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by codysoyland 5614 days ago
This looks like an interesting project, but I don't see how it can teach kids how to program. I clicked on the lesson 1 screencast and saw that, even before trying to run a single line of code, it dived into importing 2 modules, subclassing and defining 3 methods, and running a GUI. It's hard to grock inheritance if you haven't been introduced to variables and operators. If you actually want to teach kids programming in a way they'll understand, I recommend Zed Shaw's book Learning Python the Hard Way (http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index).
1 comments

LPTHW by Shaw is my pick for raw beginners, because it assumes nothing: not even how to use an editor and how to run a program. It's very good for the rote learning of basic programming that a child (or someone who has never done any programming) would need.

However, I'll find it amusingly ironic if this catches on, even though Zed's book contains no profanity and is just fine for the kids.