MakeCode 2020 is live
Congratulations to the Microsoft MakeCode team for launching the new version of the MakeCode block editor for the micro:bit!
You can try it out now at https://makecode.microbit.org/
If you’ve used MakeCode before, it will look very familiar but it has some improvements that we think will have a great impact in the classroom:
- Dot-to-dot connectors make it easier to see where your blocks will drop
- Students are prompted to name their work when creating a new project
- Music now has a volume control and a melody sequencer
- Functions can now return values, making them even more useful
- Loops now have 'break' and 'continue' blocks
- A new debugging tool
There's also now a second text-based option to switch between blocks and written code. MakeCode Python is a stand-alone version of Python, similar in structure to MakeCode JavaScript, which is not compatible with other Python editors.
We'll be exploring what these and the other new features mean for teaching with micro:bit in more depth in the coming weeks.
