Re:Khan Academy: Computer Science
by eranation on Tuesday August 14, 2012 @02:08PM
(#4382256)
I'm checking CS on Khan academy every few weeks with hope for something like this, the Python class was great, but this is really exciting, and having Vi Hart do the videos is cool (or someone with a very similar voice...) - correction: it's narrated by Jessica Liu, who is doing an amazing job too
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I wonder why they didn't do the Computer Science class in Python, especially that now more schools are adopting Python. Isn't Python better for learning than Javascript? Did they choose Javascript for this one just because they already had a Python course and they wanted a Javascript one now?
Re:Khan Academy: Computer Science
by lazerwalker on Tuesday August 14, 2012 @02:54PM
(#4382496)
It seems pretty clear that it's for practical reasons: you want that sort of rich in-browser experience, it's going to be easiest to provide using JS.
What I think is a more interesting discussion is why they're not using CoffeeScript or some other flavor of JS that glosses over a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the language and arguably offers a more beginner-friendly syntax.
I think that python is the better choice for an in-person class, but building an in-browser js interpreter is a lot simpler than an in-browser python interpreter.
Hmm. that makes sense. because browser have been handling js for a longer time and so there would be more support for a in-browser js interpreter. I have seen some python in-browser interpreters, which are good though.
I don't think it would be possible for them to have the type of environment they've got set up if they used Python.
It's not Vi Hart doing the videos. See http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/
eranation might be referring to the programs that have associated videos by Vi Hart - like this one: http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/pascals-triangle/803149756
The program was actually written to match the video though, not the other way around.
I saw, couldn't find the name of the narrator
I'm talking about the actual videos, not the intro one (narrated by Sal Khan and John Resig)
e.g. this one
http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/intro-to-drawing/848372201
Sounds Vi Hart to me...
They're narrated by Jessica Liu, more details here:
http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/
Jessica is doing a great job as well... :)
she sounds a lot like Vi, and this comment on this one, 5 seconds from the start helped my confusion...
http://www.khanacademy.org/cs/1-welcome-to-codecanvas/882454...