Kids Programming Language

I wonder how many of you used to be programmers... Remember how it all started? In my case it was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1983. Wonderful machine, programming it was so close to the metal... or silicon should I say. It was cold booting in 2 seconds and ready to execute statements you typed in. Like PRINT 2+2 (that yielded 4 in the upper left corner). Or PLOT (50, 50) to place a black pixel on the screen. Actually you could type a few lines and watch the computer executing your program instantaneously. It used to be so beautifully simple to feel what a computer program is in fact - a sequence of commands that are executed by the machine one by one. And today? You cold boot your gigahertz/gigabyte/gigaflop PC in 2 minutes flat and find yourself at the mercy of a START button. You can fire a Notepad to type a series of words that do nothing. Probably the closest thing you can do is to launch an Internet browser, go to google.com and type 2+2 in the search box. Yes, you will get that 4 (followed by an option to search the entire World's information for documents containing the terms "2+2")...

But how do you show the kids what a computer program is? How to plot a circle on the screen using a simple loop and Pythagorean Theorem? Or how to write a number guessing game? Or plot a Mandelbrot Set? Do you launch Visual Studio and start by typing all the includes for system input and graphics? No... It used to be so easy with the ZX Spectrum...

And here comes the KPL to the rescue. The Kids Programming Language. A wonderful idea and a wonderful product. It is like going back to the basics. Like your mighty PC finally being able to execute a few simple lines of code to reveal the wonderful world of programming. Just download the KPL, install it and you can PRINT 2+2 instantly... Sort of. May be not one line of code, but five, but it is still the fastest way to get that 4 on a mighty Windows screen. In 5 lines flat (we need to have some progress... do we?). It is still zillion times easier to explain than it C# or VB conversion (Public Overridable Sub Main() Implements blah blah blah).

So I'm not taking your time. Go and spend the rest of the day going back to your childhood. Dive in the forest of recursion trees or write yourself a Missile Command and tell me your high score!