At my former workplace we hold regular programing workshops for absolute beginners, mostly for groups of art students, using Processing. Surprisingly the first

At my former workplace we hold regular programing workshops for absolute beginners, mostly for groups of art students, using Processing. Surprisingly the first and biggest pitfall what our students had to jump was always the question: How can I type { ? So after a few occasions, we get the habit of starting with an introduction to the whereabouts of funky characters. I can see how fast could things turn unmanageably hard when a novice try to tame the keyboard, an unfamiliar text editor, the command line, and a programing language at the same time. I think that should be the reason why all the programing systems, which are intended for non-professionals, and I know of have a tightly coupled ide. (Arduino, Logo, NodeBox, Fluxus, and the aforementioned Processing) Did I forget something out? Do anyone know any popular, or less known exception?