ran into some roadblocks while attempting to understand how all the blocks will tie together and bring my program to life, but overcame this by searching similar programs and researching their code. This gave me an understanding of how my code and blocks should be set up. From that understanding I was able to get my code working and to the point where I can build on it more and evolve it to something greater. One insight that I realized about programming during this exercise is that you can read code like instructions on a manual. Noticing that the language in the blocks uses words like “if”. Block Programing Reflection 2 “Or”, “when”, “then”, this gave me the impression that programming is just steps, with conditions on the actions that are going to happen based on the conditions that were before. Comparing the Scratch assignment with the activities in sections 2.8 through 2.11 on the textbook, I found to be complete opposites of each other. Where Scratch was more of a visual method of programming, placing blocks together to create an action, I see how it can be used as a great starting point to learn programming. Whereas the activities in the textbook involved more writing and being precise with the lines of code one writes, leaving no room for mistake, it seemed like a more precise method of programming. Using Scratch to create a simple interactive program and using the activities in the textbook to create math problems that determine the output of dates are completely different. The blocks in Scratch seem like pre-determined lines of code that one just has to drag and drop and input variables in and python you have to build the code from nothing. Scratch definitely was the easier of the two, But I would like more knowledge and practice in python and in the programming methods used in the textbook activities. I think Scratch would be better used to create simple programs, and as a base for beginners that want to learn programming. Python and the activities in the textbook I feel would be most effective when the programming is aimed at a complex and dedicated project. This is also why I believe Python and the programming languages in the textbook are more popular. When almost everything that we interact on a daily basis is a computer, those items need to be programmed differently based on their architecture. Scratch being a web based programming method would not suit this well. While the other programs can be translated well between systems and can be changed in a very specific way to make those systems function. 

 https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/541111378