[hypermachine]

> Programming languages are easy to learn

From our experience with VBA users, this is only true for non-technical (as in STEM background) users when it comes to languages with a close-to-English syntax together with tightly integrated IDE/editor. Lua, Python (and occasionally Ruby) are two other languages that are quite "easy" to learn. The curly braces languages? Not so much. Java is especially bad due to its poor error messages and opaque package management/build tools. However being easy to learn for the users doesn't mean the users are capable of writing good code. We found that code written by amateur users tend to be rather unstructured and incoherent. On the other hand some of the cleanest codebases I have read (from those without formal instruction or experience in software engineering) are by mathematicians and electrical engineers.

In terms of tooling Glitch.com and Repl.it are best in for zero-config workflows.