Snap Reviews

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade Reviews

Snap mentions (34)

• How would you know whether an ancient culture had zero?

  Have you also looked at Snap! (https://snap.berkeley.edu/), by any chance? It's basically Scratch but with the artificial limitations removed, e.g. You can pass lists to functions, and blocks (functions) are treated as first-class objects so you can store them in data structures, pass them as input to other functions, and basically teach students proper functional-programming thinking (to find the odd numbers in... - Source: Hacker News / 8 days ago

• Python's pre-declared constants are kinda weird

  If I'm teaching you programming and you've learned Scratch, I'm going to hand you Snap! (https://snap.berkeley.edu/) next. Because it's Scratch, but with the artificial limiters removed. Snap! (the exclamation mark is part of the name) allows you to store lists in variables and pass them as inputs to functions, and it has the standard list-handling functions you'd expect, like filter and map. Moreover, it also... - Source: Hacker News / 9 days ago

• Ask HN: How would u setup a child's first Linux computer?

  For those actively teaching¹, consider Snap! (https://snap.berkeley.edu/) over/after Scratch. It's nearly a superset, similarly "low-floor" but much "higher ceiling" powerful language. Data structures, control structures/message passing, functional programming... It's really "Scheme in Scratch clothing" under the hood. In particular, its "build your own blocks" facilities are powerful enough (including macros... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago

• Replicube: A puzzle game about writing code to create shapes

  Snap! https://snap.berkeley.edu/ Also, I heartily recommend the demoes that the author is giving regularly at FOSDEM. They're really fun to watch :). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago

• Coding for Kids – Fun Way to Learn Programming

  Kids would probably have a better experience with Hedy https://hedy.org if they are young, and Pyret https://dcic-world.org if they are a little older. Once they know how to program python is obviously a fine choice, but starting beginners with Python is insane. Too many gotchas, incomprehensible error messages etc. Also why logo? Its not 1967 anymore. A far better choice is Snap! https://snap.berkeley.edu. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade mentions (6)

• A Tiny Yellow Handheld Changed How Duke University Teaches Game Design

  The game dev environment they’re talking about is MakeCode Arcade. I’m also a big fan of it. There are a number of little handheld gadgets that you can use with MakeCode—scroll down on the homepage and there’s a section that shows them all: https://arcade.makecode.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago

• Ask HN: How would u setup a child's first Linux computer?

  I recently installed Ubuntu on a little Geekom mini PC for my 6 and 8 year olds to share. So far my 6 yo isn’t too into it, but her older sister mostly uses it for the games I’ve put onto it through Epic and Steam and programming using MakeCode, mostly for Arcade (https://arcade.makecode.com) (I have a couple of micro:bit-based handheld shields) and more recently getting into the awesomely simple networking that... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago

• Isometric Projection in Game Development

  Alternatively, get her an emulator of an old 8 or 16 bit system, I started coding at the age of 10 in these systems, with books that were oriented for kids. https://www.atariarchives.org/ http://redparsley.blogspot.com/2016/08/input-magazine-retrospective.html https://archive.org/details/input-hi-01 Or if you prefer something more up to date, https://arcade.makecode.com/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago

• Ask HN: Yo wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

  Https://arcade.makecode.com/ Is great fun to use and made for kids. The forum (forum.makecode.com) is well moderated and safe too. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

• Copying Angry Birds with nothing but AI

  I'm not sure how this reduces the barrier to game developement. There are already lots of free assets and game engines designed for making arcade games that are a lot easier then say Unity or Unreal. Like https://arcade.makecode.com/ or https://microstudio.dev/ or https://scratch.mit.edu/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago