Programming Languages

    When I was introduced to Scratch, I felt like I was put in a true sandbox where I could actually create whatever I wanted. There are always limitations to our circumstances in life but with the wide range of tools available at my fingertips on Scratch, I felt like I had all the power I needed to create anything my imagination could dream up. Before I started creating my own project, I took a few minutes to check out other contributors' work in the form of games, rooms and sessions. This made me feel like I was back on coolmathgames.com again. My mind immediately started thinking of all the possibilities I could create on just this one website. After some observation of other public projects, I started my own. Browsing through all the commands and controls, I began to familiarize myself with how this program helped me conceptualize programming languages. Scratch was much more simplified but held the same structure as many other popular programming languages. As I started to experiment with the different sprites, action and sound blocks, I began to have an idea of what I wanted to create. Being my first time creating a program on Scratch, I am proud of my work however simple and rudimentary it is. The interactive scene I created is a simple situation where D-money is in the street playing. Once the user presses the green flag, the interaction begins. D-money greets the user, acknowledges the presence of squirrel the musician and driver. D-money prompts the user to jam with them. By following D-money's prompts, the user triggers the music and dance moves. It is simple but I thought it was fun.

Some of the insights I gained from this exercise were the intentionality of coding blocks and their purpose. If you are writing or editing or even fixing a program, there should be intent behind everything you add to the program. You don’t need to waste time adding in all the extra lines that you don’t need. Just like using Python, you can accomplish so much more with so much less. A few lines of code would suffice the correction needed in a bugged program whereas with other older languages, you really must fight the program by adding many more lines of programming to get what you need done. Another insight I had was the importance of specificity. If you don’t specify what you want a variable to do exactly how you want it to be, it is not going to turn out how you intended. The programming follows the lines exactly and as you double check your work, you can include more specifications to create a more accurate program according to your needs and requirements.

I feel like it was easier to learn about variables and code blocks through scratch because it was like an interactive activity that only worked when you made it logically work. If you didn’t include the right blocks or commands, the program would nullify that part of the block. Even though it isn’t a textbook, it still teaches through hands on experience. The reading and activities in the textbook were more informative and immediate information that I could write down and save for later.

I think it was easiest to work with interpreted languages. I may be biased because of the experience I have with using Python the most of all other programming languages, but I think interpreted languages share so much compatibility that makes it easy to tap into most programs and be able to make changes effectively.

Compiled languages would be most effective when coding a video game or interacting with the code of peripherals. When working with an interpreted language, you would most effectively use it when you need to write a program on one computer or OS and then switch to another computer or OS and still be able to run the code. Assembly languages would be most effective if you are in a time crunch and need to work directly with the PC’s hardware. Using query languages would be best used if you are doing research or need to get specific data from large amounts of data. Even though you may need one data set, you can use a query language efficiently to find that set in an ocean of data values.

Here is the link to my project: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1152039752