Over the last few weeks, I've been helping a few friends start programming—using @replit, instead of traditional IDEs. Conclusion: it's a gamechanger ()

Normally, when someone wants to "learn how to program," they have *no clue* where to start. They go to tutorials... but most tutorials start with ~2 hours of installation instructions (download this, install it there, click into that menu, etc)

Imagine how disempowering that is: you hear "programming is simple," "everyone can learn programming," and so on... then spend 2 hours clicking buttons like a monkey with no clue what's going on or why you need to do any of it

This is a big reason that programming is insular: to get started, you need a well-designed curriculum (read: good, expensive school) or a friend who can walk you through it (while reassuring you that "it's okay, you don't actually need to understand this yet")

After that, you're plopped into an interface with dozens of buttons and options. What does any of it do?! You sure don't know. So, there are two options:
1) feel actively inferior, not knowing what's going on
2) spend hours learning about git/etc BEFORE learning how to program

And then, assuming you figure out how to make something, how do you deploy it?! How do you launch an app, or website, to the public? (This step took high-school me 3-4 years to learn; I competed in international game programming competitions while launching apps out of my IDE)

@replit slices cleanly through the Gordian knot of intro programming:

1) there's NO configuration; just start typing code!
2) simple interface, that explains what each button does
3) AUTOMATIC launching for websites! Make it, and it's publicly accessible (optionally, add a URL)

It has almost every language you'd ever use! Even as an experienced programmer, it's great for exploration.

Last year, I tried getting into Lisp but couldn't find a Common Lisp interpreter that worked, so quit. A week ago, I started tinkering with Clojure and Scheme in seconds

Even more: there's a dead-simple built-in database, so that simply-made apps can have persistent state!

I can't emphasize how huge this is. Normally, databases take *hours* to set up (AFTER you learn how they work)

Conclusion: WOW! If you're starting to program with anything but @replit, you're missing out big time.

I pity people in university courses who have to start in vim, or Eclipse, or (god forbid) jGRASP—because their professors haven't discovered or curricular-ized this yet