I actually have a fair amount to say about this release, but I've been burning the candle at both ends for the last few weeks putting this together, so that'll be a post for another day. It's not perfect, but it's pretty solid. As always, feedback is really appreciated.
I'll boil it down to one sentence: It's really hard to apply YAGNI and actually build an MVP. Here it is.
Would HacketyHack be good for a smart 10-year-old who's new to programming?
Lessons: https://github.com/hacketyhack/hacketyhack/tree/master/lesso...
Samples: https://github.com/hacketyhack/hacketyhack/tree/master/sampl...
The biggest thing is that it's just Ruby, with a bunch of libraries. I still need to come up with a good solution for STDIN and STDOUT, but it's all just Ruby 1.9.1.
Q: is there a way to add pictures?
You can also just use a URL from the web, and the first time the program runs, it downloads and caches it.
I never quite understood YAGNI, because it seems illogical to always take that stance. Sometimes, you're gunna need it. Say YAGNI to everything, and you'll never create meaningful reusable abstractions. Other times, sure, you might be jumping into creating abstractions that don't turn out as useful as one would have hoped, but that's a decision which has to be made on a case-by-case basis.