Microsoft MakeCode • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft MakeCode

#91

Post by Whitestrake » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 4:30 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

maruhan2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there are html, css, javascript. Everyone already uses a browser so nothing to set up. Just code and open it in your browser.

> Except there are html, css, javascript. Everyone already uses a browser so nothing to set up. You haven't seen the current JS ecosystem, have you? Now if you opt to ignore the entire modern JS scene - all that Babel, Webpack, NPM stuff - and just write plain old JS in a text editor to execute directly, then yes. And with browser dev tools having a half-decent REPL, I'd say this is a pretty good way to introduce som…

Is writing "plain old JS in a text editor" really that rare nowadays?

Honest question - I've only done a few websites, some with basic JS functionality and a few more advanced (for a website, that is) Go apps now - but never really felt the urge or need to reach for the "modern JS scene", so I'm unsure just how prevalent that kind of setup is.

Re: Microsoft MakeCode

#92

Post by brucephillips » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 4:39 AM UTC

Whitestrake wrote: post #91

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except there are html, css, javascript. Everyone already uses a browser so nothing to set up. You haven't seen the current JS ecosystem, have you? Now if you opt to ignore the entire modern JS scene - all that Babel, Webpack, NPM stuff - and just write plain old JS in a text editor to execute directly, then yes. And with browser dev tools having a half-decent REPL, I'd say this is a pretty good way to introduce som…

Is writing "plain old JS in a text editor" really that rare nowadays? Honest question - I've only done a few websites, some with basic JS functionality and a few more advanced (for a website, that is) Go apps now - but never really felt the urge or need to reach for the "modern JS scene", so I'm unsure just how prevalent that kind of setup is.

It is for modern commercial products, yes.

And while there's some fragmentation and hacks that justify derision, it's not that bad. Any complex software component needs a package manager and a build system.

Re: Microsoft MakeCode

#93

Post by anonytrary » Fri, Jan 19, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #83

anonytrary wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very pedantic, the context makes it clear I'm using "code" as shorthand to refer only to written programs. True, visual code may well be a first class citizen in programming. As of today, there are still programs people would not write visually. It's a tool for simple procedural work, which could change as the ergonomics get even better.

There are codeless visual programming methods, like Pygmalion and Sketchpad, among others. So we shouldn't get confused with them.

Visual programming: Drag and drop nodes and edges to form a control-flow/compute graph.

Code: Python, JS, C++, etc.

I don't think this is confusing for our readers at all.

Re: Microsoft MakeCode

#94

Post by pdm55 » Sat, Jan 20, 2018, 7:13 AM UTC

AshleysBrain wrote: post #63

Microsoft have tried this kind of thing more than once in the past, usually ultimately cancelling the projects. There was Microsoft Popfly (retired), Project Spark (retired), Microsoft Kodu (still going), now MakeCode. I suspect there are even more if you go further back. Our startup has been doing the visual programming thing successfully for around 6 years now, and our latest tool is at www.construct.net. Maybe the…

Thanks for the link to https://www.construct.net/au. Others are https://studio.code.org/s/express, https://blockly-games.appspot.com/?lang=en & http://microbit.org/code/.