Code generation

摘要

"A argh, this is the most addicting game ever!" says Gabriel. "Do you want to try ?" Gabriel is making a fruit machine video game with a twist. "Mine's an aeroplane game because I'm going to be a pilot," he says, spinning round in his chair before turning back to the screen. At an after-school club in central London, six 9- and 10-year-olds are glued to their laptops. They manoeuvre coloured blocks of code and snap them into place, making bright cartoon figures dance. Nearby, Imitiyaz has been having trouble with his fireworks. His rockets are launching, but instead of a sparkle of glitter, each one just turns into another rocket. Brow furrowed, he looks around for help. But at Code Club, kids are encouraged to work things out for themselves. After a bit of trial and error he learns that he needs to copy in the explosion loops from another part of his program and snap them into a new place. "I fixed it!" he says with delight.