Hacker Remix

Show HN: Pickcode – Free online code editor for kids

86 points by csmeyer 1 year ago | 15 comments

Hi HN! I've posted Pickcode a few times (most recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38365638), but we've improved things quite a bit so I thought it was worth posting again. This is a bit of 1.0 release after a long year of working on the company full time!

Pickcode is basically Replit-lite, for kids. The editor is simple: text editor + output console + big green button to run your code. We support Python, HTML/CSS/JS, Java, and our block/text hybrid language, Pickcode VL. We're partners on code.org's Hour of Code, and hundreds of thousands of students have tried our free stuff through them.

An account for individual kids is totally free, and we offer some free Python and Pickcode VL lessons to get them started. We make money by selling licenses to schools for better customer support and roster/lesson management features.

You can use this demo account I made to try out the editor:

  email: demo@student.pickcode.io
  pw: Demo1234

(Don't clobber other people's work, and what you put in the demo account is public so be nice)

chaosprint 1 year ago

Great project! I'm curious if the main customers are from the US?

I'm asking because I'm the author of https://glicol.org/ and I have a similar app where teachers can see students' progress and students can form bands. But when I tried to commercialize it, I found that it was almost impossible to sell to schools in Northern Europe. The overall process was very slow and conservative.

Almost everyone recommended that I go to the US.

csmeyer 1 year ago

Our customers are split between the US and Europe. There are a lot of decision makers in the process who need to approve a purchase at school, so things are pretty time consuming.

whitten 1 year ago

How long from Salesguy to Cashguy ?

I know that for hospitals it is a minimum of 18 months assuming no large purchasing process like RFPs or RFQs. Personally I am surprised when it takes less than 3 years

wonger_ 1 year ago

I like it! I fiddled around for a couple minutes. The UI is surprisingly non-buggy. I like how the code editor treats lines as draggable widgets, and I like the limited syntax selection. Props for focusing on school licenses and making individual accounts free.

Just a couple thoughts:

- maybe use horizontal editor splits by default when the screen aspect ratio is less than 1 (ie. for vertical mobile screens)

- shouldn't `math` be treated like other namespaces in the `call` menu? Eg. formatted with ellipses like `math...`, and offering a menu of functions right after being selected?

- any plans to make more detailed/friendly error messages? Eg. "Type error, invalid function call" feels a bit useless for a beginner

- any real-world examples of programs that kids have written?

- any plans to convert seamlessly between Pickcode's language, Python, and JS? Essentially being different views of the same program, for when the kid is ready to try another language.

And a bit unrelated, but any thoughts on Mark Rober's take on code editors? https://youtu.be/1j1kAuqePJo?si=6GtQPVgsFgUtGPw-&t=1109 Obviously not as fleshed out or beginner-friendly as yours, but I think the tiered approach is interesting.

ttuttle 1 year ago

Great project! Super cool to see the progress over the last year!

singpolyma3 1 year ago

Seems neat. What's the advantage over something like replit?

csmeyer 1 year ago

Basically just a lot simpler. Replit has a million features (and AI ghostwriter) that in my experience are distracting for kids (I used to be a teacher and still tutor kids 1:1)

RodgerTheGreat 1 year ago

It really bums me out how Repl.it has evolved from its beginnings as a simple, free, accessible-anywhere programming scratchpad into a heinously complex cloud-persisted SaaS product.

Have you considered offering a version of your product that doesn't persist anything- or perhaps persists snippets in URI parameters or localStorage- and which can be used without an account? It would meaningfully lower barriers to entry and adoption.

csmeyer 1 year ago

If you go to https://app.pickcode.io/lessons you can do some free Pickcode VL lessons without an account. Later this year we’ll probably add some Python or Javascript to that page too. URI storage would be neat!

trandango 1 year ago

When I went to try it, I was asked for my birthdate and age. Should I be entering for myself, or for my child who this account will actually be for?

sirjaz 1 year ago

I hope you will support C#. It is rising in popularity.

Turboblack 1 year ago

success to your project, I hope you will also support PHP

ms7892 1 year ago

Best wishes!

android521 1 year ago

no javascript support???

pmg102 1 year ago

I like that you list "100% AI-free" as a selling point!

1 year ago