8 ms·

Thanks for your feedback. Have you installed 1.0 and played with it yet? We've tried to address the first time user a bit better. If you have specific instruct

Thanks for your feedback. Have you installed 1.0 and played with it yet? We've tried to address the first time user a bit better. If you have specific instructional material you think should be added, we would be delighted to receive a pull request. Thanks again for the feedback, we do appreciate it.

ddagradi 15y ago
Just did an install. A 260MB download is just silly. And it's not even the application, it's an installer. Once it's done dropping copies of qt, Ruby and git somewhere on my system I can finally get started. Please, please make a better package than that. First launch gets better. Friendly "Start Here" button that explains the interface. And then it links to Hackety Hack, which is awesome, because _why's lessons are awesome. Could the code examples be formatted any worse though? All white text on a black background, with white borders and an incorrect line height? Yuck. (It's much better in the non-_why lessons, where code is formatted pre-tag style, but still not colored.). Including RubyWarrior and Gosu is a fantastic idea. Great packages! But then there's inconsistencies. The glossary defines 3 terms, and then fails to define 7 more. The app seems confused, telling me all of the following: "This is KidsRuby" "This is Hackety Hack" "This is Ruby4Kids" The tabs differentiating between "Output" and "Turtle" are an interesting concept. I'm of a mixed opinion there, but I see what you're getting at. I'd probably have argued against that as one tab or the other is potentially useless at all times. Really, I have the same criticism to level at this as Hackety Hack (and I imagine that is no small coincidence): it's a good idea wrapped in a terrible experience. It's not that it needs to be dumbed down for children, but it does need stronger guidance. It fails by giving too many opportunities for alienation and/or working just badly enough that users will get frustrated and give up. The fact that it doesn't behave like a native app makes it that much harder to apply existing knowledge.
extension 15y ago
Feedback for the MacOS version: - It asks for admin privileges with no explanation. - Then it spends a loooong time installing, again with no explanation of what it's doing or how long it will take. - It's installing things I already have (ruby and git) and I don't know if it is clobbering them. - It adds a folder to the Applications menu with one useful entry (KidsRuby.app) and a bunch of internal files. There is something called kidsirb.sh which opens Xcode. - There is barely any learning material inside the app. I don't see how I would actually learn the language from this. Sure, if I'm resourceful I could probably find that material elsewhere, but then what is the point of using this over vanilla IRB? Not a lot.

ddagradi 15y ago

Just did an install. A 260MB download is just silly. And it's not even the application, it's an installer. Once it's done dropping copies of qt, Ruby and git somewhere on my system I can finally get started. Please, please make a better package than that. First launch gets better. Friendly "Start Here" button that explains the interface. And then it links to Hackety Hack, which is awesome, because _why's lessons are awesome. Could the code examples be formatted any worse though? All white text on a black background, with white borders and an incorrect line height? Yuck. (It's much better in the non-_why lessons, where code is formatted pre-tag style, but still not colored.). Including RubyWarrior and Gosu is a fantastic idea. Great packages! But then there's inconsistencies. The glossary defines 3 terms, and then fails to define 7 more. The app seems confused, telling me all of the following: "This is KidsRuby" "This is Hackety Hack" "This is Ruby4Kids" The tabs differentiating between "Output" and "Turtle" are an interesting concept. I'm of a mixed opinion there, but I see what you're getting at. I'd probably have argued against that as one tab or the other is potentially useless at all times. Really, I have the same criticism to level at this as Hackety Hack (and I imagine that is no small coincidence): it's a good idea wrapped in a terrible experience. It's not that it needs to be dumbed down for children, but it does need stronger guidance. It fails by giving too many opportunities for alienation and/or working just badly enough that users will get frustrated and give up. The fact that it doesn't behave like a native app makes it that much harder to apply existing knowledge.

extension 15y ago

Feedback for the MacOS version: - It asks for admin privileges with no explanation. - Then it spends a loooong time installing, again with no explanation of what it's doing or how long it will take. - It's installing things I already have (ruby and git) and I don't know if it is clobbering them. - It adds a folder to the Applications menu with one useful entry (KidsRuby.app) and a bunch of internal files. There is something called kidsirb.sh which opens Xcode. - There is barely any learning material inside the app. I don't see how I would actually learn the language from this. Sure, if I'm resourceful I could probably find that material elsewhere, but then what is the point of using this over vanilla IRB? Not a lot.