This is very cool, we need more things like this in the industry. Easy entry, and instant gratification. The question that gets asked by every beginner in any field is "okay, but am I ever going to use this?" and instant gratification and identifying concepts in the context of a greater whole are crucially important.
However, the title makes me think more of actual visual programming "languages" or interfaces. Much like minecraft as is being pointed out here, or the National Instruments project, LabView (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW) which uses a language "G" ... a graphical representation of inputs, outputs, logical operators and translators that all get connected via "wires" in a flowchart. I was playing with this at 10 or 12 and I think engaging my visual-spacial skills early in something entirely logical and non-visual dominated greatly helped me. I have to think that kids playing minecraft now will be great programmers were they to go that direction.
Thanks! The instant gratification was indeed an important part of the design, as it hugely helps the motivation. (Think I've seen studies to that effect, but can't remember exactly.)
My biggest problem with these "visual programming languages" is that they don't scale well to "real-world programming". There's also a pedagogical discussion on whether they are effective for learning, but I don't want to get involved in that. ;-) In practice I've seen though that most children/students don't have a problem writing actual code.
However, the title makes me think more of actual visual programming "languages" or interfaces. Much like minecraft as is being pointed out here, or the National Instruments project, LabView (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW) which uses a language "G" ... a graphical representation of inputs, outputs, logical operators and translators that all get connected via "wires" in a flowchart. I was playing with this at 10 or 12 and I think engaging my visual-spacial skills early in something entirely logical and non-visual dominated greatly helped me. I have to think that kids playing minecraft now will be great programmers were they to go that direction.