[HN Gopher] Blockly: A JavaScript library for building visual pr...
___________________________________________________________________
Blockly: A JavaScript library for building visual programming
editors
Author : selvan
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-07-23 09:21 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (developers.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (developers.google.com)
| pan69 wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of Macromedia/Adobe Authorware.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Authorware
| usertanooki wrote:
| I've been using this and a custom React wrapper at work to build
| an automation tool for legacy Windows apps with a lot of success:
| https://etacautomation.com
|
| Blockly is vanilla JS and very easy to extend as needed (I added
| a better type system, for example), and their new plugin system
| is super helpful. Its performance isn't quite there, but I have
| high hopes for the future with the changes I've seen so far. The
| devs have been wonderful to work with, too.
| NoahKAndrews wrote:
| Is your type system open source? Better typing is something I'd
| love to have for the FIRST Tech Challenge blocks environment.
| mic-kul wrote:
| what is your tech stack if you don't mind sharing?
| wryun wrote:
| The NFP I work for has used this extensively - thanks Google!
|
| A few years ago we did a bunch of short free "hour of code"
| courses with a few different block flavours:
|
| https://groklearning.com/hoc/
|
| (search for blockly)
| dvh wrote:
| Are these block-based visual editors Turing tarpits or entry
| drugs?
| amitport wrote:
| They're both IMO. You can do much but if you're inclined to
| learn it will help with some concepts
| k__ wrote:
| Depends on how general the solution is, I guess.
| mcv wrote:
| I used that blockly maze to teach kids at my son's primary school
| some programming. It starts out simple, and then you progress
| through loops, conditions, and eventually they have to implement
| a real wall-following algorithm.
|
| I had 3 students at a time so I could help them a lot, which some
| kids definitely needed. But some didn't, and came up with some
| really interesting algorithms.
| [deleted]
| 123pie123 wrote:
| This looks great, I can't believe I've not seen it before. I'll
| be looking to introduce this to my kids
|
| This is almost the next stage from learning scratch
| (https://scratch.mit.edu/)
| CuriousSkeptic wrote:
| If you need a next stage from scratch, do consider Kojo.
|
| https://kogics.net/kojo
| mch82 wrote:
| Scratch 3.0 is actually implemented using Blockly.
| https://en.scratch-wiki.info/wiki/Blockly
| c-py wrote:
| I built a tool to create deployment scripts for AWS ECS based on
| Blockly: https://craftydeploy.com/
|
| It didn't really hit the mark - but working with Blockly was a
| great experience nonetheless
| corentin88 wrote:
| Wondering if Google Apps Script editor is using Blockly? I
| couldn't see it in the list of projects using it.
| misterdata wrote:
| At work we built a BI tool around Blockly in 2013. Still in daily
| use: https://www.dialogic.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/demo1.gif
| vanderZwan wrote:
| That looks really nice!
|
| The interface designer in me immediately wants to scream _"
| Fitt's Law!"_1 and move the header with run/select/save from
| above the output to between the output and the code blocks
| though.
|
| EDIT: Actually, Fitt's Law tells us _not_ to do that. But
| scrolling to find those buttons is also wrong. Why not make it
| a sticky header?
|
| 1 https://www.interaction-
| design.org/literature/topics/fitts-l...
| mikeyjk wrote:
| I remember getting into a discussion on Reddit where someone
| claimed tagging on to a bus was faster by pressing the card
| right up against the card reader. Always felt like an abuse /
| misinterpretation of fits law to me.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| If I understand your sentence correctly it's a bit of an
| edge-case (pun not intended).
|
| When designing interfaces for a screen, the edges (assuming
| that moving the mouse to the edge doesn't cause scrolling)
| can be considered "infinitely" wide or tall for the purpose
| of Fitt's law. This is a really old insight:
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/27/designing-for-
| peop...
|
| Pressing your card against the card reader is the same
| idea: you don't have to be precise with your motor
| functions, because as soon as you hit the card reader you
| know you're close enough. So people can be faster with this
| approach.
|
| (with that in mind, my earlier solution is actually wrong:
| the buttons shouldn't be put between the output and the
| code, they should be made _sticky_ )
| victor106 wrote:
| Unrelated question:- how are ui/ux courses from interaction-
| design.org?
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I wouldn't know, I never took them. However, looking at the
| "people behind" page1 I _can_ say that they have an
| impressive list of well-known experts in the field there.
| So at the very least they have that going for them.
|
| 1 https://www.interaction-design.org/about/people-behind
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Cool! Is there any write up about this?
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm really curious if this could be used for people who need to
| write code but aren't trained for it or because it's not their
| job. A lot of people are not willing to learn coding, and I
| really feel there are possible effort to make it more simple.
|
| The first thing that scare those people is the whole "plain text"
| thing. Spelling errors in programming are not forgiving and
| that's the first thing learners have trouble with.
|
| One example that comes to mind is science. There often is data to
| process, and excel can obviously do many things, but I'm really
| confident that more could be done.
|
| Programming feels like something that is often done by experts,
| but it really really doesn't have to.
|
| Of course, programmers often disagree that beginners should be
| given tools to replace experts programmers, but it's still better
| to have someone who can do the job of a programmer.
| usertanooki wrote:
| I've had some success teaching workshops to adults who aren't
| familiar with programming for the product I use it on. A lot of
| them are able to really grasp how to get things done within a
| session, but figuring out more advanced things (e.g. loops,
| functions, dictionaries) is still somewhat clunky.
| jalk wrote:
| Exactly - it still takes a programming mindset. In my
| experience watching people using Scratch et. al. When ppl
| start to acquire that mindset, the guardrails of visual
| programming turn into hurdles.
| themolecularman wrote:
| Would you recommend people skip Blockly if they want to
| teach people to code?
| onion2k wrote:
| The blocks not fitting neatly inside one another in the "do" and
| "else" blocks is quite infuriating.
| cpcallen wrote:
| This was originally a rendering bug, but one which turned out
| to be a massive improvement and so has been kept as a feature:
| https://developers.google.com/blockly/guides/app-integration...
| konsumer wrote:
| One thing I love about blocky vs scratch is that it outputs
| regular code, in several languages. This means you can use it as
| "guard rails" up until you understand the concepts, then start
| using the generated language when you need more. It's also a DSL,
| in the sense that you can generate regular code from any blocks
| you make, at any level of the code flow, and you can mix that
| with already-made blocks for your target language. I started work
| on a Minecraft bot/mod tool that outputs JavaScript, for example,
| and added the full API (that is available in JavaScript code) so
| if you feel limited by the the blocks, you can just focus on the
| code. I stopped working on it, because the library it depends on
| to interact with Minecraft stagnated (and got really out of date
| with Minecraft versions) but a similar approach could be applied
| to pretty much anything. https://github.com/konsumer/botmodblock
| dang wrote:
| Past related (I think?) threads:
|
| _BlocklySQL: A new block-based editor for SQL_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25517043 - Dec 2020 (38
| comments)
|
| _Blockly is a library for building visual programming editors_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10763057 - Dec 2015 (40
| comments)
|
| _Google Blockly is a library for building visual programming
| editors_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9987641 - Aug
| 2015 (1 comment)
|
| _Google 's Blockly Games_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8211031 - Aug 2014 (18
| comments)
|
| _Google Blockly - a visual programming language_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4050426 - May 2012 (123
| comments)
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I've just spent half an hour searching through my saved contalks
| folder trying to find a talk from (I think) last year where a
| someone talks about their new compiler research regarding block-
| based languages, specifically to make it easy to design and
| implement custom block based languages. Does this ring a bell
| with anyone?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-24 23:02 UTC)