toit VS scratch-www

It uses toit, a high-level language, and is thus quite easy to learn. At the same time it's an order of magnitude faster than micropython.

We have been faced with the same question and decided to open-source pretty much all of our product (https://github.com/toitlang/toit).

I also really like MicroPython! Having said that, I have been working on an alternative to it for a number of years now -- primarily to provide a more robust and performant high-level alternative to C and Rust on the ESP32-family of chips:

https://github.com/toitlang/toit

I'd love to pick your brain and fully understand your experience with MicroPython. I've been doing programming languages for a number of years now, and I find that it is incredibly useful to understand what developers appreciate (and dislike) about the available stacks.

Thank you for the mention!

I have been working on the Toit language for the ESP32 for a number of years now -- and it has been an enjoyable challenge to build an open source stack capable of supporting live reloading on a micro-controller that can run for years on batteries.

https://github.com/toitlang/toit

We use it for some of our tools, so it's possible (and works nicely). Our LSP server was initially written in Toit: https://github.com/toitlang/toit/tree/master/tools/lsp/serve...

and https://codecombat.com, which has been around for a while now.

I think this paradigm (navigating a character using "move" function invocations) is good but kind of exhausts its usefulness after a while. I question whether my daughter learns coding this way or just is playing a turn based top down platformer. The most code like thing is when you use 'loops' to have characters repeat sequences of moves. I think when kids grok these things these apps become just types of glofiried education flavoured video games. There are a lot of things in kodable for instance that I feel are just basic web games with coding terms slapped on it.

https://scratch.mit.edu/ is more like 'programming' imo, even at the level of the objective -- having a blank canvas to create something. It seems a little advanced for my kids right now though.

+1 Scratch! My son started with it, then expanded into Roblox/Lua.

Children can download other people's games and experiment there. Scratch also has pre-made art, sounds, music.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch.mit.edu is a highly-recommended place to start [1] https://scratch.mit.edu/

> Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and a coding language with a simple visual interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations. Scratch is designed, developed, and moderated by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organization. [2]

1: https://scratch.mit.edu/

https://scratch.mit.edu/ (Scratch version 2)

Someone who uses scratch.mit.edu (like me)

Now that I think of it, I did start game development on scratch before going right into java (because of minecraft).

I'm looking for the best systems to help a 4/5 year old get the basics of programming. My daughter has shown interest in what I do, and loves puzzles and building things. Looking for something visual and fun that can start her down the path of logic and creating with computers.

I have a passing familiarity with Scratch [1], which I'm now looking into more, but am hoping others can share their knowledge and experience in this area.

[1] https://scratch.mit.edu/