21–30 of 137 posts
As a javascript fan, console.log("Hello World") seems pretty simple. Sure, when you get into async it might confuse young kids (or experienced programmers), but most beginner stuff won't need callbacks.
The shortest well behaved program, for example, looks like this:
if __name__ == "__main__":
print "Hello World!"
class Hello(object):
@classmethod
def main(cls):
print "Hello World!"
if __name__ == "__main__":
print "Hello World!"
Python certainly feels, to me, like the most similar language to the old QBasic. Simple syntax, with advanced features that you can use, or not use, pretty robust standard library, not great, but usable IDE built-in (I assume IDLE still comes in the install?)
One of the really cool things about QBasic was that it had support for doing such a wide spectrum of things natively, and easily. In my first semester-long high-school course, we went from Hello World, to doing VGA graphics with the different SCREEN modes and FILL, LINE, etc, making programs that could play christmas carols using the built-in MIDI commands, and doing some animations that relied on some of the old-school page-flipping techniques that we take for granted with modern hardware and APIs.
I don't know of another language that makes it as easy to do all that now. Python with pygame would be a start, but it's still much more complicated to get a window created that you can draw in than it was with QBasic.
Yesterday I had to explain to my 9-year-old daughter that the bug in her Python script was due to the fact that she indented with a tab and not four spaces. Trying to publish her program so that her friends could use it was a nightmare (it's a console app). It's 2015 and we have the brightest minds working on this stuff and it's all shit.
Not sure on publishing but maybe try packaging it properly (I believe python apps can be wrapped into .exe files) and putting the package into something like dropbox folder?
It's 2015 and these problems are solved already.
Yes, we hate PHP. Hurrr! It is so hard to setup Apache to run it especially considering how easy it is for Python. OH, and yes, PHP doesn't have a CLI! PHP is only good for web because I say so.
What? PHP does have a CLI? It is in fact the same process to set it up with Apache (mod_wsgi/mod_php)? It is also possible to build an emulator in PHP?! (http://phspectrum.sourceforge.net/) NOOO! PHP is only good for web and it is used by mindless guys (a certain asian population like it a lot!!!) so all of this is irrelevant!!!
Nope, sorry. Python is an easy, good language. Basic was not popular because it was easy, or even good, it was popular because it was everywhere. JavaScript, for all its warts and foibles, is the new basic. It's easy enough, and it's everywhere.
I remember trying to program some BASIC back in 1st grade, which was 31 years ago. I was terrible at it, but I was hooked. Fast forward to today: my 4th grader asked me the other day which language he should learn, and I was stumped. I ran through the languages I know well in my head: Java, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Javascript, Go, Swift... Wasn't sure what to tell him. His expectations are fairly high, due to Minecra…
or python bindings to original minecraft http://www.jjinux.com/2013/05/drawing-sierpinskis-triangle-i...
http://python-minecraft.readthedocs.org/en/latest/contents.h...
I remember trying to program some BASIC back in 1st grade, which was 31 years ago. I was terrible at it, but I was hooked. Fast forward to today: my 4th grader asked me the other day which language he should learn, and I was stumped. I ran through the languages I know well in my head: Java, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Javascript, Go, Swift... Wasn't sure what to tell him. His expectations are fairly high, due to Minecra…
It is!