Raspberry Pi Debuts A Code Editor For Young People – Review Geek

Teaching a child or teen to code can give them a sense of pride, or even lead them toward a career in technology. That’s why the Raspberry Pi Foundation is now releasing its Online Code Editor in beta. It is a free and simple tool that allows you to run, save and export code from the browser.

We are very excited about this code editor. Because it’s browser-based, it’s an ideal solution for kids learning to code at school: you can launch Code Editor from anywhere (even on a cheap tablet) and get all your work back. In time, the Raspberry Pi Code Editor will also support collaboration and project sharing.

Of course, the goal here is quite simple. Raspberry Pi wants to introduce young people to text-based coding. This editor is intended to be the “next step” after a child or teenager has played with rudimentary block-based coding systems, such as Scratch.

Python is the preferred coding language for beginners (particularly young people), as it is the most intuitive language used by professionals. For this reason, the Raspberry Pi Code Editor uses Python (specifically the standard library and P5). Support for web development languages, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, will come at a later date.

The Code Editor is in beta, although it is already quite robust. Along with the export and save features, the Code Editor has an auto-completion feature that takes out some of the guesswork. This coding environment also contains some tutorials from the Raspberry Pi “Introduction to Python” course, although kids will still need adult guidance.

But since this is a browser-based editor, it faces some limitations. You can’t use the Code Editor to control external hardware, for example. Teachers and parents may want to use this as a companion tool alongside traditional editors (such as Thonny, which is free and comes pre-installed on Raspberry Pi hardware).

You can try the Raspberry Pi Online Code Editor today. It is completely free, although you need to create an account to save projects. To reiterate, this tool is in beta version; little by little you will get new features and tutorials.

Source: Raspberry Pi