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Japan Programming Apple

Kids Can Now Learn To Code With Pocky, the Delicious Japanese Snack (theverge.com) 51

Dami Lee, writing for The Verge: Even if you didn't grow up in Asia, chances are you've had this ubiquitous Japanese snack before. Walk into most grocery stores in America and you'll find a box of Pocky, and in multiple flavors like strawberry and green tea if your supermarket is fancy. With over dozens of flavors and variations, there's a Pocky for all occasions! There's a Pocky for Men. Now, there's Pocky for kids, with an educational aspect. Pocky's maker, Glico, has made a game called Glicode (Like if Wilco made a coding game called Wilcode) that gets kids coding by having them arrange actual cookies and snacks, then snapping a photo to translate them into digital commands. Glico's other products like Almond Peak chocolates and Biscuit Cream Sands are also featured in the game, representing "if" and "sequence" commands, respectively. It's a lot like Apple's Swift Playgrounds, with simple programming tasks commanding a funny-looking blob to walk around on platform blocks. The app is only available on Android for now.
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Kids Can Now Learn To Code With Pocky, the Delicious Japanese Snack

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  • They just need to add arrows to Luck Charms and then I can program my Big Trak at my breakfast table!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I've always used the verb 'program' and I'm not sure when 'code' started being used as a verb. For me 'program' is a more accurate term when you look at the definition:

    1. a plan of action to accomplish a specified end.
    2. a plan or schedule of activities, procedures, etc., to be followed.

    A computer program is essentially a series of commands to achieve a specific task, which fits with the meaning and is clearly the correct verb to use. 'Code' is far less accurate and it sounds like you're simply trying to m

  • It's like seeing everyone I knew in junior high, all over again.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I just don't get it. Is it the shape? Certainly can't be the taste. There are far, far, FAR better chocolate covered cookies around. Pocky is more like a cheap, flavorless bread stick barely covered in chocolate.

    • Pocky is awesome. Other than fan service based anime and Pokémon games its by far Japan's greatest contribution to civilization.

    • It's cultural. People want something that is JAPANESE! OMG! Plus you feel cool (LOL) for paying the outrageous markup on imported foods. Pocky is just dry breadsticks with hardened cake icing on them. You can buy them without any coating and they are like the crackers you crumble into seafood soup. I'm not saying they don't deserve a place on the candy shelf, but it is odd to have such an obsession with a second or third-tier candy, it would be like if Zagnut or Necco wafers had a fanatic following.

  • Not this shit again.

    Look, if you want to teach someone programming, even kids, teach them the actual basics of programing: loops, if/then, and what variables are. Most 6-year olds are able to grasp this stuff.

  • I know this is just going to blow people away... But the world can not function with programmers alone. I know, right? MIND BLOWN!

    • the microsofts and googles of the world want cheap labor, so get used to the "everyone's a coder" movement.
      • the microsofts and googles of the world want cheap labor, so get used to the "everyone's a coder" movement.

        Cheap coder labor and "everyone's a coder" is why software today is for the most part shit.

      • by Toonol ( 1057698 )
        I know. Teaching people arithmetic has destroyed the careers of so many mathematicians, and don't get me started about the ill-conceived notion of mass literacy.
  • No Pocky for Kitty.
  • I haven't been living under a rock all my life. I travel. I'm not blind. I wasn't raised by wolves.

    I've never seen or heard of these things before reading this article.
  • I've never had pocky, but ages and ages ago I ran across this poem that I loved so much I kept a copy. Recently I realized it had fallen off the internet, so now I'm reposting it out of civic duty.

    Koala’s march:
    The flavor of strawberry, of Koala’s march
    Do you know?
    In the inside of Koala’s march
    A part of chocolates tastes of its flavor of strawberry.
    Eat it,
    And you taste giant strawberry pockey.
    Therefore, next time, part 2 (last time)
    I wish you are looking forward to.
    I have what it must say

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