"Hedy: A Gradual programming language" by Felienne Hermans (Strange Loop 2022)
Strange Loop ConferenceRecommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 months, 2022–2024
talk · general · evergreen · 2022–2024 on HN
Felienne Hermans presents Hedy, a gradual programming language for teaching kids that moves through levels from almost no syntax toward full Python. The talk covers why error messages and syntax are scary for beginners.
HN points to it in beginner-programming-education threads for its distinction between easy to learn and easy to teach.
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3 comments from Hacker News
For 8yo, maybe you can consider bringing her through Hedy: link It's gradual (starts easy but limited, then with progress through levels gets more precise and powerful), and I read that it gets to full blown Python programming. Theres an excellent talk on the approach by the author: ▶ this video
This reminded me a little of Hedy language: link It starts off super simple, like: print something and then introduces all the fiddly concepts like quoting, escaping etc. 1 by 1 until it turns into python. The designer had a neat talk about it at the strange loop conference. One of the themes they talk about is the difference between "easy to learn" and "easy to teach" which I found insightful. link ▶ this video
link is spearheaded by the wonderful link you might know her from her spreadsheet related research. She gave a wonderful talk at Splash 2023 on Hedy, I'll see if I can find it. *edit, I don't think it was recorded but I found these two which will do Hedy: Creating a Programming Language for EveryoneFelienne Hermans • YOW! 2023 link "Hedy: A Gradual programming language" by Felienne Hermans (Strange Loop 2022) ▶ this video