Hacker News Reader

Another vote for Alice.. I had an intro to engineering course freshman year that spent 3-4 weeks with Alice to teach basic programming concepts for non-comp sci people and beginners.

It's the perfect tool for developing basic concepts of programming, but in a fun environment that doesn't "feel" like coding.

View on HN

I have a deep mistrust of Alice. When everything you do is done by pulling something from a menu, how do you even think about creating something basic that is not already in those menus? It is almost like expecting to learn a lot about civil engineering by playing with Lego. Certainly, there are many things you would find superficially similar, but the essence is missing. Yes, I am exaggerating, but you see where my mistrust comes from.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com