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Laura Holmes

Grasshopper - The coding app for beginners by Google

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Grasshopper is the coding app for beginners. With fun, quick lessons on your phone, the app teaches adult learners to write real JavaScript. It’s currently available for free on Android and iOS. Grasshopper is built by a team within Area 120, a workshop for experimental projects.

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Volodymyr Spodaryk

UPD: issue was quickly resolved: it was flag of Haiti not Russia (they look pretty similar on white background in small resolution).

Epic fail with Russian flag for Ukraine!

And looks like it is not just screenshot, it is in app too.

Image from newsletter from ProductHunt:

Topic on TechCrunch:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/1...

Pros:

Never used

Cons:

Really offensive promo for Ukrainians

David Bernegger
The blue-red represents the flag of Haiti. In the task you have to change the bottom color from yellow (ukraine) to red (haiti).
Heather Smith
Grasshopper Curriculum Manager here! David is right, the flag shown is the flag of Haiti (blue stripe, then red). However, it was brought to our attention just after we launched that this can easily be mistaken for Russian. We've since updated that puzzle, which you can see reflected in our app and on the homepage: https://grasshopper.codes/ . So thank you for flagging this, it allowed us to make the quick change.
Luciq (Formerly Instabug)
The app looks great! Congrats @fearofpoets 🎉
Laura Holmes
Google Play
Maker
@okgabr1 Thanks for all your help with Instabug! @All - Omar's the CEO of Instabug, and it's been great integrating with them and getting streamlined feedback from all our our testers before yesterday's announcement.
Angie
Femwyse
Hi @fearofpoets, I followed a few lessons today and I like the way the app and the different topics are presented as a whole. I just started to learn Swift so a lot of topics like functions, variables and arrays look familiar and are easier to follow. I'm no so far in the app yet but will you also build lessons where basic apps are built for example? This part helps me during my Swift coding course. Congrats on the launch!
Laura Holmes
Google Play
Maker
@angeliquesocial Building basic apps takes a fair amount of knowledge and complexity, and since we're starting folks from the very beginning, we haven't gotten to that level of depth yet... but we are working on gradually making our way there! Stay tuned as we continue to add more curriculum. :)
Angie
Femwyse
@fearofpoets thanks for your reply looking forward to what is next :)
Angie
Femwyse

I completed three lessons today and I enjoy the learning proces. If you get stuck you can ask for help so someone from the Grasshopper team or community can help you get back on track. I think this is a very important aspect of learning how to code because many people quit because they get stuck at some point. At the beginning of the course you can set up a schedule fitting your personal situation. You can choose to take the lessons daily or every other day for example.

Pros:

Easy to understand the fundamentals. The lessons are presented in a cleary and organised.

Cons:

None yet

Wiktor Sobolak
As a non-dev digital marketer, I find it extremely usefull to expand my skills. Nicely done!
Laura Holmes
Google Play
Maker
Saurabh Hooda
Hackr.io
Tried the app on iOS. It's really solid stepping stone for the beginners. Kudos on a great launch too :) Feel free to submit it on Hackr.io's Intro to programming category: https://hackr.io/tutorials/learn.... We would love to feature it there!
Birgit Frenzel

makes fun:-)

Pros:

easy to use and understand

Cons:

do I really learn something?

Volodymyr Grinchenko

Guys, in a screenshot from Product Hunt email you have Ukraine under the Russian flag: https://imgur.com/km0ihcs That's super offensive. I mean come one, it's 2018, put some efforts into ensuring you won't offend countries you're using in your promo! The same goes for TC article: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/1...

Pros:

Haven't tried it yet (and frankly, won't do it after this situation)

Cons:

Really offensive promo

Volodymyr Spodaryk
Agree, it is an epic fail with the photo! And looks like it is not just screenshot, it is in app too.
David Bernegger
The blue-red represents the flag of Haiti. In the task you have to change the bottom color from yellow (ukraine) to red (haiti).
Volodymyr Grinchenko
Please correct your offensive promo, you have Ukraine under Russian flag: https://imgur.com/km0ihcs and the same on TC https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/1...
Heather Smith
@volodymyr_grinchenko Grasshopper Curriculum Manager here — that's the Haitian flag: blue at the top, red at the bottom. It was brought to our attention just after we launched that this can easily be mistaken for Russian. We've since updated that puzzle, which you can see reflected in our app and on the homepage: https://grasshopper.codes/ . So thank you for flagging this, it allowed us to make the quick change.
Volodymyr Grinchenko
@heathermacsmith thanks for removing the possibly confusing element and thanks for your quickly reply!
Abadesi
Hustle Crew Academy
Thanks for hunting @fearofpoets what were some of the hurdles you faced when trying to get this off the ground?
Laura Holmes
Google Play
Maker
@abadesi Oh goodness, so many things :) We were testing for about 9 months tweaking to get stuff right. The custom code editor designed for beginners took a long time to get right, and we also had to tweak the curriculum a lot to optimize for students actually learning (e.g. we would introduce a new lesson, and then we'd get the stats back and realize that it was too confusing, so had to swap it out for something different). We also had to do a lot of iteration on our progress indicators (progress bars, points, and achievements). We still have a LOT more work to do to add more curriculum and keep motivating more people through to graduation, but we think it's a good start. :)
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