alt Hacker News> The single biggest obstacle a beginner hits with any language is not the conceptual understanding. It is the install.
Is that _really_ the case? I find it very unlikely (not just in an OCaml context).
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I remember this being true for me, a long, long time ago. There was something like a four year gap between me being able to munge linked lists in TiBasic and me being able to reliably install java and compile System.out.println(“hello world”)
Yes for me (although difficulty varies depending on what you're trying to install). I would have started programming 2 years earlier than I actually did if my first attempt to install tools to run a programming language had worked.
You have to precisely follow a sequence of instructions without the experience to understand their purpose, or any idea of how to fix things if you make a mistake.
Web technology is an exception to this. People already have a web browser, and ignoring mobile devices, browsers come with a js REPL.
You don't get to hit other obstacles if you don't have the ability to run the code and play with it.
Yes. The reason I ended up being a python dev is that way back in the day there was a free, easy installer that ran on my machine, including a functional if basic IDE with syntax highlighting. This was Python 1.5 on a Mac Classic. Even getting a C compiler would have been a major lift, this was in the modem days so downloading was always an adventure.
Yes, definitely the case. Just imagine a class with 100 students, each with a system that has its own quirks (OS, browser, and a mix of versions, etc). We built codeBoot (https://codeboot.org) specifically for this reason!