I wonder if syntax errors could be made friendlier by animating them as visual pieces that don't fit together or that do not stick? I can imagine an editor that always keeps the text syntactically correct (by adding in closing brackets, boilerplate text to be typed over, etc). A visual editor that behaved in the same way would be very useful. Especially if the program code would dynamically update in a parallel window!
I think that people can relate to some widget or puzzle piece fitting or not fitting onto another widget or piece. Certainly, one can relate to this more readily than cryptic messages like "syntax error."
Well, that remark certainly devaluated my opinion of grad schools. I understand not everyone is fit for SICP at 18 (I certainly wasn't), but this is quite on the opposite end.
I know at least one would-be programmer who is not scared away by complier errors, but he is almost comically infuriated by them: not their presence, but their customary vagueness and unhelpfulness. Such a tool as this might provide an intellectually curious sort like him to learn proper syntax for common programming concepts without having to dig through man pages or web pages, and without lots of trial and error.
I applaud you for your concern and effort, but I wonder about the unintended consequences of this. Do you really want to encourage someone who would be "scared away by compiler errors"? Compiling is easy, deploying is much harder.
If someone is scared away by the easy stuff, how will they respond to the real difficulties that await?
Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I think the battle scars earned conquering the little things like syntax help build a better programmer for everything else. I wouldn't want to take that building block away.