Welcome to Blockly

[Neil Fraser]

Hello everyone!

Blockly has been a year in the making, and we feel that it has reached
a point where it would benefit from a larger audience. Development is
running at a rapid pace, with new releases happening several times a
day.

Please let us know what you think of Blockly and what sort of projects
you can imagine using Blockly for. If you want to help with
development, grab a copy of the code and hack away. Or just say hi!

-- Neil

[Jeremy Kemp]

Great chatting with you today at Maker Faire! Let me fill in the idea we hatched:

I'm here at the largest school of library and information science:
http://slisapps.sjsu.edu/facultypages/view.php?fac=kempj

My collaborator Bernd Becker is a librarian at the MLK library:
http://libguides.sjsu.edu/profile.php?uid=13283

Together we are planning to create an installation in the library based on the work of grad students at MIT Media Lab:
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=795

This started as a class and now is expanding to a project group. Watch the plan video:
http://youtu.be/wWoyMKQ6cOI

So I'd like to explore the use of Blockly as a way for the general public to propose interactive setups for an installation. We will create a book like the MIT people and then install a set of generic sensors, servos, lights and sound. These will all be wired to a central Arduino controller. The installation will have a wireless connection. Also - a laptop on location might be a more powerful solution.

Then we will need some way to gather these applets that the public builds in Blockly and forward them on to the Arduino controller.

Once successful we will need to package it up and make it available to the wider library Maker community.

We have a very talented research assistant and all summer to plug away at this. Let's keep in touch!

- Jeremy

--
~~~~~
| Jeremy Kemp, EdD
| Full-time Faculty
| School of Library and Information Science
| San José State University
| 408.393.5270 mobile | 408.924.2476 fax
| http://slisapps.sjsu.edu/facultypages/view.php?fac=kempj
--

[Seth Woodworth]

Hi Neil,

I found blocky via a friend from an internal google list of some kind.  This is an excellent tool, I'm very pleased to see it.  I'd like to get involved with the development of the tool.

Do you have a something in mind for next steps?  Personally, I'd like to work on more examples with the controls you have implemented now.  A drawing canvas like the one LOGO or TurtleArt looks like it would be easy to implement.  I'd also like to see a python >> blocks version of your blocks >> python code.

--S

[Neil Fraser]

On 24 May 2012 14:28, Seth Woodworth <seth.wo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Neil,
>
> I found blocky via a friend from an internal google list of some kind.  This
> is an excellent tool, I'm very pleased to see it.  I'd like to get involved
> with the development of the tool.
>
> Do you have a something in mind for next steps?  Personally, I'd like to
> work on more examples with the controls you have implemented now.  A drawing
> canvas like the one LOGO or TurtleArt looks like it would be easy to
> implement.  I'd also like to see a python >> blocks version of your blocks
>>> python code.

The latter is an extremely difficult topic. Python is a ridiculously
flexible language which I don't think can be represented in blocks.
For instance list comprehensions, closures, regular expressions and
even local variables are all things that Blockly can't do at the
moment. Any code->block translator would be hopelessly buggy at this
time. Blockly has a lot of growing up to do before that topic can be
seriously considered.

However, creating a drawing canvas (ideally with the same API in all
three languages) would be totally awesome. Can't wait to see
spirographs being drawn using Blockly. The easiest way to create new
blocks right now is to look at an existing, similar example and clone
it. I'll write docs ... soon. In the mean time, feel free to ask
questions.

--
Neil Fraser
http://neil.fraser.name

[Kyle Pennell]

Thanks for making it!  I'm a programming newbie and it's helping me to get the concepts better.

[Albert Xing]

Great work!

I'm a moderately advanced programmer (HTML, JavaScript, VB), and really appreciate your efforts in this.

I think it's a great way to simply piece the logic of programming together; it has great potential.

http://lbert.tk (still under development as of this post)

On Friday, May 18, 2012 11:49:48 PM UTC-7, Neil Fraser wrote:

[Pedro Narciso García Revington]

Hi,

I think it is very interesting for domain specific languages that allow the user to graphically build complex business rules/logic

How can I extend it to create custom blocks something like:
#when#
  @price
  #greater than# 5
  #notify# (all)

— Pedro

[Pedro Narciso García Revington]

Response to extend it here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=es&fromgroups#!topic/blockly/oVrx53mPnXw

[dpentecost]

Thanks for this! I look forward to using it in our new community
science, environment and art center in Manhattan - with planetarium!

We are using the Unity game engine as a platform for dome production,
working with teens after school. This looks like a perfect stepping
stone towards scripting in javascript for Unity.

[Craig Whitmore]

I use MIT's Scratch to teach into programming to 7th and 8th grade students.  Love the way this is similar to Scratch's language, but more advanced and that it shows the code in "real" languages as well.  As this develops more I'll probably point my advanced / returning students to Blockly.  Would love a collection of challenges for programming in Blockly (like the maze) to make this curriculum-friendly.  Thanks.

On Friday, May 18, 2012 11:49:48 PM UTC-7, Neil Fraser wrote:

[humanapp]

Hi Neil, this is a really exciting development in the area of visual languages! I love that it runs in the browser, and is really browser native. I developed a visual programming language called Kodu, while at Microsoft Research. I would love to bring it to the web someday.

On Friday, May 18, 2012 11:49:48 PM UTC-7, Neil Fraser wrote:

[carlos lecina]

I fell in love with AppInventor visual programming concep almost instantly, as it reminded me my old days starting with LOGO/TURTLE. Best introduction for kids, IMHO. I'm promoting this for sure! :)

I'm not directly involved in education but it appears non-programmers would be more comfortable with this than dealing directly with Python or Javascript. 

I think the next step is to add support for Input/Output services. We can provide connection with Google Drive/Docs, Twitter, or just an HTML console/graphical ouput. I'll try adding a generator for the CGFX shaders used in Unity3D, as they are pretty straightforward, and then compare results... 

You guys keep adding more preset containers/blocks , specially focused on Output the code to "something" like simple tasks connected to the Computer (play a sound, draw a bitmap on screen, send my text to Twitter...).Share some ideas with Pastebin team, or the IFTTT service.

[Marlon Smith]

You will love a project that I have covertly been putting finishing touches on that supports this & so much more since a year. It has a complete & polished html5 based UI development environment, inspired by AppInventor/StarLogo TNG style blocks but with a few fundamental departures and tons of new  ideas/features that are unprecedented in the MIT block world. Many which address weaknesses that I can forsee in the Scratch/Waterbear/Blockly block philosophy. I'm not yet ready to reveal the project or any deep details yet, as I'm putting together a site where the case will be made for my vision.. it'll be announced here as soon as I feel it's ready tto be presented.

[SL NSG]

I think if you "google blocky" serve as a second choice between web and software because the software it will be many more people are using .. but still berbasisi web .. because if the web only, the user / developer must turn on the internet .. but if it is web-based software application that is so useful and can be acquired and in combination with google and if it is not appropriate at least able to enable / run on google as appropriate

[Santhosh v pillai]

Hi Neil,

We are developing a blockly platform for raspberry pi which generates python coding. I want to directly execute the code instead of download the code and execute it. Can you explain how to do it?

app site: www.makblocks.com

[Erik Pasternak]

Hi Santhosh,

I don't think the Blockly team can help you with that, but if you start a new thread on that topic there might be other RasPi developers who would be interested in discussing how to do that. 

Cheers,

Erik