In July, Google released a trial version of new software, called
the Google App Inventor, intended to let people with no previous
programming experience design applications for phones that use
Google’s Android operating system. The software has provoked
much commentary in the technology press, and Google has been
trumpeting it as a way to give people direct control of their
own phones. But App Inventor is the latest outgrowth of a
tradition of MIT research that dates back at least 40 years.
The App Inventor project was led by Hal Abelson, the Class of
1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, who spent a
sabbatical year at Google as a visiting professor. Instead of
having to write traditional computer code, users of App Inventor
can create programs by snapping together virtual, color-coded
instruction “blocks.” For instance, to add a button to an
application, the user would drag the button block into App
Inventor’s workspace window and determine the button’s visual
properties by selecting from pull