

Show HN: Opensource webapp that aims to teach beginners to code - utnick

I&#x27;ve been working on this prototype for a bit of a website that tries to get beginners interested in coding.<p>I learned to program on a TI calculator by making ascii games using TI-Basic&#x27;s draw text function. With this webapp I tried to recreate that kind of simplistic exploratory programming that I enjoyed.<p>Also I wanted to maybe get kind of a demoscene feel where beginners would try to create cool stuff right away and then share them with the world.<p>The basic idea is that it lets users write javascript programs that interact with a matrix of grids. By setting the color of each grid you can make graphical apps kind of like screensavers. Then you can save your program and share it with other people and other people can &#x27;remix&#x27; or modify your program.<p>It&#x27;s at an early but playable state now so I would love to get some feedback from the community on the direction this is going. Also its open sourced on github so I would also love anyone with ideas for improvements to contribute.<p>The URL is http:&#x2F;&#x2F;grids.cavecode.com<p>Thanks!
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eddyparkinson
I guess you know of BlueJ Java is a bit like this, lots of schools use it to
teach programming.

Some kind of logging would help people follow what is going on. When I teach,
logs often help clear up a miss conception.

I guess you are aiming at minimal setup and maximum learning. Which is a nice
idea. But the next step, after they learn how to use loops etc, is still
required. They will need to setup Java etc, you are changing the order of the
steps. Does this make things simpler, or just different?

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utnick
Ah interesting, I haven't heard of blueJ. Will download it today to check it
out.

I agree logging will be cool, just need to find a way to cleanly display it in
a way that is not confusing.

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utnick
clickable: [http://grids.cavecode.com](http://grids.cavecode.com)

