Happy Nerds: A collection of learn-to-program resources for kids | Hacker News Reader

Happy Nerds: A collection of learn-to-program resources for kids

happynerds.net

58 pointsdanso22 comments

Nice, but there's still quite a stigma attached to 'nerd'. Many kids will avoid the site just because of that.

That's lesson number 0.

Yes, but I already owned that domain and since it's a just for fun side project, I didn't really feel like spending money on a new one.

I suspect the site itself is targeted towards parents.

You might want to add rur-ple (http://code.google.com/p/rur-ple); it is similar to Guido van Robot (and was inspired by it). However, 1) it uses Python (instead of a more limited, Python-like inspired language); 2) it has more lessons and exercises than Guido van Robot; 3) it provides an embedded programming environment to go beyond the robot's world.

A second addition to consider is GvR online (http://gvr-online.appspot.com/ui/index.html), an online version of Guido van Robot.

Thanks, added both of them :-)

I appreciate you putting this together and was about to send the link around when I ran into Application errors throughout. Looks like your server kicked it.

Yes, I see lots of 503s in my Heroku logs :-( This is a pet project, so I don't wanna pay for it, which means you all probably have to live with this until the initial wave of traffic dies down again, sorry!

And it's back. Turns out the problem wasn't really the traffic but a problem with the MongoDB setup...

Great site, but the image of the kid on the left should have a negative z-index so it doesn't get in the way of the sidebar navigation.

Yes, I had noticed that before and fixed it before I read this thread. Thanks for pointing it out though!

I'm the guy who runs HappyNerds.net, thanks for all the attention, but it looks like my free little Heroku account can't handle it :-/

Oops sorry. I saw you had promo'ed your site in the comments of an earlier article about kids and programming that HN linked to. So, I just wanted to spread the word :)

Nothing to be sorry about, thanks for spreading it! Site's back up now :-)

Nice idea and nice website... thanks... actually i didn't know staff like that exists for kids ... thanks !

So -- has anyone here actually used any of these languages? Or better yet, given them to an actual child? Any feedback?

is it just me or are the links on the left deactivated?

the image seems to be covering some of the links

How so? They seem to be clickable

it looks nice for me ... may be because my monitor is big ?

ahh, they are working again, maybe it was just me :)

See my comment above - the image is using fixed-positioning and has a default z-index above that of the links. They can fix it by setting the image's z-index to -1.

Edit: looks like they fixed it.

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