The Joys Of Programming

https://www.codingame.com/start

Has lots of fun coding challenges from easy to hard that can be a great way to provide motivation to learn/execute. The great thing is that all the hard graphical/UI stuff is already done, so all you have to do is come up with an algorithm and then code it - which is 95% of what programming is about, any way.

You could even help in the algorithm design and/or coding implementation, depending on just what your son needs and will be motivated by.

I found teaching kids to program that if a kid has something particular in mind they want to make, they're going to learn a lot. In a group setting the base Scratch environment was ideal because the kids could easily fork each others' projects, make silly modifications, and share with each other in a little ad hoc community. That's with a group, though.

I haven't done much one on one with programming. The kids that went lone wolf tended to have a particular vision for something they wanted to make, and weren't about to let the others muck it up. Stuff like model solar systems, platformers, Five Nights at Freddie's clones.

I like Code Combat. I didnt try it as someone learning programming for the first time, I took an online python course for that, but Code Combat seems like a great setup to learn coding/scripting basics in python or JS. Accomplishing levels and getting achievements is very rewarding.

https://codecombat.com/

Codingame.com is great for providing programming projects to do, but not so much for actual learning unless you get into the community or follow the suggested links. The animations of your code is really great. You do have to pick from their list of supported languages, but there are a lot.

I added copyable view links and session history! Share with your friends!

https://mixolyde.net/blaseballstatus...

Thinking of taking on a small programming project and would like recommendations for a programming language / environment to do it in.

The task is to read in a STL file, perform a (complex) geometric transformation and write out the transformed file as a new STL.

This is on Windows 10.

Main functionality I'm looking for:

- easy file reading and writing. The files are going to be data in a non-ascii format.
- ability to perform complex geometric math. Trig functions and floating point required.
- nice IDE with a good debugger.

I've been out of the programming game for a while and I was last a DB programmer, so my "go-to" solution (mySQL) is not ideal.

Moggy wrote:

Thinking of taking on a small programming project and would like recommendations for a programming language / environment to do it in.

The task is to read in a STL file, perform a (complex) geometric transformation and write out the transformed file as a new STL.

This is on Windows 10.

Main functionality I'm looking for:

- easy file reading and writing. The files are going to be data in a non-ascii format.
- ability to perform complex geometric math. Trig functions and floating point required.
- nice IDE with a good debugger.

I've been out of the programming game for a while and I was last a DB programmer, so my "go-to" solution (mySQL) is not ideal.

Without even looking too deep, python is probably your answer.

If you already had a Mathematica license, maybe that? Otherwise I'm with lunchbox. Scripty i/o transformation I go with Node or Python, and for mathy stuff Python for those nerdy libraries.

Ruby is another option, pretty much anywhere Python is applicable.

Really, any language in that dynamic scripting language neighborhood would be fine.

I like Ruby as a language but if you need to do numeric/mathy things then Python beats it hands down.

So reading in a binary file and then doing some maths on the data I'd suggest Python with the numpy & scipy libraries installed. That's probably the combo that leaves you with the most useful skill set for future similar stuff.

Possibly you might want to look at Julia as it is designed from the ground up to do math-y stuff. And if you wanted to go more rareified you might consider R (but it has many of the same issues with Mathematica, MATLAB and the like)

I hate Python, but I would also recommend it for the library support and editors.

Dart is also worth a look to see if it has the math you need. I think the syntax is easier to read and write than python, the type safety is really good, and dependency management is easier.

Speaking of which, DCli is a really nice library for writing really fast and easy command line tools.

https://bsutton.gitbook.io/dcli/arti...

DanB wrote:

I like Ruby as a language but if you need to do numeric/mathy things then Python beats it hands down.

Also, even as someone that ADORES Ruby (literally have a site called I IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/google/274/sparkling-heart_1f496.png) Ruby) and works in it every day, if you want an IDE offering and would like active debugging, you really should consider Python or another language that offers something similar, because Ruby does not.

IMAGE(https://media4.giphy.com/media/Pvuf56bWDuEP6/giphy.gif?cid=790b76114d5bb9d5fb22d85035203aab87f8915ba4397510&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

trueheart78 wrote:
DanB wrote:

I like Ruby as a language but if you need to do numeric/mathy things then Python beats it hands down.

Also, even as someone that ADORES Ruby (literally have a site called I IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/google/274/sparkling-heart_1f496.png) Ruby) and works in it every day, if you want an IDE offering and would like active debugging, you really should consider Python or another language that offers something similar, because Ruby does not.

IMAGE(https://media4.giphy.com/media/Pvuf56bWDuEP6/giphy.gif?cid=790b76114d5bb9d5fb22d85035203aab87f8915ba4397510&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

They should have crammed that scene into an episode of Elementary as a flashback of his adolescence.

I know we're all IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/samsung/265/star_2b50.png)IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/samsung/265/star_2b50.png)IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/samsung/265/star_2b50.png)IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/samsung/265/star_2b50.png)IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/240/samsung/265/star_2b50.png) star, top tier programmers here, but if you are ever just hacking on some static site content and want a stupid simple server without having to look very far, your favorite programming language probably has a one-liner to help you out. I stumbled on this last week and was giddy.

GitHub gist: Big list of http static server one-liners

For example
* Ruby: ruby -run -e httpd . -p 8000
* Python 3: python -m http.server 8000

And there are many, many, many more in the comments.

IMAGE(https://media4.giphy.com/media/N3BIo7uF9hyeI/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47ovfs7mp4dakql1vwxodweobflj5qdoft28hj1nys&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

Moggy wrote:

Thinking of taking on a small programming project and would like recommendations for a programming language / environment to do it in.

The task is to read in a STL file, perform a (complex) geometric transformation and write out the transformed file as a new STL.

This is on Windows 10.

Main functionality I'm looking for:

- easy file reading and writing. The files are going to be data in a non-ascii format.
- ability to perform complex geometric math. Trig functions and floating point required.
- nice IDE with a good debugger.

I've been out of the programming game for a while and I was last a DB programmer, so my "go-to" solution (mySQL) is not ideal.

Like everyone else I would say python.

But my leftfield IDE suggestion since you are on Windows is Microsoft VisualStudio 2019. The debugger in it for python is absolutely best in class.

DoveBrown wrote:

But my leftfield IDE suggestion since you are on Windows is Microsoft VisualStudio 2019. The debugger in it for python is absolutely best in class.

Brilliant! Much nicer IDE than the default IDE that comes with python. Pretty small download as well - only 500Mb.

How is that related to Visual Code? I never quite understood the difference.

Visual Studio code is more like Sublime. It is an Electron application that runs anywhere. Visual Studio 2019 is a full IDE in the same vein as IntelliJ or Eclipse. Personally, if I can use VS Code for everything, I would.

kazar wrote:

Personally, if I can use VS Code for everything, I would.

Yep. I use it for Angular stuff at work, even though I have to use VS2019 for some of the TFS project stuff.

My team's been using a combination of SpringToolSuite & Eclipse for developing and building a Spring-flavored React application, and they kinda dislike it. I might need to give another look at VSCode to see if could replace all that - especially the Remote SSH capabilities (local Windows CLI with a remote Linux server? yes please!)

merphle wrote:

My team's been using a combination of SpringToolSuite & Eclipse for developing and building a Spring-flavored React application, and they kinda dislike it. I might need to give another look at VSCode to see if could replace all that - especially the Remote SSH capabilities (local Windows CLI with a remote Linux server? yes please!)

It's the best.

STS4 uses the same Language Servers in VSCode and Eclipse, so not all that much might change.

I use VS Code to develop in Python using WSL (1) on Windows, and can run VS Code in the Windows host but remote into the WSL instance. That way, the VS Code terminal is the same WSL terminal I use all the time, my package management is all poetry all the time, and everything is nice.

VS Code is Vim for cowards.

Actually I recommend VSC to my new hire guys, but that's not a fun sh*tpost.

Every time I try VS Code, I miss my custom Vim setup.

I once heard someone call using a mouse feeling like a cache miss, because you have to take a hand off the keyboard, and I so feel that.

IMAGE(https://media0.giphy.com/media/Hcw7rjsIsHcmk/giphy.gif?cid=5e214886uerkjvlvy92p856rq453f19q61xemh463qhovcfn&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

Nice to see a non-white guy make nice programming videos.

https://youtube.com/c/CreativeBracket

We teach many of our students with VSCode, it has a really nice functionality where you can embed it in/as a webserver and then view it running on the remote machine via a URL, which is super great for remote and distance learning things.

I personally use atom (with a bit of vi/vim thrown in) though, but mostly as I've spent years tweaking my Atom set up to be exactly how I like it.

I love the look and feel of Atom, but it was really slow on my very cheap laptop.

Speaking of which. If I wanted to run a beefy desktop environment in AWS for development, and remote to it with a cheap laptop, what would you guys recommend for guest OS and remote desktop software? This would mostly be for Dart web apps and scripts. Maybe some text-based game coding. Is TightVNC still a thing?