Similar developer tools

[Max Stephen Russell]

Just wondering again --  Aside from compatibility, is there any special reason that I should comprehend for the assortment of similar but different developer tools, such as block playground and block factory?

https://google.github.io/blockly-samples/examples/developer-tools/index.html

https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/tests/playground.html

https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/tests/playgrounds/advanced_playground.html

Thank you.

Steve

Max Stephen Russell

[feni...@google.com]

Hi Steve,

In short, different tools for different audiences.

- The block factory is for defining one or multiple blocks. The focus is on making it possible to see the effects of tweaks to a block definition, and to give a developer starter code for generators. The target audience is developers creating applications using Blockly, who need to define their own blocks.

- The basic playground is a use of Blockly with reasonable defaults and all of our basic blocks. The target audience is developers working on core Blockly. When we add or modify core code, we test our changes in the basic playground running locally to make sure we didn't break fundamental Blockly behaviour. We also use the online version as a way to do minimum reproduction of issues reported in applications that use Blockly.

- The advanced playground is for developers working on core Blockly and plugins. It has test blocks that won't make sense in the real world but stress test our renderers and interactions, and it has an easy way to change injection options to how a change interacts with all the many permutations of Blockly options.

Hope this helps,

Rachel

[Max Stephen Russell]

Rachel, your explanation is very helpful and enlightening. Thank you!

—Steve