
Show HN: PyCloud, a Python IDE in the web browser with interactive tutorials - siong1987
http://www.jitouch.com/pycloud/
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siong1987
My friend worked on this for the Facebook Hackathon over the weekend. We were
late for the submission for the competition because a 24 hour hackathon ended
up with just 22 hours only. Guess we are just going to show it here.

This is a Python IDE with a built in Python compiler. We utilized HTML5 local
storage to make it work even without internet connection. You just have to
load it once, after that, it should work.

We also took the idea from codeacademy and added some Python lessons for
people who are interested in Python.

Tip: Try to use your iPad/iPhone and add this to your homescreen. Now, you
will have a workable Python compiler in your iPad/iPhone. It works without
internet connection. Since Apple doesn't allow Python compiler similar app to
be submitted to the App Store, guess this is a cool hack to have a Python
compiler in your iPad/iPhone.

github link: <https://github.com/siong1987/pycloud>

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fredliu
Not sure why, but on my ipad2, it crashes the entire browser every time I open
it. Did anyone test it on ipad2?

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siong1987
My friend did test it on his iPad2. It worked. I currently have no iPad2 with
me. Will let you know again once I get my hands on an iPad2.

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biot
Same crashing result here on iPad 1.

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Tycho
While it loaded in Safari (and before it crashed) i clicked the bookmark icon
and added bookmark to home screen. Then when i accessed it from the home
screen it worked (after loading up). This was on ipad 1

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hogu
similar name to <http://www.picloud.com/>

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artursapek
Endow this technology with the amount of content that a book would have, like
Zed Shaw's Learn Python The Hard Way, and you have a killer product. Though
Zed would disagree that typing the code out yourself from scratch is the best
way to learn.

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cheez
Pretty cool but I was surprised at the second lesson:

> Now, we will show you a little more complicated code. You probably already
> know what this code does. Let's click Run to see the output.

Um, what kind of tutorial assumes the student already knows the material?!!!

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siong1987
To give you some context, this app is originally built to be presented to all
the hackers at Facebook Hackathon. Sorry about the misleading line up there.

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johkra
This is a cool project. :-)

It also doesn't work in Opera, because the emscripten compiled CPython doesn't
work with this browser. No problems in latest stable Firefox.

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jonsen
Make the tutorials really newcomer friendly and you have 100,000 potential
users at Stanford online AI class.

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bobbyi
If I try "import math" or "import itertools" I get an ImportError. "import
sys" works though.

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ntmartin
Hi, nice app. Just to be a pedant, there is a syntax error in lesson 5.

if 2 + 3 = 5: print "OK!"

Should be:

if 2 + 3 == 5: print "OK!"

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DrCatbox
That was the lesson, to see that the IDE does not compile errors and has
syntax highlighting for it.

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aristidb
Very cool, but it eats memory like crazy. (Chrome 14, Linux.)

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cabalamat
Very nice! Just one request: use a font other than courier.

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pwang
Why? Courier is widely available and code is readable and monospaced.

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cabalamat
I find courier very ugly and borderline unreadable.

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diN0bot
add keyboard shortcut options, eg vim and emacs, and people might use it for
real :-)

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rorrr
Seriously? You want him to implement Vim or Emacs in the browser?

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Marwy
If adding keyboard shortcuts of those two is implementing them, then we've got
emacs implemented in Eclipse. And every major IDE. Yay!

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majika
Oh, wow, look - it's just as if I'm on a Mac! Great!

