Google’s San Francisco based incubator, Area 120, has launched their next project, called Grasshopper, which aims to teach you how to code by making it fun and easy.
Grasshopper is able to be installed on your Android or iOS device and helps everyday people to learn to code real JavaScript while they’re on the go, waiting in line, or burning time during a long commute.
The Grasshopper team says that the app will teach the fundamental basics of JavaScript and some of the building blocks of programming, with the course covering:
- The Fundamentals – How code works, calling functions, variables, strings, for loops, arrays, conditionals, operators, objects, and how all these things work together.
- Animations I – Drawing shapes using the popular D3 library, defining functions, callback functions, and animations.
- Animations II – Creating more complex functions using D3 and the topics from The Fundamentals course.
The course is surprisingly easy for a person with no experience to use, when you first install the app you’ll be asked what coding experience you have. With no experience you can learn to use a JavaScript Function and String within just a couple of minutes, with Grace the Grasshopper – the mascot for the app – guiding you through in simple steps that anybody can understand.
When learning a new skill, the key is practice and the Grasshopper app will ask you how often you wan to learn. You can choose to have Grasshopper remind you to login once a day, every other day, or twice a week – or not at all. You can change the reminders in the settings if you want to get more or less reminders as you progress through the course.
After a few minutes using Grasshopper I’m actually thinking this is fairly great. The Grasshopper team says that the app will remain free you can learn more about the app on the Grasshopper website.
