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Microsoft TouchDevelop

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Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#51

Post by amelius »

rifung wrote: post #20
alexggordon wrote: post #17

When I see tools like this, that allow children and adults to make things, using the same platform, I can only think Microsoft is it literally investing in the future. It's so easy to get wrapped up in what a tech company can produce now, or in a year that often times people forget about creating awesome tools. Tools last a lot longer than platforms or devices. While Minecraft is a slightly different example, its cor…

Seems like this was made by Microsoft Research. I'd argue Microsoft Research's very existence shows Microsoft is heavily invested in the future, more so than any other tech company as far as I know. Maybe besides IBM I dont know any other company that still funds research which isn't expected to have some relationship to the business side of things.

They do so because all serious researchers will want to publish, as part of their career building process. Therefore I can't understand what type of researcher would want to work for a more closed company like e.g. Apple.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#52

Post by RotsiserMho »

mfisher87 wrote: post #24
janpieterz wrote: post #3

Just played around with it a little bit! Super interesting, can certainly see a couple of applicable use cases! The way the tutorials are setup will actually be handy for education, certainly if it would be possible to create your own tutorial. Edit: Typo

>The way the tutorials are setup will actually be handy for education, certainly if it would be possible to create your own tutorial. WOW, that's a good idea. The amount of work (and other resources) that goes in to creating a high quality online tutorial really is much more than is required to teach a concept well. Making tutorial-making easy would be a HUGE win.

I had the same thought and found they have a section of the website devoted to this. Very nice. https://www.touchdevelop.com/docs/creatinginteractivetutoria...

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#53

Post by janpieterz »

RotsiserMho wrote: post #52
mfisher87 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The way the tutorials are setup will actually be handy for education, certainly if it would be possible to create your own tutorial. WOW, that's a good idea. The amount of work (and other resources) that goes in to creating a high quality online tutorial really is much more than is required to teach a concept well. Making tutorial-making easy would be a HUGE win.

I had the same thought and found they have a section of the website devoted to this. Very nice. https://www.touchdevelop.com/docs/creatinginteractivetutoria...

Wow, supercool, thanks!

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#54

Post by neovive »

It's great to see so many great investments in creative tools by Microsoft.

For those interested, Microsoft Studios (Team Dakota) has a great desktop/Xbox One game called Project Spark (http://welcome.projectspark.com/) that is essentially a 3D game builder enabling you to build 3D games from scratch or "remixing" other games from the community. Games are constructed from visual blocks called "Kode". It evolved from a previous XBox game called Kodu Game Lab which was targeted strictly towards the education market [1]. You can install Project Spark for free on Windows 8 (I have it running in a Bootcamp partition on a Mac Mini and it performs well and is very fun).

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Spark for more history.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#55

Post by s73v3r »

Retra wrote: post #26
jng wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touch screens are much more efficient that keyboard and mice for some types of input (not for others: e.g. typing). Not only that, the intuitiveness of an obvious "hands-on" touch-screen interface allows toddlers to learn to use it before they even learn to speak (I've seen it first hand, as I guess many others must have). I believe there are forms of programming that can be done better with a touch-based interface.…

Don't you think having your hands in front of the screen is inherently problematic? It's hard to image where that would enhance efficiency.

Input of Chinese/Japanese characters.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#56

Post by soup10 »

morganvachon wrote: post #39
alexggordon wrote: post #17

When I see tools like this, that allow children and adults to make things, using the same platform, I can only think Microsoft is it literally investing in the future. It's so easy to get wrapped up in what a tech company can produce now, or in a year that often times people forget about creating awesome tools. Tools last a lot longer than platforms or devices. While Minecraft is a slightly different example, its cor…

TouchDevelop has been around for quite a while; I remember first installing it on my WP7 phone back in 2012. I'm very happy to see the editor open-sourced. I think this is a great example of Microsoft's new-found desire to promote learning and openness, rather than fight against it as they did in the past. My opinion of them over the past few years has slowly been swinging towards positive, and even though I'll likel…

All that glitters isn't gold. Wake me up when Microsoft makes a serious effort to make Visual Studio a cross platform development suite.

We all know the only reason this exists is because Microsoft has little traction in the smartphone market and app developers won't target their hardware. If Microsoft phones were the market leader they would not give two fucks about portability.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#57

Post by rifung »

YorkianTones wrote: post #30
rifung wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this was made by Microsoft Research. I'd argue Microsoft Research's very existence shows Microsoft is heavily invested in the future, more so than any other tech company as far as I know. Maybe besides IBM I dont know any other company that still funds research which isn't expected to have some relationship to the business side of things.

Microsoft Research is strongly expected to have an impact on the business side of things. It just so happens that Microsoft is willing to incubate projects like Midori* that have long runways (decade+) and may completely fail. The hope is that some new emerging tech long plays will become huge business boons (Cortana, Kinect, ..). There's lots of investment in NLP, vision, and OS research over at MSR. As far as other…

Is it? I suppose I just assumed it wasn't expected to have any impact on the business side of things as they are the only company (again besides IBM) that does research in theoretical computer science. Not only that but they publish all their results in public.

I know that Google also does a lot of R&D but from what I can tell, it's usually directly related to what they are doing.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#58

Post by marshray »

jng wrote: post #25
0xffff2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're going to need a hardware solution for that problem. No amount of software will ever overcome the fact that touch screens are not efficient input devices.

Touch screens are much more efficient that keyboard and mice for some types of input (not for others: e.g. typing). Not only that, the intuitiveness of an obvious "hands-on" touch-screen interface allows toddlers to learn to use it before they even learn to speak (I've seen it first hand, as I guess many others must have). I believe there are forms of programming that can be done better with a touch-based interface.…

I know right? Touch screens are just perfect for finger painting. Still, I prefer an Etch-a-Sketch if rectilinear lines are required.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#59

Post by YorkianTones »

soup10 wrote: post #56
morganvachon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TouchDevelop has been around for quite a while; I remember first installing it on my WP7 phone back in 2012. I'm very happy to see the editor open-sourced. I think this is a great example of Microsoft's new-found desire to promote learning and openness, rather than fight against it as they did in the past. My opinion of them over the past few years has slowly been swinging towards positive, and even though I'll likel…

All that glitters isn't gold. Wake me up when Microsoft makes a serious effort to make Visual Studio a cross platform development suite. We all know the only reason this exists is because Microsoft has little traction in the smartphone market and app developers won't target their hardware. If Microsoft phones were the market leader they would not give two fucks about portability.

https://dev.windows.com/en-US/uwp-bridges/

Sounds like a serious effort to allow you to develop native iOS apps in VS instead of xcode. You're right the motivation is heavily to minimize the cost of porting/releasing iOS apps to WP/Windows.

Re: Microsoft TouchDevelop

#60

Post by detaro »

amelius wrote: post #51
rifung wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this was made by Microsoft Research. I'd argue Microsoft Research's very existence shows Microsoft is heavily invested in the future, more so than any other tech company as far as I know. Maybe besides IBM I dont know any other company that still funds research which isn't expected to have some relationship to the business side of things.

They do so because all serious researchers will want to publish, as part of their career building process. Therefore I can't understand what type of researcher would want to work for a more closed company like e.g. Apple.

One who doesn't want to deal with the hassle of publishing. If you don't intend on returning to academia/other places that care about it it isn't necessary for career building.
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