For kids who grew up with smartphones and other visual devices it's extremely hard to build something "sexy" in the first few weeks with basic.
You need some visual thing for the appeal.
You need some visual thing for the appeal.
Instead aiming for that Frankenstein moment of excitement ‘holy shit this thing is kinda alive!’ Is where you want to get to.
I introduced a friend’s kid to basic the other day. She’s about 9 and was already getting the idea of an input, making some decisions and writing an output. Even with that just being text she was excited, and was already having her own ideas what to do next.
I ended up working in computer graphics :-)
I agree with your sentiment re: scratch though. With scratch I struggle to pull kids away from the drawing and asset selection tools. I’d like scratch without this.