Programs to teach coding similar to TuxType?

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Trisk Spellian
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Joined: 03/20/2015

I learned how to type a long time ago by following commands given to me on the screen by a computer program. Surely there must be some programs out there that can teach people how to code, starting from complete scratch.

I've tried teaching myself coding in the past. And I got about half way through a very large book on c++, but then I got stuck and didn't really know where to continue. It was a quality book, but it was definitely geared towards somebody studying cs in college or something.

What if I had an 8 year old that wanted to learn coding. What resources would I give them? That's what I want to learn. Do we have any programs like that in the Trisquel repo?

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

Surely there must be some programs out there that can teach people how to code, starting from complete scratch.

Scratch probably is the best option (lol): https://scratch.mit.edu/

It is in Trisquel's repository too.

SuperTramp83

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Don't know about programs but I was recommended this, when I asked about a book that could teach an anti-talented monkey like me to understand how python works. I did not succeed. But that's because I'm an anti-talented monkey :)

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Non-Programmer%27s_Tutorial_for_Python_3/Print_version

hack and hack
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Joined: 04/02/2015

I personally used one of those websites where you can type live. The downside is that it needs Javascript to be on. But the gaming aspect of keeping score is motivating. Maybe there is such programs to use offline inside or with the browser while keeping the score, that would be the best.

I second what others said, a book for beginners with examples and a text editor/IDE at hand and some hard work and patience. Just use the right book for the right skill level.

And Scratch is nice.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

These are about pushing a turtle around the screen, some old school folks swear by it (I personally found it a tad boring so YMMV)
gvrng
turtleart
kturtle
ucblogo

This might be interesting, a "visual novels framework", kids love telling stories
renpy

Then perhaps later programming games like
littlewizard (I wonder whether this is easier or harder than the real thing...)
robocode
realtimebattle

Trisk Spellian
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Joined: 03/20/2015

Thanks for the list! I'm surprised there were that many.

None of these teach the syntax, however. I'm guessing a program like I'm looking for probably doesn't exist at this time. =(

Magic Banana

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The syntax is not the hard part. The hard part is to learn to think in an algorithmic way.

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

There's a game called Laby where you give basic instructions to guide a bug to a finish line. I don't know if it's actually of any use when it comes to teaching programming, though.

Trisk Spellian
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Joined: 03/20/2015

Actually, I just discovered a cool program in the repo called Programmer's Learning Machine. It appears there are a lot of lessons from beginner's on. Looks like it's just what I was looking for. It's hard to imagine it will take me "the distance" I'm aiming for. But the method of teaching is very much what I had it mind.

Mangy Dog

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Joined: 03/15/2015

This is for schools (Java)French.

http://javascool.gforge.inria.fr/index.php
CeCILL V2 (Compatible GNU GPL)