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Raspberry Pi For the Rest of Us

Posted by timothy on from the bootstraps-for-all! dept.

mikejuk writes "The Raspberry Pi might be a cheap and reasonably powerful but it has a tough learning curve due to the Linux OS it uses. Adafruit, better known for their hardware, are working on a WebIDE which you can use to program the Pi without having to set things up. You write the code in a browser and run it on the Pi using a web server hosted by the Pi. It sounds crazy but if it can make the Pi more approachable then perhaps it could turn out to be an educational powerhouse."

11 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Evil learning by fisted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh no, a steep learning curve on a device which is intended to encourage learning. Seriously.

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    1. Re:Evil learning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't know what you're talking about. If your nephew has any PC built in the last 5 years to use as a client to this thing then they can run a Linux VM on it and use any number of open source tools to achieve the same thing. You don't need a Pi if you're in the west and are going to be just teaching yourself to code. If you're an engineering student and are looking at doing something cool with the USB interface *maybe* just *maybe* thats ok but you can do that with your desktop/laptop already with VM. I assure you that installing a basic Ubuntu OS on a VM is *far* easier and cheaper than purchasing a Pi. Heck - run any modern Python IDE on windows - you get a fully integrated debugger and python console. Pisses all over your fsckin' web interface. Use the Pi for teaching electronics and systems in engineering classes, for hobbyists to connect home automation and robotics, for third world/developing nations that can't afford full PCs - but its not a glorified IDE just cause you can.

      I agree with the previous post - WTF is wrong with learning?

      Unicycles and juggling.. thats all you modern hipster developers want..

    2. Re:Evil learning by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Funny

      If I'm going to teach my nephews python

      Damn you! Just one misplaced apostrophe and I could have had an amusing joke about how snakes- and python's in particular- are incapable of learning anything more complicated than Javascript.

      But nooooo..... you had to be gramatically correct. Spoilsport! Where's an illiterate when you need one?! :'-(

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    3. Re:Evil learning by kat_skan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Where's an illiterate when you need one?!

      Fret not! I found one for you:

      python's in particular

  2. Re:Be nice when they deliver it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If your order is through RS, cancel it immediately and order through Farnell. Farnell actually has their act together.

  3. Set things up? by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't the point of the Pi that you can just dump an image onto an SD card and have a fully working environment? Just how bad are the Pi distros?

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    1. Re:Set things up? by Microlith · · Score: 5, Informative

      They aren't. The Debian install boots directly into LXDE. The "tough" learning curve is illusory and can easily be overcome in the environment the Pi is used in without suddenly needing two computers rather than one.

  4. Re:Oxymoron by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't accept that. The point of the Pi is to replicate the "turn it on and start coding" spirit that us 8 bit kids grew up with.

    What a BBC Micro had, that a modern PC doesn't is this: you turned it on, and 3 seconds later there was a BASIC prompt. Page 1 of the "learn to program" book tells you to type:

    10 PRINT "Hello World"
    20 GOTO 10

    If you screw up, you turn it off and on again, no harm done.

    20 minutes later, an inquisitive 7 year old will have:

    10 PRINT "Hello World"
    20 c% = RND(8)
    30 COLOUR c%
    40 PRINT "Slim is Rad!!!!!!"
    50 GOTO 10 ... and they build up from there until 11 years later they're doing a CS degree.

    There's no "oh, the install is too difficult? Oh bad luck 7-year-old, you've not got it in you."

    And that's what the Raspberry Pi is intending to replicate.

    (But I don't think this browser thing is the way to do it)

  5. Re:Be nice when they deliver it. by neurojab · · Score: 4, Informative

    +1 to the parent.

    RS does not have any Raspberry Pis... Newark/Farnell/Element14 have them. I cancelled my RS order and got it in 4 days from Newwark. Newark is showing 100 in stock right now.

  6. Happy 15th Aniversery! by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 4, Funny

    Slashdot: news for non-nerds that don't want to have to deal with linux.

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  7. I have one word for this... by cbope · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lame.

    I means seriously, the Pi is designed to get kids (and adults) to LEARN how a computer works and how to program the device. It's TRIVIAL to download a system image, transfer it to an SD card and boot your Pi. Hell, RS even offered to sell me a pre-formatted SD with the OS pre-installed! How hard is it to click "add one to cart", if you don't want to set up the SD yourself?!?

    Seriously, the Pi is not for the iDevice consumer... it's for people who are interested to learn how things work and how to build and code stuff. Making the device idiot-proof is not the way forward.