Thomas Ball
ABSTRACT
Microsoft MakeCode (https://www.makecode.com) is a platform and accompanying web app for simplifying the programming of microcontroller-based devices in the classroom. For each device, MakeCode provides a customized end-to-end experience in the web browser consisting of code editors, device simulator, debugger, compiler to machine code, and linker to a pre-compiled C++ runtime, as well as a documentation and tutorial system. We present an overview of MakeCode and detail the major design decisions behind the platform.
- Jonny Austin, Howard Baker, Thomas Ball, James Devine, Joe Finney, Peli de Halleux, Steve Hodges, Michał Moskal, and Gareth Stockdale. 2020. The BBC micro:bit – from the UK to the World. Commun. ACM (to appear) (2020).Google Scholar
- Thomas Ball, Peli de Halleux, and Michał Moskal. 2019. Static TypeScript: Static Compilation of Dynamic Languages for Embedded Systems. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Managed Programming Languages and Runtimes (MPLR ’19) .Google Scholar
- Thomas Ball, Jonathan Protzenko, Judith Bishop, Michał Moskal, Jonathan de Halleux, Michael Braun, Steve Hodges, and Clare Riley. 2016. Microsoft Touch Develop and the BBC Micro:Bit. In Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion (ICSE ’16) . 637–640.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Samuel Baxter, Rachit Nigam, Joe Gibbs Politz, Shriram Krishnamurthi, and Arjun Guha. 2018. Putting in all the stops: execution control for JavaScript. In Proceedings of the 39th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI ’19) . 30–45.Google ScholarDigital Library
- James Devine, Joe Finney, Peli de Halleux, Michał Moskal, Thomas Ball, and Steve Hodges. 2018. MakeCode and CODAL: intuitive and efficient embedded systems programming for education. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED International Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems (LCTES ’18) . 19–30.Google ScholarDigital Library
- G. Richards, F. Z. Nardelli, and J. Vitek. 2015. Concrete Types for TypeScript. In 29th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, ECOOP 2015 . 76–100. Google ScholarCross Ref
- David Weintrop and Uri Wilensky. 2017. Comparing Block-Based and Text-Based Programming in High School Computer Science Classrooms. TOCE 18, 1 (2017), 1–25.Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Microsoft MakeCode: embedded programming for education, in blocks and TypeScript
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