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Well, if my nephews ever want to take on programming this might be a good place to start. Simple syntax, simple concepts, even the posibility of third-party libraries? Sounds interesting for teaching the young (and not so young too, but at that I'd prefer Python because of it's easier "real world usage" -- this does seem a bit too oriented at "toy programming").
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Isn't Javascript already suitable for that?
Javascript is a mess even programmers don't seem to understand at times, I never understood why people would want to teach it to people without any programming knowledge.
I assure you, JavaScript programmers understand JavaScript. No need to project onto others.
If I put my kid in front of a modern Windows PC, leave them alone for a few hours, and hope they learn something, I'm not very optimistic. Let's say I install Small Basic on Windows 8.1 or 10. So now I've put my kid in front of an operating system that has such a high-level UI that it doesn't even have a proper list of programs. The media consuming portion of the OS is so heavily emphasized over the creative portion…
If I put my kid in front of a modern Windows PC, leave them alone for a few hours, and hope they learn something, I'm not very optimistic. Let's say I install Small Basic on Windows 8.1 or 10. So now I've put my kid in front of an operating system that has such a high-level UI that it doesn't even have a proper list of programs. The media consuming portion of the OS is so heavily emphasized over the creative portion…
It runs completely in the browser. There are some interesting things in the interface, stuff I had even been considering adding to my project, like a full on-screen keyboard with special keys.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Javascript is a mess even programmers don't seem to understand at times, I never understood why people would want to teach it to people without any programming knowledge.
I think JS is perfect choice for first language. Sure, there are many rough edges and dark corners. On the other hand, it's fun, it's safe to experiment (because it's sandboxed), very easy to deploy and show friends, and it's quite usable language for all sorts of applications. There are more elegant languages (lisp, lua, scala, python) but they fall short at some of mentioned points.
If I put my kid in front of a modern Windows PC, leave them alone for a few hours, and hope they learn something, I'm not very optimistic. Let's say I install Small Basic on Windows 8.1 or 10. So now I've put my kid in front of an operating system that has such a high-level UI that it doesn't even have a proper list of programs. The media consuming portion of the OS is so heavily emphasized over the creative portion…
I'm assuming that this article is apropos of the article posted on HN earlier today about how Python is the new BASIC, as far as educational languages are concerned. I agree with the sentiment. These days, we can and should do a lot better than BASIC as a first language for kids.
Well, if my nephews ever want to take on programming this might be a good place to start. Simple syntax, simple concepts, even the posibility of third-party libraries? Sounds interesting for teaching the young (and not so young too, but at that I'd prefer Python because of it's easier "real world usage" -- this does seem a bit too oriented at "toy programming").
Hmm... nah, go straight to Haskell ;) Just imagine them in 5th grade trying to explain Monads to their friends.
I'd like to be positive about this especially considering the thought behind it, but...this is bad. I read the tutorial PDF hoping not to find BASIC-style unstructured programming. I was disappointed. QBASIC was the first language that I learned as a kid, and I regret it to this day. Learning to solve all my programming problems using GOTO in such a formative time set me back months when I finally moved to structured…