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Grasshopper – A coding app for beginners
- pinkumbrella 9y agoMore info: http://time.com/5243949/google-grasshopper-game/ http://time.com/5243949/google-grasshopper-game/
- fairpx 9y agoI'm torn about all of these types of apps. On one hand, I think it's great to invite people into the world of coding and doing so in a user friendly matter. No doubt Grasshopper and a handful of similar apps are well designed, but is it really the right way to go about things? I remember vividly learning to code at age 11. I had an old computer, windows would constantly crash and the only thing I could access really was QBASIC. Alongside a book with code snippets, I would simply write a line of code, hit run and see what happens. Then, go back to the code and 'go rogue' (meaning: change the numbers a bit and make the line 5pixels instead of 2 for example). This is where the magic happened, because I actually coded something. It wasn't part of an educational application, it was the real deal inside the real editor with a real output. The learning always came from trial and error and in a way is very similar to how I still code things (when I'm not designing SaaS products for awesome B2B companies) The book might be replaced with Google & Stackoverflow, but the principles are the same. The magic of coding, I believe is in writing something that is real.
- fearofpoets 9y agoGreat thoughts! I completely agree that learning to code is a lot about trial and error. One of key things that we decided to do with Grasshopper is make it possible for people to write real code, but on their phones. From the very beginning, it's possible for users to "go off the rails" and write code, run it, and see what happens. We didn't want to do fill-in-the-blank stuff, since there's only one right answer. We constrain the code editing environment to be relevant to the puzzle at hand, but that's mostly so we don't overwhelm beginners. We also have a Playground (available in the left-hand menu) where users can just play around using the Grasshopper coding environment. Would love to keep getting your feedback on how we can make everything more real and keep that magic. :)
- dannyr 9y agoLearning comes in different ways. Also, some people who want to learn how to code may be older and they can't travel back in time to code when they are 11.
- azhenley 9y agoIt is worth pointing out that your style of learning might be different than others', and gender has been found to be one such difference [1]. There are quite a few studies that have found tinkering to be done far more often by males, but is not necessarily more effective. [1] ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/pub/burnett/chi06-genderTinker.pdf
- paulcole 9y agoThe myth of "learning styles" was discussed here pretty recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16810980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16810980
- azhenley 9y agoThat is a very different thing. This is not "visual/auditory learning" styles, but what strategy do you use to figure something out.
- fairpx 9y agoActually the core of what I was trying to say is not about learning styles at all. You can use a real-world editor and a completely different learning style to create a real world application (by following along tutorials for example). The big difference, and that was the point I was trying to make, is that in a real code editor, you're learning while building in a real-world environment. Even if you stop in the middle of your journey, you will have built something that you can share with friends. Whereas these types of apps will take you through a journey which is great, but I wonder how many take the step of going to their computers, opening an editor and building their first real application.
- gowld 9y agoThe myth of the "myth of learning styles" is also discussed there. The 'debunked' "learning styles" was a very specific hypothesis about audio vs visual vs tactile modality, not a disproof that there are any differences in how people learn.
- gowld 9y ago> Alongside a book with code snippets, I would simply write a line of code, hit run and see what happens. Then, go back to the code and 'go rogue' (meaning: change the numbers a bit and make the line 5pixels instead of 2 for example). Grasshopper does pretty much this, but with a nicer UI and adapted to the constraints of a tiny phone screen. It gives you a code window and a graphics window and you get to write code and see what the code does. It's is a JavaScript environment which is modern-day web-world filler of BASIC's niche.
- ryanisnan 9y agoThe magic of coding, especially early on, is in realizing that you, a user, can deterministically control a computer (like you stated in going rogue). This has nothing to do with writing something that is real, it has to do with cause, effect, action, reaction.
- smogcutter 9y agoI think it's an important signal that in every thread like this rather than say "wow, I wish I had something like grasshopper when I was a kid", we start waxing nostalgic about QBASIC. (I'm right there with you btw). A lot of us grew up learning with tools, not toys (except you, logowriter, you're cool). Then we went and made the tools totally unapproachable. So now kids get the opposite approach: toys, not tools. Teaching software like grasshopper is an experiment, and we're about to see the results. The first version of Scratch came out in 2003. Obviously this is super fuzzy, but for the sake of argument call 2003 the border between the QBASIC/getting a Sam's teach yourself C book at B&N era and the Scratch era. So a hypothetical 8 year old who started learning with scratch in 2003 is now 23 years old. The kids who grew up on this stuff are about to start showing up in adult life, and it'll be interesting to see how they turn out.
- infectoid 9y agoThis would make a great AskHN. It would be interesting to know if anyone on HN in their early 20s or lower were first introduced to software development via scratch or some other means.
- nitemice 9y agoI'm 24, so maybe a little old, but I was first introduce to programming with Game Maker. Later I did a little bit of Flash if you count that, and then moved onto Visual Basic.NET when I did 'Software Development' at high school. For a long time (since mid-primary school) I had been toying with HTML, mainly from a book from the local library, and by just looking at the source code of websites that interested me. I think it's clear that 'toys' like this, and like Game Maker, that make programming simple and user-friendly have been around for a long time, and don't necessarily stop people from learning more advanced concepts or languages, except if they lose interest. But even if they do, hoefully they will have packed up some skills that they can apply to other endeavours.
- jmoss20 9y ago+1 for Game Maker, what an awesome educational tool. You could start with building blocks, Scratch style, then move over to code when you needed a little more power -- with a 1-1 relationship between lines of code and the blocks (IIRC), and the ability to run that code as "just another block". A wonderful gateway to the real stuff.
- ashleyn 9y agoI also started with Qbasic. I learned from the examples in the on-line help system. The first one I vividly recall running and changing was the CIRCLE example; probably the first code I ever wrote.
- kot-behemoth 9y agoI tend to agree with Bret Victor on this one (http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming): changing numbers randomly is a terrible way of learning programming. We can, and and should try and do better. The microwave analogy in the 'Read the Vocabulary' sections is very apt.
- fragmede 9y agoThe app does! Or at least, instead starting off with a `drawRectangle` function that takes a full set of x-y coordinates and 3 numbers for RGB for fill color, it starts off with "drawBox(red)" (remember, this is an introduction to programming) and builds from there. Check out the user video someone else linked on this page!
- everdev 9y agoQBASIC age 11, same here. Haven't stopped learning or loving it :)
- adrianmonk 9y agoHow far does it make sense to take this? Take it too far, and all tutorials are bad. IMHO there needs to be a balance between guided learning and self-directed exploration. Too little guidance and you can't get your bearings, causing you to get stuck and unable to cross what should be relatively minor hurdles. Too much guidance (or too little interest exploration) and you end up not really understanding why things are the way they are or what is possible beyond the very narrow range of things you've been taught.
- Jemmeh 9y agoExactly. And the thing with old computers is they were kind of limited in scope because of hardware limitations. That in itself kind of gave you an idea of where to start because there wasn't much else on there. OP even mentions basically being stuck with QBasic. Now there's an endless field of where you could possibly start at. It's so useful to have some guidance of where to start. Imo it's also much faster. Yes I can trial and error figure out a way to fix my car, but why would I not use a manual?
- taserian 9y agoMy experience with coding was using the old BASIC books (like the ones at https://www.atariarchives.org/ https://www.atariarchives.org/ ), and stubbornly typing my way to make these games work. When they didn't, I found it enormously satisfying to find out how to work around the problem being expressed in print; there were enough variations in BASICs for different machines that the listing for a TI 99/4A program wouldn't work in straight AppleSoft BASIC, for example. But the time between typing all the code and finding out if it worked was grueling. I'm not sure if the students of today would be satisfied with that large a report-back loop.
- fearofpoets 9y agoWe're super excited to be announcing Grasshopper today! We're hoping that it'll make learning to code accessible to more adults that are interested in applying coding skills to their careers, hobbies, or just for fun. Please let us know what you think, ask questions, all that jazz. We're still in the process of learning and making changes, so all feedback is super helpful. - Laura (Grasshopper Founder)
- ronilan 9y agoI click “Start Learning” I get “Grasshopper wants to use google.com to Sign in” Why?
- fearofpoets 9y agoGood question! We're building Grasshopper while we're within Google's Area 120, so the easiest way for us to ensure Google's privacy best practices are followed is if we use Google Authentication. It might be possible for us to convince the powers-that-be to use another form of authentication, but for right now, we're sticking with just Google Auth.
- ronilan 9y agoI think that: Privacy best practice is to know nothing, or as little as possible, about the user. If storing progress is required, and local device storage is not sufficient, a minimalist online setup is the desirable solution. An automatically generated user id and a simple user-progress table should be enough. GCloud has all the required parts ready to go. In any case this whole thing should come after the user has had a chance to experience the product. But that’s just me. I ain’t no power-to-be ;)
- fearofpoets 9y agoWe've thought about putting the signup after the tutorial, just haven't had the time to get to it just yet. I'll add this as a +1 to us starting to work on it :) Thanks for the feedback!
- esprehn 9y agoI'm the CTO of Grasshopper and am happy to answer any questions folks have about how it works. :)
- iseyler 9y agoCan we get an alternate method for the signup process? My children who have devices don't have Google accounts.
- esprehn 9y agoThanks so much for the feedback (both here and in the app). That's something we're looking into, and I totally understand it makes it hard for kids to use the app. Grasshopper is an Area 120 project (a part of Google) which is why that account system is currently used for syncing course progress and achievements between devices. btw is there a login system you'd prefer? I'd love to forward any thoughts you have to the Area 120 leadership.
- pmuk 9y agoHow about an anonymous login system that doesn’t require an email address and just generated a random userid / password? I’m thinking of setting up a Code Club at a local school and it would be great if kids could use it without having to provide any personal information whatsoever.
- s1mon 9y agoYou would think that someone at Google could use their own search tools to look up a name for a coding tool before using one that's already been in existence for years. http://www.grasshopper3d.com/ http://www.grasshopper3d.com/
- fragmede 9y agoYou're assuming they care. Google was aware of a startup called Inbox that did stuff with email, yet they went ahead with their own app called inbox, steamrolling the startup. I have no reason to suspect the same thing isn't happening here.
- adrianmalacoda 9y agoWouldn't be the first time that happened. Go had the same "issue." [0] The ticket was eventually closed with status "unfortunate" [0] https://github.com/golang/go/issues/9 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/9
- ris 9y agoIf my first language had been javascript I would have walked away and written off the computing world as a joke.
- colordrops 9y agoHow familiar are you with modern javascript?
- tomc1985 9y agoWhy so cute? :(
- originalsimba 9y ago"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" Can they please just stop putting their fingers in every pie? I WANT Free coding lesson websites, but not from google thanks. They should stick to github with their contributions. It's difficult to enjoy our lives, with these corporations strolling in like "IS THAT FUN WE SEE?!?!" (because they're giants)
- georgeecollins 9y agoLong ago I had an Apple Newton. The funnest thing for the Newton, by far, was a program that would evaluate statements or code snippets of NewtonScript on the device. It let you try little programs while you were waiting for something.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- slim 9y agoDoes not work without Google play services
- z3t4 9y agoWhat is the business model ? Or is it a PR app ? How do you get a job like this, where you can do public good and not have to worry about founding !?
- noelwelsh 9y agoSo here's the question: does this product reflect any of the research into teaching programming or is it just "somebody had an idea"? There is nothing on the website I could find that addresses this. We know a reasonable amount about teaching programming, and in particular we know that traditional methods are really bad. Most people, when they teach programming, reproduce the poor traditional methods used to teach them. There is already a large quantity of "learn to code" apps and sites. We don't need more. We need more quality.
- westoncb 9y agoI tried looking for a video of someone using the app so I could get a more clear idea of the sorts of things it would teach. This is the first thing I came across: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsA2bGdrkaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsA2bGdrkaQ I found it interesting to hear the kinds of reactions the kid was having to it: if you skip around the video you'll see the most common reactions are jumping around between distress, frustration, and anger. I don't think that's because this is a bad app. Instead, I think that's probably a natural part of learning to program—and of programming even once you've learned. It's kind of a strange thing that something which can bet net enjoyable (oftentimes) can also so typically elicit those kinds of reactions (of course adults are better at suppressing them, but the impact must still be there).
- tsieling 9y agoCongratulations on launching. I'm looking forward to trying it out, but on first glance I wanted to say that the design is very charming. Edit: a Google account sign in, however, isn't that charming. I got a 404 on trying to log in. Oh well.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoI'm now tired because I played with it instead of going to sleep :(. I must say, it's well-executed and feels lightweight (which is a surprise both considering applications of this kind, and considering applications coming from Google). I must say I love the attention to details! I was impressed by the effort that seems to have went to design the error detection - I start to mess with an example, and the messages tell me exactly what I'm missing at the right level of abstraction. Like, I forgot to to the next line when drawing blocks, and the popup explains I should use newLine(). Or, in another case, the popup telling me that yay, I have row 1 and 3 of the solution correct, and need to work on row 2. Etc. Also the little details made me smile - like being able to replay the "jumping grasshopper" animation on success screen by tapping the grasshopper. The keyboard model used in Grasshopper is something I first seen in Hacked (http://www.hackedapp.com/ http://www.hackedapp.com/), and it seems to be catching on, which is great! Now I really wish someone would make a keyboard for Lisp like that; I could do some work while standing in a bus...
- sdrothrock 9y agoSeeing the response on HN to these kinds of tools/toys makes me wonder if they're marketed incorrectly. These things aren't really teaching "how to code" (what we associate with stuff like Java, Python, etc.), but "how to think like a computer" or "how to break down and solve problems." I wonder if there would be an equally pessimistic reaction if the headline and marketing material said that instead. I think a lot of being a successful developer comes from being able to think a certain way, and I think that these types of games/toys can definitely help children learn to think that way. I remember the Dr. Brain games giving me some of my first glimpses into this kind of literal, step-by-step thinking.
- xopher 9y agoI installed it last week. I was torn whether the constant reminders to do it was helpful or annoying.
- Cynddl 9y agoThe name is a bit confusing, as Grasshopper [1] is also a coding tool for beginners, designed for 3D algorithmic modelling. [1]: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/ http://www.grasshopper3d.com/
- alimbada 9y agoI would've recommended this to people I know that want to learn to code, but I wouldn't wish JavaScript to be my worst enemy's first coding language...
- ananaskiller 9y agoReally? I think JavaScript is the perfect language to learn with. Yes it has its quirks and weird edge case, but from someone with no programming background I think JavaScript is one of the easiest and most practical language to learn. I think a lot of the "bad stuff" can be seen as an advantage. Like for example: - Lack of strong typing - User don't have to bother with the data type at first, they go directly into the logic - Typecasting when comparing - faster for quick comparison. E.g. if a user wants to check if the input of the user is equal to a certain number, he doesn't have to cast it as an int/float/whatever before, he just does "10" == 10 and it just works. And also, its greatest strength I think is the fact that it's the language of the web, and web development has the lowest "barrier to entry", because all you need is a notepad and a browser and you can easily develop and test. Anyway, as many people have pointed out, I don't think it matters that much what language you start with, because it makes you learn the logic of programming, which is then transferable to all other languages anyway.
- linuxftw 9y agoNo one is going to learn to be an effective programmer using a smartphone. I do expect a lot of people to install it, use it for 5 minutes, and never bother with it again. It's a perfectly suitable way to push people out of programming because there's no way you can get a real feel for it with a smartphone. All of the 'learn to "code"' applications that don't involve writing actual software seem like a giant waste of time and effort to me.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoBeen playing another game from Google this week with the wife and a lot of fun. https://kotaku.com/google-s-new-word-game-is-fun-but-weirdly-into-brands-1825302946 https://kotaku.com/google-s-new-word-game-is-fun-but-weirdly... Google's New Word Game Is Fun, But Weirdly Into Brands
- ketchers 9y agoAs far as I can tell, if a child is on a Google account with parental controls, it is impossible for them to log into the app. This kinda sucks for a nice educational app.