Help evaluate block diffing tools

[Evan Patton]

Hello all,

At the recent Blockly Summit I spoke about our work building a tool to help surface differences in App Inventor projects. We are looking for more people to help us evaluate this work as part of a study. Please see the note from M.Eng. candidate Jennet Zamanova about an opportunity to participate and help us improve this project. Feel free to share it within your networks as well as we would appreciate feedback from as many projects built on Blockly as possible.

Cheers,

Evan

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TL;DR Sign up (https://bit.ly/4mtPIXZ) to help shape the evolution of a ‘compare project’ tool that enables users to compare multiple MIT App Inventor projects side-by-side. This research will involve a brief meeting (≈1hr 15min) and is open to everyone 18 years-of-age or older. Thank you very much for considering contributing to this research.

 

 

Hi everyone, 

 

We've been building a new feature for MIT App Inventor that lets users compare project contents side by side on a single screen, and we're conducting a research study to evaluate it. We'd love for you to participate! Your input will directly shape how this tool evolves for students and educators everywhere.

 

🗓 What's involved in the user study:

• A brief ~1 hr 15min session (can be done at MIT or remotely)

• No prior preparation needed

• Completely voluntary

 

If you have students over the age of 18, we'd also warmly welcome their participation. Student input is especially valuable for this research. A quick forward of this email goes a long way!

 

👉 Interested? Sign up here: https://bit.ly/4mtPIXZ

It only takes a minute, and we'll follow up with all the details.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to email Jennet Zamanova directly at zama...@mit.edu.

 

Thank you,

MIT App Inventor Research Team

Jennet Zamanova, MIT '26

Evan Patton, Ph.D., Lead Software Engineer, MIT App Inventor

[ewpa...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

Just to follow up on this: we are looking to release the Blockly side of this work as a plugin for other projects. Feedback from other tool developers would be greatly appreciated if you participate!

Cheers,

Evan W. Patton, Ph.D.

Lead Software Engineer, MIT App Inventor