Smolts: A pedagogical IDE for a teaching language

mccoyb · 2026-09-09T19:17:44

If only our interactions with "non-teaching" languages were anything like this ... or humane, in the lineage of Bret Victor, etc.

Also shout out @tonyg for Syndicate! I keep coming back to it -- a beautiful piece of PL work.

tonyg · 2026-09-12T15:52:45

Thanks so much!

xenonite · 2026-09-09T20:59:58

The go-back debugger is great, I am providing this in my educational Python IDE here: https://primopy.com

tonyg · 2026-09-12T15:53:26

This looks great!

gremlinunderway · 2026-09-10T00:03:44

I will never understand the point of teaching languages that aren't actually used. To me it just seems like its intended to be easier for the teacher rather than being beneficial for the student.

Python is already a super simple language and has enough functional plus OOP orientation that it can be used to showcase every concept and still be useful for the student.

Completely pointless...

gdevenyi · 2026-09-09T14:10:27

Who remembers turning and object oriented turing from the university of Waterloo?

quietraster · 2026-09-09T14:59:48

[flagged]

tonyg · 2026-09-12T15:55:16

Wellll not two years, no, a couple-few weeks of initial work and then, embarrassingly, it sat idle for two years. As to why: at least in part because one of the best ways to learn is to do.