Show HN : Teaching programming using a robot, go from drag/drop to real code

The complexity of most domains is such that you'd have hundreds or thousands of different blocks, that you'd have to know what they do and somehow sort efficiently. The most efficient way is just to write their name, but by that point you may as well skip the dragging and dropping entirely.

Of course, any way you make the computer do what you want is programming of some description or another. The distinction between user and programmer, with users equipped with dumbed down interfaces and cut off from the main power of the machine, is arguably highly corrosive.

But for all that, 'real' code - in the sense that someone can go from where they are to writing programs of some significant complexity - is, for the time being, generally text-based. More ... visual ... IDEs have so far met with limited success outside of tightly constrained problem domains, where the complexity they'd have to represent can be managed.

Re: Show HN : Teaching programming using a robot, go from drag/drop to real code

#6

Post by SimpleXYZ » Tue, Apr 08, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

It would be better if it had a grasping arm or something. I just want a quick way to program a robot to get me a beer from the fridge. Is that really so much to ask?

Re: Show HN : Teaching programming using a robot, go from drag/drop to real code

#7

Post by salter » Tue, Apr 08, 2014, 3:51 PM UTC

SimpleXYZ wrote: post #6

It would be better if it had a grasping arm or something. I just want a quick way to program a robot to get me a beer from the fridge. Is that really so much to ask?

That would be incredible!