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Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

Everything you say is true, but I think you, and so many others, are underestimating just how much has to be done to get things running.

So. Many. Tiny. Steps.

A previous comment said:

> Install and launch a text editor and learn how to do a "hello world" in javascript.

It's not that easy, and I've never yet found a truly simple, no knowledge expected, step-by-step guide.

Yes, JS runs ins a web browser. How? If I fire up a text editor, what do I put in it to write a "Hello World" program? Alternatively, how do I "install node and use that to run it like a script"? What's "node"? What version do I want? Where do I find it? How do I install it? How do I use it to run JS scripts?

So. Many. Tiny. Steps.

And some not so tiny.

You know this (and I know it too) but so often I see "advice" like this thrown out at absolute beginners and it really doesn't help.

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Probably a little late but yes, this is exactly the problem my comment seeks to solve.

1. Get a beginners book or udemy course. Why? Because it will walk you through each of the little steps better than a random online article. Because by completing it you will systematicaly build competence step by step.

Find a programming discord. Why? Because sometimes things in that book are not obvious so you need to ask for step by step interactive guidance from someone who can do it.

However, if you need more than this, try an evening course or code camp. Once you get to 'can code ' in any one language, you'll find learning others much easier.

Yeah that's the whole game. Try not to get too invested in any of the tiny steps. That helps you try something else, when you current step fails.

What version of x? The current one. If that doesn't work, then look up the error messages and keep going.

Save it as an html file. Use html script tag to wrap your javascript.

So one would also have to learn some html markup and have a browser (which is probably a given, I know), and then have to understand at least a little of how the program outputs to the DOM, and how (or if) the output of the JS interacts with the HTML that's already there.

I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing, it's just the way things are, but to an absolutely beginner it can feel insurmountable. I've seen the despair on beginners' faces when they've been shown yet another thing that has to be done, and which they don't understand. Then another, then another.

So. Many. Tiny. Steps.

For that, my advice is to use something integrated like Pharo or Basic256.

See, and now our beginner has to learn what "Pharo" is, or "Basic256", and how to use them.

It just feels like the rabbit hole has no bottom.

Seriously - what is "Pharo"? What is "Basic256"? What do they do for me? How do I install them? How do I run/use/access them?

It just feels endless.

So. Many. Tiny. Steps.

Some searching tells me that these are completely different alternatives to using Javascript. Now it's unclear why our beginner would want to use these - what advantages do they have over Javascript? Or Python? How will they get to a point of being able to contribute to Open Source, or to having an app or website others can use? What's the path?

In a private communication someone has accused me of being deliberately obstructive here, but I'm just trying to raise awareness of the height of the barrier to getting started, and how little real help there is out there. We, as a community, should do better at helping people get started in programming, people of all ages and levels of life experience.

You're negative. Are you depressed?

Not at all - I'm trying to point out that all the suggestions that technical people toss out, thinking they're helping, have a huge amount of technical tinkering underneath that most technical people just don't see. Then when I point it out people think I'm being obstructive, or in your case, that I'm just being negative because, you know, the only possible reason is because I must be depressed.

I'm not, I'm trying as hard as I can to be genuinely constructive. What people are currently doing superficially appears to be useful, but it's not, and I'm trying to raise awareness of what people need to do to be genuinely helpful.

What I really think about people willing to do programming is that most of them won't become programmers. People who are interested by programming just program. I could say that for carpentry too.

But I think we should do more programmable tools (like excel) to help people to deal with complexity.

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