1. Creating things with block-based programming (e.g. Octostudio and Scratch).
2. Minecraft.
Back in December, I subscribed to Tynker, based on a recommendation here on HN. I was pleasantly surprised to see they have the ability to use block-based programming to do things in Minecraft. I tried it out and it worked well, but didn't get around to introducing it to my son.
This weekend, I tried showing him, but it didn't work, because Tynker's Minecraft websocket server was down. I've been messaging with their support team, who have replied with things like:
"our servers are being rebooted, and we’ll fix it as soon as possible"
"We have already asked the developers to look into this."
But it's been a few days with intermittent up time, so I'm wondering whether to use something else for Minecraft, or just hope that the Tynker folks manage to fix whatever is wrong with their infra or code.
I've seen online that there are several options for block-based programming for Minecraft:
- Tynker
- Code.org
- Scratch
- Microsoft Makecode (requires Education Edition, not Bedrock)
I'm not very familiar with Minecraft, so I'm not sure:
- whether the Code.org and Scratch integrations work with Bedrock Edition or not, and
- whether any of these four are better (e.g. better UX for assembling programs, better tutorials, more features)
I'd love to hear from someone who has used more than one of these with Minecraft.