Development environments for beginners

Programming seems to be a complicated and daunting task, judging from the thick volumes on C++, C#, or Java sitting on bookshop shelves. The columns of cryptic commands that flicker by when leafing through any of these volumes can lead one to conclude that programming is a science for a small, close-knit community. Alice, Greenfoot, Hackety Hack, Processing, and Scratch want to prove just the opposite. These five integrated development environments (IDEs) not only help when first setting foot in programming, they can also help you quickly build complete applications. Alice, Greenfoot, and Scratch are strictly targeted to children.

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IDEs typically include all the applications required for programming, such as an editor, compiler/interpreter, linker, and debugger – all under a common interface. All five environments discussed here use a visual approach. Thus, a beginning programmer loads graphical objects in a window, which can then be rotated, scaled, moved, or otherwise manipulated. With Alice and Scratch, users can simply extract appropriate cars, people, and houses from a palette into the window and combine them with existing building blocks in the desired program. Hackety Hack, Greenfoot, and Processing, however, ask you to enter commands that not only change the objects but create the graphics. These text-based environments require a bit more training and imagination but can lead to more complex results.

Because you are manipulating graphic objects, you see the results immediately. This interactivity encourages experimentation with new, unknown functions and leads to a playful environment, especially among children and young people. Even experienced programmers shouldn't snicker, however, because the IDEs lend themselves well to prototyping. In fact, the Java code produced by Greenfoot and Processing can be integrated easily into other programs. See also the "Objectives" box.

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