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Hedy: A gradual and multi-lingual programming language for education

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Hedy: A gradual and multi-lingual programming language for education
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542
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CC Attribution 2.0 Belgium:
You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
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When kids learn to program they often use either a visual language like Scratch, or a textual language like Python. While visual languages are great for the first steps, children and educators often want to move on to a textual language. However early on, a textual language and its error messages can be scary and frustrating. Hedy aims bridge this gap with a programming language that is gradual, using different language levels. In level 1, there is hardly any syntax at all; printing is done with: print hello! At every level, new syntax and concepts are added, so learners do not have to master everything at once. Hedy builds up to a subset of Python including conditions, loops, variables and lists. To make learning as accessible as possible, Hedy allows for the use of localized keywords, f.e in Spanish: imprimir Hello! This talk will discuss the pedagogy of Hedy as well as its technical aspects, since a set of changing and localized complex grammars poses several interesting challenges for parsing, and a small language offers a lot of potential from improved error messages.