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This is really fantastic stuff, I'm a big fan of _why's work. I really love the principle behind this: http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPred

by dhotson 18y ago

This is really fantastic stuff, I'm a big fan of _why's work. I really love the principle behind this: http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPredicament.html http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPredicam... I hope that this can help make programming as fun and accessible as it was on the C64. I grew up learning QBasic, taking for granted that I could draw some stuff to the screen and play music in a handful lines of code.

alex_c 18y ago
Thanks, I hadn't read that article. For me, this is part of the magic of the Facebook platform. There would be "How do I..." posts on the platform forums, from people who clearly had no web development experience at all (and probably no programming experience in general). They made me realize that the Facebook platform, in its own way, captured some of the magic of writing a game in QBasic (or, before that, Z80/Commodore/whatever) and passing it along to your friends. All your friends use Facebook, none of you are hackers, but you make something neat on Facebook and they get to use it, and they know YOU made it... because of the intimacy, it's much more magical than just making a website or a desktop program. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than it used to be. You can't just get a simple Basic program and start messing with it. You need to find hosting, with PHP, maybe MySQL, get the API client, figure out how to get it all working together, upload it... it's far from newbie friendly. But still, I wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds of kids today who first got into programming by asking the question "How do I make a Facebook app?" I definitely agree with _why that we need more of this.
menloparkbum 18y ago
_why is like a one man contemporary version of the Beagle Bros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Bros http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Bros) Speaking of beagles, and related to the little coder's predicament: It would be cool if someone chucked a beagle board (http://www.beagleboard.org http://www.beagleboard.org) into a keyboard case and made a modern version of a C64. A hobby hacking community surrounding it based on _why's aesthetic would be a lot of fun.
ideamonk 18y ago
hey i also grew up with GW and QuickBasic ;)

by dhotson 18y ago

alex_c 18y ago

Thanks, I hadn't read that article. For me, this is part of the magic of the Facebook platform. There would be "How do I..." posts on the platform forums, from people who clearly had no web development experience at all (and probably no programming experience in general). They made me realize that the Facebook platform, in its own way, captured some of the magic of writing a game in QBasic (or, before that, Z80/Commodore/whatever) and passing it along to your friends. All your friends use Facebook, none of you are hackers, but you make something neat on Facebook and they get to use it, and they know YOU made it... because of the intimacy, it's much more magical than just making a website or a desktop program. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than it used to be. You can't just get a simple Basic program and start messing with it. You need to find hosting, with PHP, maybe MySQL, get the API client, figure out how to get it all working together, upload it... it's far from newbie friendly. But still, I wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds of kids today who first got into programming by asking the question "How do I make a Facebook app?" I definitely agree with _why that we need more of this.

menloparkbum 18y ago

_why is like a one man contemporary version of the Beagle Bros (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Bros http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_Bros) Speaking of beagles, and related to the little coder's predicament: It would be cool if someone chucked a beagle board (http://www.beagleboard.org http://www.beagleboard.org) into a keyboard case and made a modern version of a C64. A hobby hacking community surrounding it based on _why's aesthetic would be a lot of fun.

ideamonk 18y ago

hey i also grew up with GW and QuickBasic ;)