What is Diálogo?
It is a programming environment for children over 10 (younger ones with an adult alongside). In Diálogo, programs are built from symbols the children draw themselves. The language rests on two relations between symbols, substitution and categorization, plus about ten combinators (push, pull, teleport, collide, wildcards, an evaluation viewer). With their own drawings and these predefined visual symbols, children build games, simulations and abstract symbolic models, such as numbers and addition from scratch.
Rules live on the same board as the game. A character can push a rule out of the way and change the program while it runs, so metaprogramming becomes something a child can see and touch. A step-by-step execution viewer shows which rule fired at each step, and doubles as the debugger.
🎮 For learners:
- Build games from your own drawings
- Give characters behavior by combining a few visual symbols
- See, step by step, why the game does what it does
- Make games that rewrite their own rules while you play
🏫 For teachers and researchers:
- Declarative from the first session, with no syntax and no imperative prerequisite
- Runs offline on modest hardware, with no account or server; projects are saved locally
- Interface in ten languages; adding one more means translating a single text file
- A sequence of seven activities delivered as videos addressed to the children, so the tool is easy to adopt
🌀 From drawing to game. With the first projects done, it takes minutes.
Step 1
🎯 An introduction by playing
25 short activities, each one showing you a piece of the environment. It plays in the browser, with nothing to install and no account.
Step 2
⬇️ Download Diálogo
Pick the version for your operating system:
The ZIP runs on Linux, and also on Windows and Mac as an alternative to the installers.
Trouble installing? There is a video that walks you through it
Installing Diálogo on Windows, Mac or Linux. In Spanish.
Or try the online version: it runs the full Diálogo in the browser, with no installation, and can save your files, but it is slow and downloads about 30 MB the first time. For real use, the installed version is much better, and to simply see what Diálogo is about, the introduction by playing is faster.
Diálogo is under active development. Bug reports and classroom stories are welcome at agustin@dialog.ar.
Step 3
🎓 A sequence of seven activities
Each activity introduces one abstraction mechanism through a playable artifact. Projects 1 to 5 build games; projects 6 and 7 move toward abstract symbolic models. Projects 1 to 3 form a self-contained introduction, with a playable game already in project 2.
The activities are videos addressed directly to the children. The videos are currently in Spanish; an English version is in preparation.
♟️ Project 1: Chess
Categorization, the first mechanism of abstraction. Build a board and pieces that capture each other, then replace case-by-case rules with rules over categories.
🎧 English audio
This class has an English audio track. If it starts in Spanish, open the player settings (the gear) and pick Audio track, English.
🐍 Project 2: The Snake
Substitution, the second mechanism. A growing-body snake, removing duplicated code, and the execution viewer as a debugger.
🎧 English audio
This class has an English audio track. If it starts in Spanish, open the player settings (the gear) and pick Audio track, English.
👻 Project 3: From Pac-Man to a research submarine
A classic that puts every combinator to work, then re-skinned into a new domain. Simple rules, surprising results.
🎧 English audio
This class has an English audio track. If it starts in Spanish, open the player settings (the gear) and pick Audio track, English.
🧠 Project 4: Metaprogramming puzzles
What happens when a program modifies itself? A labyrinth whose rules can be pushed and pulled during play.
🎧 English audio
This class has an English audio track. If it starts in Spanish, open the player settings (the gear) and pick Audio track, English.
🚀 Project 5: Space ships
Ideas from game development: event-driven rules, hidden objects, collisions and time control, all combined in one shooter.
🔢 Project 6: My calculator
Recursion and abstract symbol manipulation. Numbers and addition built from scratch, with no game and no character. It starts out simple and ends up the most demanding of the seven.
🏁 Project 7: Score and reuse
Modularity and reuse. Add a scoring system to an earlier game, with no variables at all.
🔬 For educators and researchers
Some papers and academic talks where the project has been presented:
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Programming with Drawings: A Declarative Visual Environment and Its Classroom Evolution
Agustín R. Martínez. SIGCSE Technical Symposium 2027, Sacramento, California, February 2027. To appear.
The environment's design, its evolution across an in-person workshop and an online course, and the sequence of seven activities.
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A Language Based on Two Relations between Symbols
Agustín R. Martínez. Onward! 2022 (SPLASH), Auckland. ACM. doi:10.1145/3563835.3567660
The conceptual foundation: substitution and categorization as the two relations from which the language is built.
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Teaching Kids to Hack Their Own Games: Metaprogramming, Debugging, and Creativity from Age 7
Talk at Smalltalks 2025, Buenos Aires. Watch the video
Interested in using Diálogo in your classroom or your research, in translating the sequence of activities, or in running a study with it? Write to agustin@dc.uba.ar.
Agustín Rafael Martínez, Departamento de Computación, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires.
🎤 Shows at Nerdearla (with English subtitles)
Two full stage shows built with Diálogo for a general audience. Spoken in Spanish; English subtitles are on by default.