[Grace-core] Learnable Programming

[Michael Homer]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:50 AM, James Noble <kjx at ecs.vuw.ac.nz> wrote:
> Duh.
>
> http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/
>
> from
>
> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4607
He actually gave a talk at Strange Loop, and has given others in the
past (we watched one in the PL group - that one was
<http://vimeo.com/36579366>, which has a bit more dubious showiness
faster than the Strange Loop one, which was basically the linked essay
with live demos).

My overall view is that he's selling snake oil, though - he presents
really slick demos that look great for the particular "draw something"
kind of strawman program he uses, but clearly don't work beyond that,
and he's extremely shifty about them during Q+A. There are some nice
ideas for an IDE, or interactive debugger customised for a particular
set of tasks, but most of it is flash and salesmanship that it's easy
to get carried away with.
-Michael