[fpc-pascal] Free Pascal equivalent of Scratch?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

On 08/09/16 14:00, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> Hi,
>
> re: coding clubs for 9-11 year olds.
>
> Has anybody thought of, or started working on, a "ide" equivalent of
> Scratch for Free Pascal? My thinking is something like the Scratch
> interface, by dropping puzzle pieces on the canvas, setting values to
> control loops etc, and then possibly generating the equivalent Object
> Pascal code from that.
>
> An example of a Scratch project for a Coding Club.
>
>   https://www.codeclubprojects.org/en-GB/scratch/rock-band/

This might be better in fpc-other.

The problem with that sort of graphical environment is that while it can 
represent program structure it's completely oblivious of any structured 
data.

With suitable graphical support it would probably be possible to have 
something "Scratch-like" where every item on the screen was an FPC 
object, but those items would end up being a comparatively thin wrapper 
around conventional code.

So either the children and their supervisors would have to be prepared 
to edit Pascal code fairly early, or it would take a large amount of 
design and implementation to build a general-purpose repertoire of items 
which would be comprehensive enough to satisfy both beginners and 
intermediate-level students.

Quite frankly, I'm not convinced that Pascal offers sufficient advantage 
over Smalltalk to make the effort worthwhile. And I'd definitely not 
like to be the one to raise my head above the parapet and tell the World 
that it ought to be using either language- and I write that from the POV 
of using Smalltalk for my MPhil, many years ago.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]