

Coder for Raspberry Pi - makepanic
http://googlecreativelab.github.io/coder/

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timdorr
While this is cool, why does it have to be on a Raspberry Pi? Could this not
be a VM (VirtualBox, since it's free) image as well? That way there's no
hardware to buy and you simply install one program to run the image.

A great example of this is ArchiveTeam's Warrior:
[http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior](http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Warrior)

~~~
fdb
Coder is a node.js application, so it also work on Mac. Here's how I got it to
work (assuming you have Homebrew installed):

    
    
        brew install redis node
        git clone https://github.com/googlecreativelab/coder.git
        cd coder/coder-base
        npm install
        npm start
        

Now login to [https://localhost:8081/](https://localhost:8081/) (All
communication happens over SSL).

~~~
seclorum
Doesn't work for me:

    
    
        $ npm start
    
        > coder-base@0.0.1 start     /Users/seclorum/hak/coder/coder-base
        > node server.js
    
        no certificate found. generating self signed cert.
        WARNING: unhandled exception: Error: ENOENT, no such file or directory 'certs/server.key'
    
    

EDIT: I figured it out - turns out I had a buggy version of Postgress.app
installed on my machine, which had been shipped with a poorly configured
openssl binary. Removing this from my PATH, so as to be using the system
version of openssl (/usr/bin/openssl) fixed the problem ..

------
bbx
From the Raspberry Pi FAQ: " _We want to see it being used by kids all over
the world to learn programming._ "

I guess Coder is exactly the type of project the Pi was built for. Of course,
you can install Coder on a "regular" PC or Mac but having a credit-card sized
computer _dedicated_ to a single educational task makes it more inclined to be
played around with.

You give this to a little kid: he sees it like a toy, a _powerful_ toy, with
which he can develop "super-powers". It's less overwhelming than a full-size
regular PC, and as a parent you can be assured that your kid won't mess up
things, or launch a game because he got bored with coding.

I can see myself offering a Pi with Coder as a gift to anyone, even an adult,
eager to learn coding. There are other projects similar to this one, but more
focused on programming (Python especially), whereas HTML and CSS (and to some
extent JS) is probably easier to grasp for beginners, especially because it's
Web stuff.

The most valuable feature of Coder is _how it looks_. It's colorful and
friendly, with a nice interface, which can be less obscure than a console.

By the way, I _loved_ the introduction video. It reminded me of Google's own
presentations. Then I realized Coder was made by Googlers.

~~~
winter_blue
You can buy a _used_ low-end laptop for $100. With a laptop, you get a
display, keyboard, and many other things a Pi doesn't offer.

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Timothee
Slightly off-topic: though I get a bit tired of this style of presentation
videos, this one is incredibly well done, especially for an open-source
project (even though backed by Google).

That project is pretty cool, though I do feel that having a Raspberry Pi to do
that seems unnecessary. Wouldn't the JSBin and Codepen's of the world allow
you to do most of this? Granted, as a kid, I'm sure having your _own_ computer
to work on makes a big difference.

~~~
benburleson
Yes, your last point is the key. It's difficult to get most people interested
in a pure software project because you can't see it or touch it. As soon as it
becomes real (connect some I/O), it's infinitely more interesting.

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rafeed
This is great! Very cool project. The fact that it's open source makes it all
the better. Definitely a tool I wish I had while I was learning how to code.

Seems like you can port this to almost anything, not just a Raspberry Pi.

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650REDHAIR
I'm a sales and marketing guy who loves technical companies, but I'm hardly
technical. I just bought a RaspberryPi to get excited about programming so
this is excellent. I'm putting this on a card now and can't wait to fire it up
when I get home!

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mrlinx
The video is really well done. Any Idea on who/how it was made?

~~~
cbhl
Probably Google's marketing department.

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cdcarter
This would be very easy to get running on the BeagleBoneBlack as well, and
with a tiny bit of work, BoneScript could be baked right in, allowing easy
access to GPIO ports. It would be even easier (and much prettier) to learn
basic electronics than Arduino.

That being said, for more advanced electronics with RPi or BBB, it's so
beneficial to be able to host an Arduino on top to do the bitbanging. Trying
to use the BBB's Programmable Realtime Unit sucks!

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horyd
Maybe I'm missing something here, but if you are connecting to Coder then you
can't access the internet? I'd imagine that having the learning material side
by side (from sites like Codecademy) would be really handy. If you set this up
in a classroom would everyone be able to access it through the browser and
work on individual projects?

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bornhuetter
I was excited to try this out until I saw that it won't work on Linux, and
won't work on Windows without installing Apple's Bonjour. What possessed them
to do this?

Does anyone know if there is a way to use this on Linux or Windows without
installing nagware on my main machine?

~~~
glitch003
You absolutely don't have to install the apple Bonjour crap to use this. The
only thing that is used for is the automatic .local hostname resolution.

Essentially, the Raspberry Pi has the netatalk package on it which allows it
to broadcast it's own .local hostname. This is what makes it possible for a
user to simply type "coder.local" into the URL bar in chrome and have the
Raspberry Pi's IP address resolved.

So if you leave out the apple bonjour packages, you'll just have to figure out
the IP address yourself and use the IP instead of the fancy "coder.local"
hostname. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, from scanning your
network to just plugging in a HDMI cable and a keyboard to the RPi and doing
an "ifconfig".

~~~
mhurron
Nitpick, it's not netatalk, the .local is resolved by Avahi, the Linux/BSD
zeroconf implementation.

Incidentally, zeroconf is why it is not advisable to use internal *.local
domains.

~~~
mannkind
That's not a nitpick. Zeroconf isn't even "Apple's thing" … Bonjour is just
one implementation.

That guy is ranting because ranting makes him feel important.

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JimmaDaRustla
Would have loved this in high school!

~~~
richardlblair
It would have been better than building those shitty lego robots. Fuck those
things.

