[jacknews]

Well there's quite a big jump in complexity moving to python or whatever.

It's complex to even decide what to jump to, then there's setting up the environment, learning text editing and syntax, usually much more complex (and completely unfamiliar) graphics libraries, etc. And then they can't share projects so easily and aim to be curated, etc.

I like lua and love2d as the next step, as it's much simpler and cleaner than kitchen-sink Python (don't get me started on significant-whitespace), but it's still a big jump from Scratch. I wish there was a Thonny for lua though.

[creer]

It is a big step. But the kid is now older and knows what programming overall is about. Less likely to get discouraged then. But sure, Lua will work.

I agree though that debuggers are usually too complicated - print-based troubleshooting will be enough to start with.