Programming Languages

 

Due to having some friends that have their degrees in programming, having some knowledge of programming languages already and with the week 1 assignment being labeled Programming Languages I thought the website Scratch was going to be a lot different than it actually was. But after logging into the website and skimming over some of the instructions and some of the completed programs, I familiarized myself with it and how it works and I began to add and remove blocks. It took some trial and error to find out how each block will work with the next block and how fast the program will run and switch to the next block. I think the biggest issue I had was the timing between blocks. It took me a few times creating a chain of blocks, deleting them and starting over before I realized that some wait blocks needed to be added to really get something that is starting to resemble an animation. I know what I created is not the most appealing thing, but I was able to complete a chain of blocks.

 I thought that Scratch would introduce and let us play around with programming in something like Python or Java. From what I know those are two of the most popular languages people program with these days. Scratch I guess is like other programming languages because in Python, Java, or even down to machine language, you have to know what each of  the “blocks” or sections of code do. You need to understand how one part of your code or block works with the next.

 It was interesting learning about machine language and to see how programs work at a very basic level. Learning about the ones and zeros are used to run programs. I was not aware of assembly language and that it made it so machine language was a more human understandable level of programming. Learning about it and how it works with the high level programming I already knew of was very interesting. After being able to do some activities with each of these programming languages I think I am more partial to high level programming. I am actually excited to get a little deeper into how programming is done in things like Python.

 And finally here is the link to the program I was able to make on Scratch. https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/447535789