Bret Victor — of the mind-boggling Inventing on Principle fame — is at it again
Khan Academy recently launched an online environment for learning to program. It offers a set of tutorials based on the JavaScript and Processing languages, and features a “live coding” environment, where the program’s output updates as the programmer types.
Because my work was cited as an inspiration for the Khan system, I felt I should respond: A live-coding Processing environment addresses neither of these goals. JavaScript and Processing are poorly-designed languages that support weak ways of thinking, and ignore decades of learning about learning. And live coding, as a standalone feature, is worthless.
Best read I had in a while. The examples and solutions he gives are once again brilliant!
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