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I taught a high-school Intro to CS course last year with the TEALs program (https://tealsk12.org https://tealsk12.org). I was very unenthusiastic when I heard

I taught a high-school Intro to CS course last year with the TEALs program (https://tealsk12.org https://tealsk12.org). I was very unenthusiastic when I heard that the first semester was taught using Snap, but I was wrong. Snap is a pretty awesome way to introduce someone to programming (much more powerful and reliable than other block-based programming environments I've tinkered with like the Kano kit). The one really terrible thing about the current iteration of Snap (that I think would be trivial to solve?) is that you have to remember to save your work. I don't think that's a normal thing for people to think about on the web in this day and age, and I have seen many students (and my own children) lose large amounts of work due to this. It's extremely discouraging. Other than that though, the snap language/environment is quite nice.

cycomachead 6y ago
Autosave is not exactly trivial, but it's definitely on the list. I do agree it's something incredibly useful! (Doing it right also can incur some costs, and that's something we would need funding for...)
- xiaomai 6y ago
  Good point, I was definitely too flippant about the amount of work involved. Glad to hear it's on the list though!
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Local storage might be a lifesaver here. Just in case someone forgets to save offer auto recovery. This can be done client side with no server costs.
  - cycomachead 6y ago
    Trust me, I know. But even here we run into issues, such as projects over the local storage limit, and the fact that (well, until COVID...sigh), a non-trivial number of students were in computer labs that contained programs like deep freeze making anything local storage based headache inducing as a means of support.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      Thanks. Would you say you need more contributors? And if you do what are you needing? Coders? Project Managers? Designers? Writers?
      - cycomachead 6y ago
        Depends on what you're doing, but coding is probably the obstacle. There's about 4 of us working various amounts of part time. In the case of auto-save, there's a lot of unsettled design trade-offs, and other needs keep coming up. But if you're curious, you're welcome to check out the GitHub: snap-cloud/snapCloud is the backend, and jmoenig/snap is the main IDE.
        quickthrower2 6y ago
        Yeah as a beginner at open source contributing (but not development) I'd be looking to fix tiny bugs first anyway!
enricozb 6y ago
I thought the message broadcasting and asynchronous behavior of Snap is really cool, specifically how sprites can have multiple code blocks each responding to messages or events. I'm actually listening to a TEALS meeting right now! Funny to see it on HN.
dvdkhlng 6y ago
I can second that, I have seen people frustrated after loosing work in Snap! by missing to save. But then that's maybe also a lesson people ought to learn early-on when creating stuff on the computer: safe early and create backups :)

cycomachead 6y ago

Autosave is not exactly trivial, but it's definitely on the list. I do agree it's something incredibly useful! (Doing it right also can incur some costs, and that's something we would need funding for...)

xiaomai 6y ago
Good point, I was definitely too flippant about the amount of work involved. Glad to hear it's on the list though!
quickthrower2 6y ago
Local storage might be a lifesaver here. Just in case someone forgets to save offer auto recovery. This can be done client side with no server costs.
- cycomachead 6y ago
  Trust me, I know. But even here we run into issues, such as projects over the local storage limit, and the fact that (well, until COVID...sigh), a non-trivial number of students were in computer labs that contained programs like deep freeze making anything local storage based headache inducing as a means of support.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Thanks. Would you say you need more contributors? And if you do what are you needing? Coders? Project Managers? Designers? Writers?
    - cycomachead 6y ago
      Depends on what you're doing, but coding is probably the obstacle. There's about 4 of us working various amounts of part time. In the case of auto-save, there's a lot of unsettled design trade-offs, and other needs keep coming up. But if you're curious, you're welcome to check out the GitHub: snap-cloud/snapCloud is the backend, and jmoenig/snap is the main IDE.
      - quickthrower2 6y ago
        Yeah as a beginner at open source contributing (but not development) I'd be looking to fix tiny bugs first anyway!

enricozb 6y ago

I thought the message broadcasting and asynchronous behavior of Snap is really cool, specifically how sprites can have multiple code blocks each responding to messages or events. I'm actually listening to a TEALS meeting right now! Funny to see it on HN.

dvdkhlng 6y ago

I can second that, I have seen people frustrated after loosing work in Snap! by missing to save. But then that's maybe also a lesson people ought to learn early-on when creating stuff on the computer: safe early and create backups :)