Folk Computer
Shares rank 4 of 7 programming environments by recommenders
Open-source physical computing project that runs on everyday hardware; people praise its openness and visual approach, though many open questions remain and it is still early.
Open-source physical computing project that runs on everyday hardware; people praise its openness and visual approach, though many open questions remain and it is still early.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source code and approach
“they've been working on this much more recently than DynamicLand and share their code as open source”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “The Paper Computer” “they are open source, and exploring the space in other directions”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “The Paper Computer” “folk computer priorizes being open source”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Against Usefulness” Physical computing on everyday hardware
“Folk is doing the messy work of making dynamicland-style physically interactive computing available on hardware that normal people have access to”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “What folk can do” “I love the work that dynamicland.org and folk.computer are doing right now”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Electronics for Kids, 2nd Edition” Impressive ongoing work
“The Folk Computer people have some incredible work they've been doing too, that's definitely worth looking at”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “The Paper Computer” “I love the work that dynamicland.org and folk.computer are doing right now”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Electronics for Kids, 2nd Edition”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Relies on printed glyphs like AprilTags
“A weakness I see is the frequent printing and communication using glyphs similar to April tags.”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “What folk can do” Many open questions remain
“I've been contributing a lot to folk computer, but yeah, there's still a ton of open questions”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Always Bet on Text”
Other programming environments people recommend
The four most recommended other programming environments, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HyperCard | 62 | 5 | 93% | 11 | — | Approved |
| QBasic | 27 | 3 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
| QuickBASIC | 8 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | — |
| Folk ComputerThis page | 6 | 2 | 75% | 6 | — | — |
| Glamorous Toolkit | 6 | 1 | 86% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“folk computer priorizes being open source”
“The Folk Computer people have some incredible work they've been doing too, that's definitely worth looking at”
“Their intergation of a novel display technology is really sweet too”
“they've been working on this much more recently than DynamicLand and share their code as open source”
“needing to know what a project is about before being able to read about it is just terrible UX”
“they are open source, and exploring the space in other directions”
“I love the work that dynamicland.org and folk.computer are doing right now”
“I've been contributing a lot to folk computer, but yeah, there's still a ton of open questions”
“I'm a big fan of making use of visual intuition”
“A weakness I see is the frequent printing and communication using glyphs similar to April tags.”
“Folk is doing the messy work of making dynamicland-style physically interactive computing available on hardware that normal people have access to”
“Won't even begin loading for me.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.