I'll have to add it to my list to go and check out any new updates/features they have.
I can NOT wait to get my little one into something like this!
They also attend local classes and their teachers switched from Snap to this which is way simpler and stickier with my nephews: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/makecode
A big part of it is that you can, to some degree, learn programming from this. But you absolutely cannot learn software engineering from this.
it's because this is BS and just a toy, it's got no connection to the real world.
from the angle of someone trying to make some toy to teach programming, maybe in their head it's like: oh this is so simple and easy it should work perfectly for teaching
but from my experience, most of my learning came from "whats this?" "how do i make a thing like this?"
this doesn't provide a way to accomplish that or to promote curiosity
I think same applies to basic CS courses teaching bits and bytes, it's not really useful to know what bits and bytes are if you don't understand what they're even used for or why you should know what they are
however, this is just my subjective point of view, maybe it differs for others.
stymaar•46m ago
> About Snap!
> Snap! (formerly BYOB) is a visual, drag-and-drop programming language. It is an extended reimplementation of Scratch (a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab) that allows you to Build Your Own Blocks. It also features first class[1] lists, first class procedures, and first class continuations[2]. These added capabilities make it suitable for a serious introduction to computer science for high school or college students.
biofox•35m ago
striking•34m ago
DonHopkins•12m ago
Jens was on the Scratch Team, BYOB was presented at Scratch@MIT 2010 explicitly to merge ideas back in, and Berkeley has kept showing up at Scratch conferences (Amsterdam 2015, Bordeaux 2017) while the Scratch forums hosted BYOB/Snap! discussion for years.