<div dir="ltr">Some of this is browser specific, if you are using the in-browser experience, and Touch Develop and Blocks an Code Kingdoms suffer the same fate.<div><br></div><div>Safari on Mac does not have a way (apparently) of naming the saved file, from a file downloaded via a javascript application - it always calls it 'Unknown'. The hex and the SAVE'd (serialised code) file both get called Unknown, which is doubly confusing.</div><div><br></div><div>At an event a couple of weeks ago where 1000 kids attended, we tried the Chrome method of defaulting the save location to the micro:bit, but it was confusing for two reasons</div><div><br></div><div>1) There was no download progress inside Chrome, and if you didn't think to look at the flashing LED on the *back* of the micro:bit, you had no way to know the download was in progress or indeed had finished. This caused the children to press the download again, and two concurrent downloads happened, which confuses the micro:bit and makes matters worse.</div><div><br></div><div>2) If you save directly to the micro:bit drive, you don't now have a local copy of your program (e.g. to store on a USB memory stick), and to save it, you then have to download it again to a different location (by which time you might have accidentally edited the program and got something different saved to what was working). We saw this a number of times when children wanted to take a copy of their program onto a USB memory stick. The default download location was then a pain, because you had to find a way to change it to save it on the USB memory stick.</div><div><br></div><div>In the end, we re-configured the computers to just save in the 'default downloads folder'.</div><div><br></div><div>Also note, the instructions on the screen of the other editors say 'drag the downloaded .hex file onto your micro:bit' - so this further confused users.</div><div><br></div><div>You might also like to know that the TD and blocks have an 'import code' feature, so that if you get your .hex and your saved code files mixed up, you can still import from the .hex file - presumably they serialise the AST inside the .hex file at the cost of a small amount of flash space on the real micro:bit, so that the code is always retrievable. Does the python support this (seems like a good idea given that the script is already embedded inside the .hex file anyway).</div><div><br></div><div>David.</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>___________________________________________________________<br></div>David Whale, B.Sc (Hons), MIET<br></div><div><b>Software Engineer and IET Schools Liaison Officer, Essex</b><br><br></div><div>email: <a href="mailto:dwhale@theiet.org" target="_blank">dwhale@theiet.org</a><br></div><div>twitter: @whaleygeek<br></div><div>blog: <a href="http://blog.whaleygeek.co.uk" target="_blank">blog.whaleygeek.co.uk</a><br></div><br></div>Co-author of global bestselling book <a href="http://amzn.to/ZGfxZG" target="_blank">"Adventures in Minecraft"</a> - lets get kids coding!</div><div>Now in English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.<br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On 27 December 2015 at 14:13, Harry Percival <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:harry.percival@gmail.com" target="_blank">harry.percival@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Hi gang,<br><br></div>Y'all may know Nick ran a session with Computing At School to introduce teachers to Python developers. Here are the notes I took while working with the teacher I met:<br><br><br></div>## possible confusion from no. of arguments to method that looks like a function<br><div><div><div><div><br>>>> <span>microbit</span>.display.set_pixel(2,3)<br>Traceback (most recent call last):<br> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module><br>TypeError: function takes 4 positional arguments but 3 were given<br><br>--> error msg confusing, 2 or 3 or 4 arguments?<br><br><br></div><div>## some things that are different from normal Python<br></div><div><br>- random function is not like python one! grr<br><br>- perhaps more confusingly, sleep uses different units from time.sleep. arg!<br><br></div><div>(neither of these are dealbreakers, just maybe something to warn ppl about?)<br><br><br><br></div><div>## workflow of save + flashing, the editor<br></div><div><br>download / save / remember to rename is annoying. but we found a shortcut - you can save directly to the flash drive.<br><br><div>re: editor, we found ourselves wanting a shortcut key for save/download<br></div><div><br>re
editor, we wanted to save the file out of the editor. maybe having a
button for that is too much, but we did struggle to copy + paste into
notepad cos it had linux line endings. <br><br></div>## other misc<br></div><br><div>x,y pixels starting at top left is not like standard x,y in maths... but, ok.<br><br>re microrepl readme: teacher asks, what is a virtualenv?<br><br><br></div><div>Sorry these are in rough form, hope they might spark some ideas or just provide some useful background knowledge for ppl.<br><br></div><div>Hope you're all having a great christmas!<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br><br></font></span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div>HP<br></div><div><br><br><div><div><div>-- <br><div>------------------------------<br>Harry J.W. Percival<br>------------------------------<br>Twitter: @hjwp<br>Mobile: +44 (0) 78877 02511<br>Skype: harry.percival</div>
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