[gallerdude]

When I was a preteen, I'd watch Notch's ld48 programming streams, and I'd just be confused. I had read the basics of if-statements, for-loops, and functions, but he was using them in a way beyond my comprehension.

Later I discovered MIT's Scratch, and it let me figure things out on my own: games, physics, genetic algorithms.

I think programming is portrayed to be more difficult than it is. It's a mixture between programmers trying to find the most efficient system, and the public's half-uncertainty of computers being magnified.

[mrguyorama]

I think 90% of the difficulty of learning to program is building and interpreting your mental models of how everything works. This is unfortunate, because everyone's mental models are different, and it's the same problem we see in math teaching, where things are extremely difficult until it "clicks" and suddenly it's so easy

[pjmlp]

It is why everyone has to write their own version of a monad tutorial. :)

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Wait, you can do genetic algorithms in Scratch?

[dboreham]

Infinite tape; party on...

[nickpsecurity]

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/30924542/

[gallerdude]

I'm not sure if that was intentional, but yeah that's mine!