I've been playing with Coder for the last few days .. and the thing I like most about it is that the majority of the knowledge imparted is done through the comments .. I think this not only teaches kids good programming practice, but it also gives them the perfect distraction-free environment to be involved with what they're doing - just like commerical developers.
Also, it should be noted that the whole Coder package can be run on any Unix-ish machine (Linux/OSX/BSD) with ease; it doesn't require a rPi in order to get value out of it.
One conclusion I've made after 48 hours with Coder, is that developing for the Web sure is a lot more convoluted than it should be, alas. On the other hand, if I can fork Coder for my own needs (I'd like to use it to build a blog app) it'll be a lot less complicated.
I've considered learning web coding for quite some time now, but every time I try to learn I get frustrated that I need to learn at least three languages (HTML, JS, CSS) in order to get anything but a simple static web page. Meanwhile I could pick up a desktop-oriented language and get everything done with one code base.
I'm personally not finding that to be the case - or, if there is a more 'critical mass' in the desktop/server language, at least its a single language to deal with.
Its the context-switching that bothers me most about the web technologies that have evolved over the years (and I've been watching, as an Internet user for over 30+ years, this evolution quite closely) .. going from HTML5 -> CSS -> Javascript results in too much cognitive dissonance for this old salty developers eyes. Plus there are just too many platform issues to deal with - not just per-OS, but per-browser.
Whereas I'm perfectly happy building real desktop apps (which can incidentally be deployed to the web) in languages such as Lua, I really can't be bothered with the alphabet-soup of CSS, the peculiarities of HTML5 .. although I do find Javascript to be aesthetically pleasing at times (must be my C background). I hope to one day just do away with the web layer entirely and focus only on the app level, and there are fortunately enough tools like that out there to get along with in that regard.
Still, Coder is a fresh way to address the problem, and I definitely appreciate the effort made by its developers to make things a lot more approachable to younger, less crusty minds.
The early 2000s were a simpler time. Visual Basic was still perfectly viable as an enterprise programming language for CRUD applications, you had one simple language to learn, and could build an interface by clicking your mouse.
I don't miss VB, but I seriously wonder why the community was so quick to move on without ever actually replacing it.
Also, it should be noted that the whole Coder package can be run on any Unix-ish machine (Linux/OSX/BSD) with ease; it doesn't require a rPi in order to get value out of it.
One conclusion I've made after 48 hours with Coder, is that developing for the Web sure is a lot more convoluted than it should be, alas. On the other hand, if I can fork Coder for my own needs (I'd like to use it to build a blog app) it'll be a lot less complicated.