codeworld VS scratch-www

Code World[1] is a great project that addresses a number of the problems from the article, with an eye towards using Haskell to teach children basic math and programming simultaneously. Code World directly addresses a number of the obstacles outlined in this article:

1. Using an online editor with a rich built-in library removes any toolchain problems.

2. A custom standard library simplifies pedagogically unnecessary details like Foldable

3. The custom standard library also avoids currying (f(a, b) for functions rather than f a b)

4. Custom error messages improve the feedback students get from the compiler

I would highly recommend Code World to anybody looking to teach programming with Haskell. If you want to teach Haskell in a way that fits the existing ecosystem, it's also possible to run Code World without the custom standard library[2].

[1]: https://code.world/#

[2]: https://code.world/haskell#

Alternatively, I'm a big fan of https://code.world which is specifically geared towards learners who want to work up to making simple games. It's kind of a toy, but imo resembles a "real" programming language a lot more than other educational programming languages

Loose connection, but made me remember https://code.world/ uses a Haskell-like functional language to define still pictures, animations, or even games.

I second gloss! It's a bit limited (no sound, fonts, nor even text centering, but you do have support for vector and bitmap graphics, color manipulation, mouse, keyboard, and animations), but it's so, so easy to use that I not only recommend it (or the similar Code World) for anybody's first game, I still use it for my newer games.

Try https://code.world/

Two that I can think of:

- Bootstrap teaches a toned-down version of Racket (i.e. Scheme): https://bootstrapworld.org/materials/spring2021/en-us/course... . It's taught in some schools as well as a comp sci curriculum.

- https://code.world/ teaches using a toned-down version of Haskell. To my knowledge it's not used in schools.

I had the silly 'fromString' error you get when using RebindableSyntax but had forgotten what to do next. Quick Google search and I hit on codeworld #59.

That's a matter of tooling and environment. You can have a look at examples of drawing animations with physics simulation and user input at https://code.world. It's pure Haskell code without any scary abstractions, just functions from state to the next state.

I'm not a user myself, but I understand Lambdabot and mueval depend on it. More generally, anything that executes Haskell code supplied by untrusted users would fit the bill. I don't know if CodeWorld for example allows user-supplied modules, but if it did they'd have to be Safe.

and https://codecombat.com, which has been around for a while now.

I think this paradigm (navigating a character using "move" function invocations) is good but kind of exhausts its usefulness after a while. I question whether my daughter learns coding this way or just is playing a turn based top down platformer. The most code like thing is when you use 'loops' to have characters repeat sequences of moves. I think when kids grok these things these apps become just types of glofiried education flavoured video games. There are a lot of things in kodable for instance that I feel are just basic web games with coding terms slapped on it.

https://scratch.mit.edu/ is more like 'programming' imo, even at the level of the objective -- having a blank canvas to create something. It seems a little advanced for my kids right now though.

+1 Scratch! My son started with it, then expanded into Roblox/Lua.

Children can download other people's games and experiment there. Scratch also has pre-made art, sounds, music.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch.mit.edu is a highly-recommended place to start [1] https://scratch.mit.edu/

> Scratch is the world’s largest coding community for children and a coding language with a simple visual interface that allows young people to create digital stories, games, and animations. Scratch is designed, developed, and moderated by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organization. [2]

1: https://scratch.mit.edu/

https://scratch.mit.edu/ (Scratch version 2)

Someone who uses scratch.mit.edu (like me)

Now that I think of it, I did start game development on scratch before going right into java (because of minecraft).

I'm looking for the best systems to help a 4/5 year old get the basics of programming. My daughter has shown interest in what I do, and loves puzzles and building things. Looking for something visual and fun that can start her down the path of logic and creating with computers.

I have a passing familiarity with Scratch [1], which I'm now looking into more, but am hoping others can share their knowledge and experience in this area.

[1] https://scratch.mit.edu/