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Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

futurecoder.io

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Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#61

Post by alexmojaki »

gchallen wrote: post #56

Thanks for sharing! This is really cool. I maintain my own learn-to-program site, so I have a sense of how much work this is. One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs . It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and e…

> One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs. It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and enjoy the opportunity to hear multiple explanations for the same concept when they're stuck. (We're working on popping this out for external use, and have a library in the works that you may be able to integrate with a bit of work.)

Awesome! I've only seen one other place doing something similar: https://scrimba.com/

This is definitely better than ordinary videos, and I like the point about multiple explanations. Although I do personally prefer that futurecoder rarely shows/tells without actually forcing users to run code and see for themselves, so they always have to be engaged. Even when they're told the exact code to run, they occasionally get asked to predict what the output will be, to make sure they're paying attention.

> I have no idea what your educational background is, but if you ever want a stable position that supports your educational innovation, consider applying for a teaching faculty job: https://go.cs.illinois.edu/teaching-faculty-hiring. (Currently our openings require a Masters degree.) We need more creators in computer science education.

It'd be great if I could be paid to work on futurecoder or something similar full time, and I've tried finding a way to make that happen before. But now I've just started a dream job at https://ought.org/ (working with AI, not education) and it'd be very hard to compete with that.

I don't have a Masters and I prefer to create things that are infinitely reusable rather than teaching directly. But thanks for the suggestion!

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#62

Post by alexmojaki »

zinclozenge wrote: post #59
alexmojaki wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any way for users to construct their own multiple stage tutorials? I really hope some kind of GUI to do that can exist one day, but it's definitely a complicated feature that I'd need help from contributors to build. Same for graphical output. > (It looks like we can do single questions) I think you're talking about the question wizard. That's for helping people to write good quality questions about their…

I just wanted to say thank you for those libraries. They were a lifesaver when building my own pyodide based project.

Awesome! Can you show me what you built?

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#63

Post by gchallen »

alexmojaki wrote: post #61
gchallen wrote: post #56

Thanks for sharing! This is really cool. I maintain my own learn-to-program site, so I have a sense of how much work this is. One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs . It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and e…

> One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs . It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and enjoy the opportunity to hear multiple explanations for the same concept when they're stuck. (We're working on popping this o…

> Although I do personally prefer that futurecoder rarely shows/tells without actually forcing users to run code and see for themselves, so they always have to be engaged.

Yup. I agree with this approach. However, I think that in some ways this is a weakness of the side-by-side format you're using, since it seems to lean toward more content per example to offset the playground consuming half of the screen area. On https://learncs.online/ we also prefer a "show not tell" approach, but because we're interleaving the text and the playgrounds, sometimes the text between two playgrounds is extremely minimal: "Let's see what happens when we try it another way."

But there is something nice about the side-by-side format.

> Awesome! I've only seen one other place doing something similar: https://scrimba.com/

Yeah, Scrimba makes it weirdly hard to figure out what's going on, given that some of their early examples just have slides popping up everywhere and no actual text editing. I had to fast forward a bit to get to an editing example. And while I think their integration with (I assume) embedded VSCode is really cool, there's a bit of that "seated at the controls of a 747" feeling immediately with their courses, which I think can be a bit frightening for beginners. We like to keep things really compact for a while, and don't have students work in a full IDE until halfway through the semester. (This also avoids the problem with too much IDE help too early, which you referenced in another comment.)

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#64

Post by fmx »

Looks great, and I love that it requires no account - you can jump right in!

One minor annoyance for me was that the animation for a correct answer - the exploding confetti - was a bit over the top. Like "OK, yeah, chill out, all I did was get the answer right to an easy question". I just find it too much to see that every time, but maybe that's just me.

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#65

Post by gchallen »

alexmojaki wrote: post #61
gchallen wrote: post #56

Thanks for sharing! This is really cool. I maintain my own learn-to-program site, so I have a sense of how much work this is. One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs . It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and e…

> One interactive component that we use heavily that might interest you for futurecoder is what we call an interactive walkthrough: https://www.learncs.online/best#interactive-walkthroughs . It's like a video but preserving the interactive nature of a playground. Students really like them, and enjoy the opportunity to hear multiple explanations for the same concept when they're stuck. (We're working on popping this o…

> I prefer to create things that are infinitely reusable rather than teaching directly.

Also: teaching directly can be done by creating things that are infinitely reusable :-).

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#66

Post by alexmojaki »

fmx wrote: post #64

Looks great, and I love that it requires no account - you can jump right in! One minor annoyance for me was that the animation for a correct answer - the exploding confetti - was a bit over the top. Like "OK, yeah, chill out, all I did was get the answer right to an easy question". I just find it too much to see that every time, but maybe that's just me.

Thank you, it's really great to hear that you've gone through several pages already and didn't find any problems more significant than this :)

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#67

Post by csmeyer »

samwillis wrote: post #2

This looks really good, going through the first couple of tasks it seems well considered. I'm introducing my 8yo daughter to programming at the moment, she is beginning to play around with Scratch. I'm keeping my eye out some something closer to proper coding though. I think this may be a little too far at the moment, but I may try her out on it with me sitting next to her and see how she gets on! Is there any way fo…

Futurecoder looks awesome, if you are looking for something for younger kids that’s more advanced than scratch I made pickcode.io

It’s frame based editing (draggable statements, free form expressions), and you can do turtle graphics and chatbots. I have 4 free tutorials online, if you want more you can email me, my address is in my bio on here

Re: Show HN: Futurecoder – A free interactive Python course for coding beginners

#68

Post by alexmojaki »

csmeyer wrote: post #67
samwillis wrote: post #2

This looks really good, going through the first couple of tasks it seems well considered. I'm introducing my 8yo daughter to programming at the moment, she is beginning to play around with Scratch. I'm keeping my eye out some something closer to proper coding though. I think this may be a little too far at the moment, but I may try her out on it with me sitting next to her and see how she gets on! Is there any way fo…

Futurecoder looks awesome, if you are looking for something for younger kids that’s more advanced than scratch I made pickcode.io It’s frame based editing (draggable statements, free form expressions), and you can do turtle graphics and chatbots. I have 4 free tutorials online, if you want more you can email me, my address is in my bio on here

This looks amazing, congratulations!
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