4 ms·

Difficulty is too many technologies available. So a beginner needs something/someone that teaches principles. I have realized that simplier (boring) is better.

by sixtyj 10d ago

Difficulty is too many technologies available. So a beginner needs something/someone that teaches principles. I have realized that simplier (boring) is better. E.g. simple html5 css combo is better instead of trying to navigate in JS frameworks.

lolakutty 10d ago
>simple html5 css combo HTML is not a programming language IMHO. Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either.
- jaapz 10d ago
  Javascript running in the browser is an amazing tool to learn programming as everything you need is right there in the program that's already installed anyway. No True Scotsmanning someone over that (especially someone who wants to learn something new) is a bit weird, IMHO
- sixtyj 10d ago
  Don’t catch me by word :) Would you prefer starting with compiling a program or running a python script? Imho for beginners it is too heavy, even a python that is so hyped recently.
- raddan 10d ago
  As a programming languages researcher I disagree. HTML is not just a programming language (a declarative one), it literally has the word “language” in the name. The world of programming languages is much larger than general purpose languages. Also, whether JavaScript is interesting is a matter of opinion. Given that for a long time it was the only web language, I’d say that makes it interesting. It’s also in my opinion a poorly designed language but that also makes it “interesting” because its behavior is sometimes hard to predict.
  - Izkata 10d ago
    If we're talking about what's in the name, then keep going: it's a language yes, but it's a markup language, not a programming language.
  - rudolftheone 9d ago
    > It’s also in my opinion a poorly designed language but that also makes it “interesting” because its behavior is sometimes hard to predict. Following this logic, any broken device is equally interesting as its behavior is sometimes hard to predict, isn't it?
    - raddan 9d ago
      Yes
- utopiah 10d ago
  > Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either. Damn... that's honestly a shocking thing so say, if only for the fact that you can run in JS other languages. But even then, if you could "only" run JS it gives you access to a high level language but also all kind of inputs, from a keyboard and mouse, obviously, all the way to MIDI, hand tracking in WebXR, etc and all kind of outputs, e.g. screen, obviously, but also 6DoF XR, but you also get low level access to actual hardware. Totally anecdotal but I was precisely in my other browser window accessing my XR headset via adb via ... JavaScript in the browser, thanks to WebUSB. You can also run parallel computations via shaders but also WebGPU. The amount of things you can do is really mind blowing. You mind not like the syntax or some decision about the language itself but that somehow it's not interesting to have access to all that and more from any browser window is just surprising to me. Last but not least, all that is done with 0 installation. You start a device, open the browser window, open the console and voila, you get a development environment instantly. I just find it incredible.
  - lolakutty 10d ago
    To me the Turtle programming language lot more interesting than Javascript in a browser. Sure JS has all the capabilities, but as I child, all I wanted to was to turn pixels on and off on the screen. With only that knowledge, and my imagination, I felt I could build whole worlds on the computer. That is what makes something interesting and intriguing. Once I had the taste of that first pixel, and I was hooked. But look at JS/Canvas stuff? I still need to look up how to put a single pixel on a canvas. I am not sure it is even possible! (Btw, do you know that in those times, graphics libs could read the color back from an onscreen pixel? Now I can do collision detection for my games!) But you might say "But that is the wrong way!" and "You won't be able to do much that way", Who cares, I want to have my way, with out having to do a ton of stuff that is seemingly orthogonal to what I am trying to do..
    - utopiah 10d ago
      You can have the best of both Worlds today thanks to https://snap.berkeley.edu https://snap.berkeley.edu namely block based visual programming, no syntax error, no installation (even works offline once loaded) and you can make the turtle move... but you don't have to stop there, you can make your own blocks... and those blocks can even be JavaScript so that when you inexorably get bored of what was once an exciting turtle, you can leverage all that but control it with a GamePad or whatever weird things I listed before. To be clear though, I am NOT advocating for JavaScript, I'm just arguing its potential, today, is nuts.
octantes 10d ago
There is something to this. But I think at least in front-end engineering, the bigger question is what a new dev values. LLMs make the browser itself easier to understand in depth, if that's something you want. Building in vanilla-everything, no deps, is now doable at speed and scale for beginners too. Once you understand the web stack and the principles, you can migrate to any framework and understand their "magic" fast. I think that's not a bad learning path at all, if you use it well, and results in a more competent web-dev than the previous pre-LLM cycle produced. But if the beginner values output aesthetics and speed more than building their mental model, it is possible to spend years building things without developing any understanding. For me, at least, the more interesting question is how can we make beginners more interested in the former path than the latter.

by sixtyj 10d ago

lolakutty 10d ago

>simple html5 css combo HTML is not a programming language IMHO. Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either.

jaapz 10d ago
Javascript running in the browser is an amazing tool to learn programming as everything you need is right there in the program that's already installed anyway. No True Scotsmanning someone over that (especially someone who wants to learn something new) is a bit weird, IMHO
sixtyj 10d ago
Don’t catch me by word :) Would you prefer starting with compiling a program or running a python script? Imho for beginners it is too heavy, even a python that is so hyped recently.
raddan 10d ago
As a programming languages researcher I disagree. HTML is not just a programming language (a declarative one), it literally has the word “language” in the name. The world of programming languages is much larger than general purpose languages. Also, whether JavaScript is interesting is a matter of opinion. Given that for a long time it was the only web language, I’d say that makes it interesting. It’s also in my opinion a poorly designed language but that also makes it “interesting” because its behavior is sometimes hard to predict.
- Izkata 10d ago
  If we're talking about what's in the name, then keep going: it's a language yes, but it's a markup language, not a programming language.
- rudolftheone 9d ago
  > It’s also in my opinion a poorly designed language but that also makes it “interesting” because its behavior is sometimes hard to predict. Following this logic, any broken device is equally interesting as its behavior is sometimes hard to predict, isn't it?
  - raddan 9d ago
    Yes
utopiah 10d ago
> Javascript running in browser is not very interesting either. Damn... that's honestly a shocking thing so say, if only for the fact that you can run in JS other languages. But even then, if you could "only" run JS it gives you access to a high level language but also all kind of inputs, from a keyboard and mouse, obviously, all the way to MIDI, hand tracking in WebXR, etc and all kind of outputs, e.g. screen, obviously, but also 6DoF XR, but you also get low level access to actual hardware. Totally anecdotal but I was precisely in my other browser window accessing my XR headset via adb via ... JavaScript in the browser, thanks to WebUSB. You can also run parallel computations via shaders but also WebGPU. The amount of things you can do is really mind blowing. You mind not like the syntax or some decision about the language itself but that somehow it's not interesting to have access to all that and more from any browser window is just surprising to me. Last but not least, all that is done with 0 installation. You start a device, open the browser window, open the console and voila, you get a development environment instantly. I just find it incredible.
- lolakutty 10d ago
  To me the Turtle programming language lot more interesting than Javascript in a browser. Sure JS has all the capabilities, but as I child, all I wanted to was to turn pixels on and off on the screen. With only that knowledge, and my imagination, I felt I could build whole worlds on the computer. That is what makes something interesting and intriguing. Once I had the taste of that first pixel, and I was hooked. But look at JS/Canvas stuff? I still need to look up how to put a single pixel on a canvas. I am not sure it is even possible! (Btw, do you know that in those times, graphics libs could read the color back from an onscreen pixel? Now I can do collision detection for my games!) But you might say "But that is the wrong way!" and "You won't be able to do much that way", Who cares, I want to have my way, with out having to do a ton of stuff that is seemingly orthogonal to what I am trying to do..
  - utopiah 10d ago
    You can have the best of both Worlds today thanks to https://snap.berkeley.edu https://snap.berkeley.edu namely block based visual programming, no syntax error, no installation (even works offline once loaded) and you can make the turtle move... but you don't have to stop there, you can make your own blocks... and those blocks can even be JavaScript so that when you inexorably get bored of what was once an exciting turtle, you can leverage all that but control it with a GamePad or whatever weird things I listed before. To be clear though, I am NOT advocating for JavaScript, I'm just arguing its potential, today, is nuts.

octantes 10d ago

There is something to this. But I think at least in front-end engineering, the bigger question is what a new dev values. LLMs make the browser itself easier to understand in depth, if that's something you want. Building in vanilla-everything, no deps, is now doable at speed and scale for beginners too. Once you understand the web stack and the principles, you can migrate to any framework and understand their "magic" fast. I think that's not a bad learning path at all, if you use it well, and results in a more competent web-dev than the previous pre-LLM cycle produced. But if the beginner values output aesthetics and speed more than building their mental model, it is possible to spend years building things without developing any understanding. For me, at least, the more interesting question is how can we make beginners more interested in the former path than the latter.