In this post, we’re going to talk about the value of simplicity in software. Simple tools are easier to use, more reliable, and more valuable than their complex counterparts. First, let’s start with my car. I drive a 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid, which I bought used in Spring
Learning to code is often seen as a SERIOUS and IMPORTANT activity, because we’re “training the next generation of engineers” for “success in the modern economy”. What if we could find some other reasons for teaching programming? Do you sign up your kids for the 4th grade basketball team
You’re reading this post in a web browser. The developer of this site laid out the page with HTML, specified its style with CSS, and made the page interactive with Javascript. You can make the Google Docs, Linkedin, Github, and ChatGPT apps all with just those three languages. Typically,
When starting or overhauling a computer science program in your school, it’s important to consider what constitutes a complete solution for a coding classroom. Basically, you need a curriculum with lessons, and a place for students to write code while completing lessons (a code editor). Solutions fall into three
When I was a teacher from 2021 to 2023, Replit was the ideal product for teaching Python and Java in my classroom. However, at the end of 2023, Replit turned their focus to AI-based development for professionals. Due to this shift in focus, Teams for Education was deprecated. Now, thousands
I’ve made many buttons in the course of developing Pickcode, our code editor for middle and high schools. In this post, we’ll discuss the most important button in the app, the run button. The programming workflow While programming in a code editor, the main workflow is: 1. Identify
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co For many of our student users, Pickcode is the first piece of software they’ll use to write code (excluding stuff like Scratch). The goal of this post is to explain why our product should not contain an AI copilot/assistant/
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co In 11th grade, I wrote my first program, Dingo Hopper. In the game, the player controls a png of a dingo as it jumps over gray boxes. Dingo Hopper was not fun, or a commercial success, but it was a game.
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co Leaving Teaching I’m posting this on my last day teaching high school computer science. In the past two years, I’ve worked with over 200 students and for many, my class was their first experience coding. I did not succeed
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co The Coffee Problem Young people usually get introduced to the taste of coffee with their first taste of coffee ice cream. It’s a little bitter, but the flavor is great. Unfortunately for young coffee aficionados, most coffee drinks don’t
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co This week, I’m working on a rewrite of Pickcode’s backend using Prisma and NestJS. The details aren’t important, but it goes without saying that I don’t really know what I’m doing. Throughout the process, I encounter
This post was originally published on blog.charliemeyer.co Introduction I’ve remained skeptical of AI code generation for a long time, until I began chatting with ChatGPT last week. It effortlessly worked through problems in Java, Python, C++, and helped me solve a configuration issue in Pickcode’s backend.