AppJet Offers Browser-Based Coding How-To, Hosting 63
theodp writes "Know someone who wants to learn to program? Paul Graham advises programmer wannabes to check out The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming on the Web from AppJet, which aims to be 'the funnest and easiest way for a beginner to get started programming.' Setting the guide apart from other tutorials is the ability to edit and run any of the all-Javascript examples directly in your browser. Newcomers to programming and experienced developers alike can also publish their AppJet creations on the web. Sure beats GE BASIC on the General Electric Time-Sharing Service!"
by "funnest" (Score:5, Funny)
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Computer programmers are the sort of people who come up with their own language.... and sometimes implement it. It is not about correct spelling and grammar just consistent spelling and grammar.
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Re:by "funnest" (Score:4, Funny)
Well most languages have a small set of fixed syntax and a wider set of custom made syntaxes.
Remember the old joke about the programmer having trouble getting his code to compile, and some guy (a non-programmer) looks at it quickly and proudly proclaims "Oh, I see the problem. You spelled studio wrong."
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Actually, the majority of them are the ones who have to abide by the syntax of an existing language.
Unless you happen to be Guido van Rossum. In which case, you don't even have to abide by the syntax of your OWN language! :-P
(Note to humorless, Python programming mods: Guido is my personal hero and Python is my favorite interpreted language. Really.)
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Hey, these people know what they are talking about.
I mean I don't see you with a Fungineering degree.
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That's what I get for dropping out of the Fungineering program are Mars University.
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You are succeeded in failing again.
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Re:by "funnest" (Score:5, Informative)
i had no idea that "funnest" wasn't a word.
actually, i'm still not quite sure. a search on reference.com [reference.com] yields:
No results found for funnest.
Did you mean funnest (in dictionary) or Fingest (in encyclopedia)?
Dictionary suggestions:
...
funnest
fun nest
fun-nest
funniest
i'll just go with funniest.
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Especially if your an American who feels it's okay to bastardize the language instead of speaking it correctly :-(
Ouch, is my humoUr a bit too dry for my overseas neighboUrs ?
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It should be noted that "funnest" currently appears on the front page of apple.com. "The funnest ipod ever".
I stand by my word choice and reject your dogmatic adherence to pedantic and schoolmarmish rules.
Nice to see AppJet featured (Score:2, Informative)
Been using AppJet for a while (I was among the earliest members) and I'm really glad to see them featured. AppJet's founders have done a wonderful job creating an easy to use and powerful language. They consistently communicate with their community (they offer personalized help in the forums), and have been creating new features and aspects of AppJet right from the beginning. However, be warned: AppJet really is a beta, and there are occasionally bugs. They're rectified very quickly however. I highly r
Language (Score:3, Informative)
The language is JavaScript. AppJet's founders did not create it. They provide a hosting environment and some libraries.
How true is this? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I guess C still wins. I bet your computer runs C code all the time. There is a C compiler for just about any device that can add two numbers. Many people know C and, in my opinion, it is worth knowing.
I'd like to see the number of lines of code written in C compared to Javascript.
C, more or less prevalent than javascript? A no-brainer.
Having said that, the website is about programming on the web, and in that context, javascript is pretty prevalent.
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I guess C still wins. I bet your computer runs C code all the time.
My computer usually runs compiled executables, but if you want to compile every time you run a program, more power to you.
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Aye, and my C-compiler is written in javascript B-)
Seriously though, what I meant with 'C code' was 'executable stuff, the source code of which was written in C'. Perhaps I should have been more clear (although, being blessed with great powers of denial and self-deception, I prefer to think that you are an idiot for not understanding).
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There is a C compiler for just about any device that can add two numbers.
I'd love to see a C compiler for a Curta. And not just because it would have a cute name when said aloud
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I guess C still wins.
You could make a plausible argument for Java - there are far more people with phones than computers. Indeed, SMS is the most widely used application in the world.
Or if you want to go by transactions, then it's unquestionably COBOL.
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Wouldn't most/all of those phones have C underneath the Java?
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Same would be true for C or assembler?
Example code (Score:1, Redundant)
Am I reading this correctly or does this book actually include example code?! How revolutionary!
Set apart from? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.w3schools.com/ [w3schools.com] - I use this site to get undergrads up to speed with the programming we do in our shop at the university. It's always worked well, and all the code is runnable in the browser. Pretty good info, too.
ah.clem
Cool idea, but one peeve so far... (Score:5, Insightful)
So by the third page, they already have you stealing bandwidth by deep-linking images?
Cool site, but I really hope they have a section on netiquette somewhere in there...
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Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...
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A Slashdot reader missing entire sections of an article? Unpossible!
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It's only unpossible because the typical reader misses the entire article to begin with. Missing individual parts of an article takes dedication.
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Re:Cool idea, but one peeve so far... (Score:4, Interesting)
or how about this. if you don't want your images indexed by Google, add 2 short lines in robots.txt: /images/
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow:
i imagine most webmasters don't mind if someone links to one of their hosted images in a forum post or saves it to their hard drive for personal use. it's only a problem when: /. which generates huge volumes of traffic.
a.) the hotlink is made from a site like
b.) the image is being used for commercial purposes.
c.) the webmaster is a douche.
if you're a douche, please don't pollute the google image search results with links to your site. google image search provides a useful service to people looking for images online, and also to webmasters who gain traffic from the search results. if this isn't a fair trade to you, then it's very easy to tell google not to index your site (or just particular sections of your site).
now, some people have very limited bandwidth, so they may want to share their images, but don't want hotlinks. this is very understandable. and most of these webmasters know to prevent outside referrals to images by configuring their web server with the right access rules.
but if everyone acted like a bunch of tightwads, then Google Image Search would be completely useless. frankly, i'd rather people hotlink images directly from my server for forum posts than to to use a throwaway image host like PhotoBucket and thus contribute to the sea of dead images that you see on internet message boards.
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Okay, so if you'll indulge me for a moment, I want to make sure I'm not mis-characterizing your position here. You're saying that being annoyed that someone not only decided to use my images without so much as asking permission, but actually went so far as to make me pay for the bandwidth (however minuscule) is being a douche?
More power to you if you don't mind and even prefer that people hotlink your images, but who are you to berate people who can't or even just don't want to do the same? Why is not wan
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other people's action don't define you as a douche. your own actions/choices do.
there are instances when hotlinking is inappropriate. but if everyone were so needlessly selfish and petty, then such useful services as Google Image Search (and the internet to a large degree) would be completely useless.
there are certain images that you may not want people using at all. that is fine. don't give people public access to those images. and if you don't agree to the trade-offs of being indexed by services such as G
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I really don't see how being indexed by Google implies carte blanche for anyone to use your content in any context they choose without restriction, aside from the frankly completely arbitrary one precluding commercial use. Would you say the same is true of anything I might publish? If I write a story, is it okay to reprint it wherever you like without so much as an attribution, so long as you don't charge anything?
Where do you draw the line? If I write a program and depend on Google to direct customers to
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as i've already stated. google image search only works if site-owners agree to share their images.
this has nothing to do with gmail. gmail's usefulness to the general public has nothing to do with user contribution. google's gmail service doesn't cease to be useful just because you (or everyone) uses IMAP. their publishing user emails wouldn't make the service more useful either. that's a completely random and nonsensical analogy.
and i would advise you to research the concept of 'fair use', which i think is
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Obviously it wouldn't. But hotlinking material found on Image Search doesn't make Image Search more useful, either. That's just something inconsiderate people with a sense of e
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now, if you only want the benefit of search engine traffic but don't want people to see any part of your site's content without having paid for it first, then you are a douche. and you should be delisted. because if every site had such policies, then google's web search would cease to work.
If I have content which customers will pay to access, I will charge them for it. If you do not, but believe you have some under development and therefore want to use the Internet for publicity, you have a good reason choose to offer your content free of charge (until you can concoct something profitable). But because you think that due to your lack of a revenue-generator, therefore everybody should refuse the profit you haven't figured out how to earn, you are the douche!
it is perfectly within your legal rights to be a douche. but that doesn't mean people can't call you out on your douche-like behavior.
Three words: Double-U Oh Double-U (Score:2)
Sounds tricky. I wonder how do dey do dat?
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But it does make it fit into the limited space of the headline text box. :-)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Geleral Electric Tims-Sharing Systems (Score:2)
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Me too! </aol>
But it was 1968. And I was all set to go with the "insensitive clod" meme.
Ah memories . . . slamming the phone down into an acoustic coupler [wikipedia.org], typing programs in on a model 33 Teletype [wikipedia.org], saving them on yellow paper tape [wikipedia.org] . . .
Heroku? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not going to look into this in too much depth yet, but it sounds quite a lot like Heroku [heroku.com] -- only less beginner-oriented, and without trying to do server-side javascript.
Appjet is awesome (Score:1)
AppJet is pretty cool. It's a great way to write a little one-off web app. You don't have to worry about installing anything, getting hosting, etc etc. You just type some code into the browser-based IDE and you're done.
My sig in AppJet. [appjet.net]
GE Basic (Score:1)
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I got a couple of details wrong.
BASIC came from Dartmouth - brainfart.
BTW - my first programming experience was an ASR33 in our spare bedroom connected to the GE mainframe.
http://febcm.club.fr/english/gecos_to_gcos8_part_1.htm [febcm.club.fr]
"Mark-III and General Electric Information System
In 1964, GE had helped the Dartmouth College NH to develop an interactive system for teaching programming. The hardware was a GE-200 front-ended by a communication processor developed initially for store and forward communication message
W3C and GNU coding standards team froth rabidly (Score:1, Interesting)
Tetris in /* appjet:version 0.1 */ [appjet.net]
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I learned with GE Basic! (Score:2)
You insensitive clod!
(Yes, really. It was 1969.)