Both Scratch and the Makecode editor build on the Blockly library, a tool for visual programming. There are subtle differences in the code blocks for each editor that change the behaviour of the program.
Scratch | Makecode |
Events wait for a user action, like clicking the green flag in scratch or pressing a button on the keyboard | Input waits for a user input like pressing the A button or shaking the micro:bit |
Control is about the flow of your program tasks. In scratch you can add a forever, repeat or if block to an event to trigger it. | Makecode breaks controls into programming concepts. Forever is it’s own loop (it’s triggered as soon as the micro:bit is powered on). Repeats are found in the Loops menu of Javascript Blocks And if blocks are found in the Logic menu |
Operators let you do arithmetic and make comparisons | Arithemetic and random number pickers can be found in Math, whereas a comparison between something and something else is found in Logic |
Data lets you define variables that might change within your program. Here we have made a variable called item | We can define these in the Variables menu of makecode |
Looks let you display actions on the screen, which can be done by adding a say block. The word in the box is called a string | To show a word on the micro:bit display we can use show string, found in the Basic menu |
Blocks that let you edit them have white backgrounds that you can type in for example operators have circular input areas  | Blocks that you can edit usually look like jigaw pieces and may already have an example in them, for example Math sums have a '0' in the block |
There are many more differences and simialrities between Scratch and Makecode, if you would like to add some, please contact us