thewayne | The Raspberry Pi Foundation has an online Python editor to help kids learn to code

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The Raspberry Pi Foundation has an online Python editor to help kids learn to code

First off, I am not an advocate of the position 'everyone needs to learn to code!' That is a bunch of garbage. Programming is a very specific skill set and aptitude, and not everyone has that nor the interest in learning to code! Coding should not remotely be a requirement to graduate from high school! You're just inflicting another form of pain on kids to require it.

What I AM an advocate of is people need basic computer literacy, and this includes some critical thinking training to recognize scams and such. And scams are only going to get harder to see through in the future with AI writing better scripts for scammers! Offering classes for kids who WANT to learn to code, or learn about the internal workings of computers and how to maintain them, is fine and dandy. But aside from basic literacy, this should not be a graduation-dependent topic.

While many jobs, and more growing, require advanced computer skills, those are things that should be developed and refined at the college level. There are lots of jobs that don't require programming skills, and some that have minimal levels of computer use at all! We need more plumbers and electricians, among many other trades that are in short supply.

ANYWAY....

The Raspberry Pi organization is very, very cool. They're sort of a combination of Heathkit and Radio Shack for geeks and electronics experimenters. They manufacture a small computer board known as the Raspberry Pi which has a CPU, memory - solid state/non-volatile (doesn't lose contents when powered off), network connections through Ethernet or WiFi, a video output, and the board has all sorts of pins on it that you can connect "stuff" to. Want to build a robot that has sonar so it can move around your house like a Roomba? RaspPi. Want to build your own home security sensor system? This is the device. It is effectively unlimited in what it can do, only your imagination restricts the possibilities. That is, as long as you're able to work within its limited processing ability.

And you can buy these computer boards for $50-$100, depending on options!!!

And people have built micro-super computers out of these! They build a cage of a dozen or more, link them together through networking, and program some pretty amazing things out of them! They can't crunch huge number sets, but they can demonstrate how massively-parallel computing works and can be used teach the science behind them.

A lot of programming on these things is done through Python, an extremely versatile language. And now the Foundation, an education arm of the organization, has released an online code editor for Python. It's sort of no-frills, but it supports multiple files in a project. Code is saved in Raspberry's cloud and is accessible to you anywhere you have an internet connection. Right now, the editor is strictly Python, but there are plans to allow HTML and other code bases into it.

The best part is it integrates nicely with the Foundation's Python sample code base to use with their products! Need an example of how to process sonar signals for collision avoidance? Probably there. Etcetera.

And, of course, it's free.

I'm going to be playing with it as I like the Python language and am interested in Pi boards, though I don't have one at the moment. They were hammered hard by the pandemic with people stuck at home looking for things to do, their inventory was ate up at a very fast pace.

The article:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-online-code-editor

The editor:
https://editor.raspberrypi.org/

The Slashdot thread:
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/23/04/08/2247207/raspberry-pi-launches-online-code-editor-to-help-kids-learn

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I wish I had gotten a basic computer skill class when I was growing up. :o
Hugs, Jon

Computers were largely mainframes when we were in school, Jon. No one knew the PC revolution was going to happen and we'd have amazing information resources in our pockets 40+ years later. When I was in the 7th or 8th grade in the mid '70s, we had a teletype connected with an acoustic-coupler modem to a mainframe at Honeywell that ran at a transfer speed of approximately 100 characters per SECOND, now it's not unusual to have transfer speeds of a thousand times that. When I was a junior or senior in HS, I was taking classes at the community college and we were still on mainframes because the current personal computers were the Apple II and the TRS-80. Still very expensive devices. It wasn't until around '84 or so that the PC revolution really started up.

When I was in school, they had just gotten a couple of computers, and only a very select few students were allowed near them.
I was obviously not one of them. :o

In high school the business skills dept got like 4 TRS-80s. But they didn't teach programming, it was for us - initially, at least - to just mess with and get familiarized. I don't know what they eventually did with them, we just programmed in games from magazines and saved them on cassette tape.

Times have changed. lol...

>> First off, I am not an advocate of the position 'everyone needs to learn to code!' That is a bunch of garbage. Programming is a very specific skill set and aptitude, and not everyone has that nor the interest in learning to code! <<

Yeah. I can barely manage a bit of HTML for things like making links in a comment. Vision and other issues mean I could never get through thousands of lines of code effectively.

>> Coding should not remotely be a requirement to graduate from high school! You're just inflicting another form of pain on kids to require it.<<

True. It's bad enough that students are considered worthless if they can't read, or do math, or basically whatever else adults demand. People have all different talents, and everyone sucks at something.

The problem is, people can make things which are not true, behave as if they are true, by designing society that way. Anyone who can't read fluently is shut out of most of society. And now, anyone who can't use a computer fluently is also shut out -- but that's a much bigger group than those who can't read, because it's not only harder but also requires reading. Society keeps placing more demands on people to be permitted to function in it, and the results are increasingly bad.

>> What I AM an advocate of is people need basic computer literacy, <<

If they can manage it, sure. But that requires:
* reading literacy
* a computer, which basically requires handing them out free because not everyone can afford one
* internet connection, also neither free nor available everywhere

This is why I feel that internet should be a utility and provided everywhere, because it's now necessary for participation in society. And if you want students to all be computer literate, then adults are responsible for providing computers to all students and ensuring that all students also have internet at home.

>> and this includes some critical thinking training to recognize scams and such. <<

That record will break this society's record player if you turn it on. It's why schools stopped teaching certain types of critical thinking a few decades back. Too much of modern America is built on sheer bullshit, and society cannot afford for people to think critically about that. Like say, how almost every city is broke because they didn't account for the maintenance costs of their infrastructure. Local taxes are a scam; people believe they're paying for that stuff, so they get upset if roads etc. are in poor repair, but there is nowhere near enough budget for it.

>> Offering classes for kids who WANT to learn to code, or learn about the internal workings of computers and how to maintain them, is fine and dandy. But aside from basic literacy, this should not be a graduation-dependent topic.<<

Well reasoned.

>>And, of course, it's free.<<

Awesome. That'll make it more accessible. America has a huge and growing problem where poverty prevents people from accessing what they need to earn a living, and then society blames people for being poor.

Agreed about the internet should be a utility service, or at least treated as such. It takes A LOT of people behind the scenes to keep the internet up: updating and replacing switches and routers, fixing broken fiber optic cables, providing tech support to the end users, etc. That's why when Ma Bell ran all the phone companies, you saw their trucks every day. I can't see municipalities taking that on efficiently. Right now there's a fight on in Europe where the internet providers want to charge Netflix and other streaming companies to upgrade their networks because their users are doing so much media streaming. Netflix already pays taxes in these countries for revenue, the ISP's users are paying fees for service, seems to me that the ISPs are wanting free network upgrades paid by someone else. In the case of Netflix, they pre-position caching servers in local data centers to reduce to try to reduce bandwidth demands for their services.

Most public libraries have free internet access that may require getting their card due to filtering requirements. Lots of universities have free internet access, at least through WiFi, if not through PCs. In the case of the uni library that I work at, we charge $5 a semester for a public patron card for the PCs or printing, though our public WiFi is free. We also have laptops that we can lend to students, though that rarely happens. Literacy is definitely a multi-dimensional problem. I find it kind of tragic that still wet behind the ears high school graduates have to take reading and math placement exams on entering our university. Now, in my case I needed math remediation as I hadn't touched algebra in 30 years and I did pass my algebra classes. But for more and more students, they're going to have a semester or so of remedial classes in those fields before they can start the real math classes. Access to a computer is yet another problem. While we have computers in our pockets these days through smart phones, not all of them permit programming. They're more information retrieval devices rather than fully-interactive programmable devices. While Android smartphones are programmable, this is not Programming 101-level programming, you need to really know what you're doing, frequently in Java, which is not an easy language to master. Apple locks you out of programming entirely - at the moment - to protect the security of the devices from malware, which are pretty darn secure, though not impervious.

>> Agreed about the internet should be a utility service, or at least treated as such. It takes A LOT of people behind the scenes to keep the internet up: updating and replacing switches and routers, fixing broken fiber optic cables, providing tech support to the end users, etc. That's why when Ma Bell ran all the phone companies, you saw their trucks every day. I can't see municipalities taking that on efficiently. <<

Very true.

>> Right now there's a fight on in Europe where the internet providers want to charge Netflix and other streaming companies to upgrade their networks because their users are doing so much media streaming. <<

That argument is valid if and only if the ISPs install dedicated equipment for the use of Netflix only. It's like if someone in a sharehouse has a home business that runs up everyone's bills, it makes more sense to separate out a business phone for them that they pay for. But if anyone else gets to use the equipment, even if the ISP installed it because of Netflix, then it's just part of the general equipment package and it's the ISP's responsibility to provide that.

>> Netflix already pays taxes in these countries for revenue, the ISP's users are paying fees for service, seems to me that the ISPs are wanting free network upgrades paid by someone else.<<

Yyyyyeah. See, that's like how people pay taxes and expect the roads and sewers to be kept in good working order. They're told that is the kind of things taxes are for, so we can have infrastructure. Trouble is, the infrastructure costs way more than the taxes, which don't even cover maintenance let alone replacements, upgrades, or new construction. People should get what they're told they're paying for, they have a right to it, but other people's bad budgeting and other mistakes may make that unfeasible. This leads to people getting billed thousands of dollars for work in front of their house, and saying "Fuck you" and moving out instead. I won't be surprised if something similar happens to the internet.

>> In the case of Netflix, they pre-position caching servers in local data centers to reduce to try to reduce bandwidth demands for their services.<<

Sensible.

>> Most public libraries have free internet access that may require getting their card due to filtering requirements. <<

The problem is that "free" access isn't free at all. They won't give a library card to just anyone. You have to qualify. That means you need an address, which has to be within their service footprint. No address or the wrong kind, and they won't give you a card. Outside their service footprint, and they charge ruinously high prices -- it was over a hundred dollars when I gave up, and that was years ago.

Because "free public" libraries aren't really free or public, which would mean subsidized by the state or federal government for everyone's use. They're almost all funded locally, which means taxes from a town or in a city just a neighborhood. That means everyone else is left with walk-in uses only, so if the computers require a library card to use rather than walk-in access, they're not free for everyone, they are a paid privilege for customers only.

So much for kids being able to do homework on them or desperate adults being able to apply for a job or assistance. People think those things are available, but when they go in, they find out the library is a lot less useful than they expected. That's a problem. Because when people go to a library and it doesn't help, they become much less likely to support libraries if they're better off later. So then the library budgets shrink and shrink, which is killing off a lot of libraries, which reduces public access to resources even further. It's a vicious circle.

>> Lots of universities have free internet access, at least through WiFi, if not through PCs. In the case of the uni library that I work at, we charge $5 a semester for a public patron card for the PCs or printing, though our public WiFi is free. We also have laptops that we can lend to students, though that rarely happens.<<

Useful for college students and staff only, and those are expensive places to get in. That would be a lot more useful if at least the state ones were supported by taxes instead of tuition, like public schools, since society now demands a college education but extorts money from students and parents for it.

>> Literacy is definitely a multi-dimensional problem. <<

That's true. The root of that problem is usually poverty, compounded by racism: fixable, but people choose not to fix.

>> I find it kind of tragic that still wet behind the ears high school graduates have to take reading and math placement exams on entering our university. <<

That's bullshit. Colleges should be able to go on general pre-college test scores or on high school grades. If a student with A or B grades is not well prepared for college, then either 1) the high school defrauded the student about their skills and/or 2) the college has fraudulently inflated the skills required to enter. Mostly it is the former.

>> Now, in my case I needed math remediation as I hadn't touched algebra in 30 years and I did pass my algebra classes. But for more and more students, they're going to have a semester or so of remedial classes in those fields before they can start the real math classes. <<

Remedial classes do not improve student skills. What they do is waste limited time and money, and make students think they are "not college material," which runs up the dropout rate and the debt rate to no good end. It's not a boost; it's a filter that removes targeted students from the graduating track.

>> Access to a computer is yet another problem. While we have computers in our pockets these days through smart phones, not all of them permit programming. They're more information retrieval devices rather than fully-interactive programmable devices. <<

Yeah, that hooks into the "right to own / right to repair" movement. I think companies are just trying to rob people. If you own something, it's yours to do whatever you want with. If you can't do whatever you want with it, you don't own it, you're paying to use someone else's product. Now, we have a model for that: leasing. But with leasing, you don't get billed if your thing stops working, the company just replaces it. Like if you're leasing a car and it won't start, you call the company and they swap it for a different car they own, so you don't have to pay a mechanic to fix it. Neither computer companies nor tractor companies want to acknowledge that, though. Hence, robbery.

The problem is that "free" access isn't free at all. They won't give a library card to just anyone. You have to qualify. That means you need an address, which has to be within their service footprint. No address or the wrong kind, and they won't give you a card. Outside their service footprint, and they charge ruinously high prices -- it was over a hundred dollars when I gave up, and that was years ago.

Because "free public" libraries aren't really free or public, which would mean subsidized by the state or federal government for everyone's use. They're almost all funded locally, which means taxes from a town or in a city just a neighborhood. That means everyone else is left with walk-in uses only, so if the computers require a library card to use rather than walk-in access, they're not free for everyone, they are a paid privilege for customers only.

So much for kids being able to do homework on them or desperate adults being able to apply for a job or assistance. People think those things are available, but when they go in, they find out the library is a lot less useful than they expected. That's a problem. Because when people go to a library and it doesn't help, they become much less likely to support libraries if they're better off later. So then the library budgets shrink and shrink, which is killing off a lot of libraries, which reduces public access to resources even further. It's a vicious circle.

In my organization, almost none of this is true, as well as organizations around me. In some places, access and obtaining a library card is more difficult, but many organizations have procedures in place for those without a fixed address, or have cooperative agreements with other library systems so their residents are also eligible for library cards with this system. We may be a weird bastion of cooperation and sharing, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a more regular practice among library systems that are geographically close to each other. Some places are excluded (because they refuse to provide library services to their residents), or some organizations do charge the average tax burden for non-residents as a family card. (One of the places near my organization is excluded from us because they don't buy library services from anyone, but they do reimburse their residents half the cost of buying the non-resident card from a different system. It's nowhere near an ideal solution, and it still requires having some amount of money up front.) Even to those people, though, the walk-in services includes computer access, program attendance, Wi-Fi, printing, copying, scanning, and browsing the collection. It prohibits lending anything or off-site database usage, which can be a problem. The actual aggravation is that so many of our services are contingent on getting to the building, rather than being available more broadly. Setting aside the vicious campaigns to censor library collections and programming, a lot of the calculations about funding libraries are usually about the library system not doing a good enough job to offer things that are relevant and accessible to their populations. The barrier is getting to library services, usually, rather than that the policies about getting library cards and services are unnecessarily restrictive.

>> Lots of universities have free internet access, at least through WiFi, if not through PCs. In the case of the uni library that I work at, we charge $5 a semester for a public patron card for the PCs or printing, though our public WiFi is free. We also have laptops that we can lend to students, though that rarely happens.<<

Useful for college students and staff only, and those are expensive places to get in. That would be a lot more useful if at least the state ones were supported by taxes instead of tuition, like public schools, since society now demands a college education but extorts money from students and parents for it.

The local campuses of both of the major public universities (who receive at least some state funding in taxes) and several of the minor ones offer free services to the public who walk in, including database access to the university's resources. Again, it's building-only / range of Wi-Fi access, which makes it difficult for people who can't travel easily, but it's there.

At least some libraries have also taken up, since the pandemic began, the process of loaning out computers and Internet access for use at home to those who have library cards, which helps spread resources out, and if hey have a reasonable outreach program and pop-up in places in the communities specifically to do access things and loan out those resources, that helps get things out of the library buildings. I'd love to see it taken one step further where computers like the Raspberry Pi (or other small and inexpensive computers), funded by foundation monies and grants (so no "gift of public funds" complications), are given away to members of the community where computing resources are needed the most, along with information about things like the Affordable Connectivity Program, if the local ISP or ISP monopoly participates, so that there's low-cost or free connectivity that can be hooked up along with having a computer to take advantage of it.

Public libraries could be doing so much more to help with getting people connected and getting devices in their hands, but unless certain interests have their ways, it's been a long while since libraries were strictly members-only kinds of places.

We do not teach the workings of the internal combustion engine past a high level, except for those that want to learn or are thinking about a career in designing, manufacturing, or repairing such things. Same for computers, but, as someone who deals with first-tier tech support on the regular, I do want people to have learned how to operate a computer and how to be able to read and describe an error message to someone. They don't necessarily have to be able to understand the error message, but they do need to be able to describe what they were doing and what error message appeared when they did it, so that someone who does understand what's going on can have all the information they need to be able to help with diagnosis.

And yes to being able to evaluate information effectively and spot bullshit or bullshit-adjacent material when it is presented. Not just for spam and scam, but also to recognize the slant of the editorial, the cable news coverage, or the politican's speech.

The Pi Python editor is good. I think it'll sit neatly in the pocket between block-based programming and people with their specific decks, IDEs, and loadouts for coding, much like how the Raspberry Pi is supposed to be a beginner-intermediate computer that's hard to destroy and can be used for specific purposes (and more and more is getting better at being a general-purpose computer.)

And while the Raspberry Pi is usually out of stock, due to price, there are also plenty of other single-board computers that mimic the form factor, have the same kind of pin access, and run different forms of Linux for those types of machines. Pine64 has Rockchip SBCs in different combinations, and is starting to branch out into RISC-V, Orange Pi has Allwinners, I think, and ODROID and others have a different chipset, but everyone wants Raspberry Pis because they're priced cheaper than all the others, because Broadcom is likely selling them as loss leaders or tax write-offs or similar situations. Which is to say, if you want to get your hands on an SBC and see what you can do, there's a lot of other alternatives. The cheap ones are all ARM and run a Linux by default, some of the more expensive ones are actually x86_64 boards and can have full-fledged Windows stashed on them. (There's work being done to try and adapt Windows for the ARM boards and make it run on them, although I think it's not quite a smooth experience.)

I considered talking about Arduino and other SBCs and decided not to. If someone is into Pi's, they probably know about them. I finally found out what the difference is between Arduino and Pi: the former is a controller, the latter a general-purpose computer. I did not know that.

Probably so, but there's not as much energy or marketing put into the other kinds of SBCs.

And I'm sorry nobody explained the difference between the Arduino microcontroller (does one thing very well, usually on loop) and the Pi general purpose computers, although I think Pi has branched out into microcontrollers as well.

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The Raspberry Pi Foundation has an online Python editor to help kids learn to code

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