Codr, an app to help teach kids to code | Hacker News Reader

Codr, an app to help teach kids to code

codrlab.com

22 pointshabdelra16 comments

Ugh, that site is painful to use. Broke my back button. Checkboxes don't actually check. Advancing the slideshow/presentation/whatever can only be done by clicking the right angle at the bottom right, which is miles away from what I'm doing at the top left on my big desktop. Yikes.

I thought it was just a title page; I didn't notice the horizontal scroll until I read your comment.

I normally avoid negativity in my comments, but I'm afraid I really can't see the purpose of this site.

I only seem to be able to access the JavaScript section (no matter which options I pick), and am immediately presented with, what to a child, would be indecipherable code.

What is jQuery? What is CSS and how is it able to render certain Scratch Blocks? What is a var? What is setTimeout?

Children need to have things explained, and it appears that the creator has had zero contact with anyone with pedagogical experience.

What a waste of my time - I went to that website and there's nothing there! only <codr> on the screen and there's nothing you can do.

Can you get any language besides JS? I can't seem to get anything else no matter what combo I put in the questions.

I'm appalled that some of the first languages you intend to teach are Javascript (But really JQuery) and Python. That's just my personal opinion, but when I think "Teaching kids to code" I don't think "pick languages unlike any other language, and that will teach bad expectations of future languages." I would even be happy if you were to teach them something like VB over Javascript and Python.

What's so appalling about JS and Python? They're both fairly similar to other high-level languages of today, and I don't see how they "will teach bad expectations of future languages." I love Python and use it nearly every day (JS not so much, but that's mainly because of what I do).

JavaScript is perhaps the most broadly and immediately useful language right now, whether or not it should be, and Python is probably the best balance of utility on its own, usefulness for learning concepts applicable to other languages, and accessibility of any language today.

VB is more distant from other languages than Python, more limited in its direct utility, and less useful for teaching general CS concepts.

Python and JS may not be the perfect set of choices, but they are good set, and certainly either is far better than VB.

Totally disagree. These languages were chosen wisely. They allow you to get stuff done quickly without complaining too much. Kids who want to build stuff for the browser should learn Javascript.

Also, Processing in particular is a very smart option. I know that when I was learning to code, being able to draw cool patterns and stuff on the screen was really motivating.

What's the problem with Python? It's no more complicated than VB and was designed as a teaching language. The significant whitespace may be annoying, but it's semantically identical to other ways of specifying blocks.

Javascript for teaching programming to children is an awful idea, though.

JavaScript is an excellent language to get children to learn to code, because it runs in a web-browser, an environment children are very familiar with.

Javascript is an awful language to get children to learn to code because it doesn't understand numbers and pretends to be object-oriented when it's prototypical - which puts it by itself in the world of popular languages.

That it naturally runs in a browser is an awful reason to use it. Use something that compiles to javascript if you feel web programming is so important.

VB?! Modern languages that are simple (like JS, Python) make more sense to me.

VB is a bit old and outdated at this point, I think.

(btw, my handle is not related to this site)

The ideal language for this use case already exists: BBC BASIC.

Just a tiny piece of feedback: I was annoyed that clicking the checkboxes didn't work in order to answer the questions at the beginning, I had to click the text.

ie:

  I consider myself to be an:
  [ ] Artist
  [ ] Gamer
  [ ] Storyteller

It would be nice if one could tick the checkbox by, huh, clicking on it :)

    >It would be nice if one could tick the checkbox by, huh, clicking on it :)

Ease up there Jony Ive, this is codrlab, not uxlab (j/k)

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