Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I'm 17 and wrote a guide on how to build your own programming language
Hey! I’m JC. I’m 17 and part of Hack Club, a nonprofit where we help teenagers ship programming projects with their friends while growing technically. A while ago, I asked myself the question, “How exactly do programming languages work behind the scenes?” It seemed really daunting until I went to a half hour workshop at a high school hackathon about writing a tree-walk interpreter and realized that getting started was actually super fun. This guide is designed in the vein of that - to get people, especially teenagers, started on learning how to build a programming language in a literal…
This is a beginner-friendly guide for building a programming language, written by a 17-year-old and designed to be completed in a weekend. Intended primarily for teenagers and those new to language design, it… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I'm 17 and wrote a guide on how to build your own programming language launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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I've been a longtime member @ HN, but I haven't been a developer. In fact, my only HN submission has been one asking how to learn to code (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=820741). My cofounder and I decided to solve the problem by making a simple, interactive way to get started with Codecademy. We'd love your feedback. If you're interested in helping us to get more courses up (on any topic!), please send us an email at [email protected].
2011 · codecademy.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Pickcode is a new language and editor for getting kids started with coding. The code editing experience is totally structured, where you select choices from menus rather than typing. I made Pickcode after experiences teaching kids both block coding (Scratch, App Inventor) and Python. To me, block coding is too far removed from regular coding for kids to make the connection. Pickcode provides a much clearer transition path for students to Python/JS/Java. Our target market is middle/early high school kids, and that’s who we’ve tested the product with during development. On the…
2023 · pickcode.io · its alternatives →
- 3GI
Hi all! I'm going into my freshman year, and figured that the best way to prepare for the intro to programming Racket course would be to implement my own garbage-collected, dynamically typed, functional programming language in C ;) Anyways... here's the repo: https://github.com/liam-ilan/crumb I started learning C over the summer, so I still have a whole lot to learn... Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :D
2023 · its alternatives →
- 4IM
2015 · acuman.us · its alternatives →
- 5
Hackr.io▲368Product Hunt for Online Programming Courses & Tutorials
2015 · hackr.io · its alternatives →
- 6IB
2021 · codigo.so · its alternatives →
- 7LP
Hi! I am doing a learning project, attempting to build an imperative language (and interpreter). The end product will be useless for others, I just want to learn and better understand how to build imperative languages. :) If someone else shares this interest and want to give some good hints on good resources I would be grateful. Currently I am looking at an awesome text by Bob Nystrom. All suggestions and tips on resources are most welcome. I am very much a beginner in this, but I find this topic very fascinating. Mail me or post links here! Cheers! You can try a beta version Online at…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 8IW
The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)). My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my…
Feb 2026 · berksoft.ca · its alternatives →
- 9
After a four year journey, the book I wrote to help junior and mid-level programmers earn their first promotion was published today . The book is titled Junior to Senior: Career Advice for the Ambitious Programmer and is now available on Holloway’s website[0]. I truly believe that soft-skills are what makes the difference between a good programmer and a great one. I also believe that anyone can learn the soft-skills needed to accelerate their programming career. I wish I’d had better resources to learn these things in the early years of my career and I’m hoping this book will become a useful…
2022 · holloway.com · its alternatives →
- 10
I made this simple language over the past year, and it's time for me to say it's "done" (for now) and focus on other projects. I've struggled to answer the question "what is this language for?" other than "it's just for me" — and that's probably good enough. But I also wanted to make something "complete" that others could use if they wanted to. Writing my own language was an incredibly rewarding experience, and I'd recommend everyone trying it. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback, and please share your own experience if you've also made a language.
2023 · cassette-lang.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Hey HN, I've been working on this side project for the past month. It generates a step-by-step tutorial guide for YouTube videos that you can follow along without watching long videos. Best suited for tutorial videos but can work for other videos aswell. No BS. Just straight to the point. The guides are generated from pure transcript so you don't have to worry about it being AI. It's my first project as a total beginner. Something I had to do inorder to get out of tutorial hell. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or if you face any problems or bugs. I would try to fix them to the…
2024 · stepify.tech · its alternatives →
- 12
Hello HN, I've linked a tutorial from Pickcode, where students are guided through making a chatbot that plays mad libs. Pickcode is designed for introducing programming without block coding, in a way that's closer to Javascript or Python. I made Pickcode based on my frustrations teaching beginners in both block coding and in Python. The link here is to just one lesson, and I have a few more that you can find on the site. I'd love feedback from HNers with kids age 10-13 or so, or HNers who can put on an intro to programming hat. On the roadmap is adding more complex use cases for your…
2022 · app.pickcode.io · its alternatives →
- 13
Code Kingdoms▲104Learn to code with Minecraft and Roblox. Ages 8-14
2015 · codekingdoms.com · its alternatives →
- 14
A minimal viable programming language on top of liblgpp - codr7/alang
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15IW
2012 · guidetoyc.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Learn how to build your own programming language interpreter
2016 · interpreterbook.com · its alternatives →
- 17MB
Hi HN!, My brother got a 5 years jail sentence but is coming out soon, a few months ago he decided to learn to code with no prior experience. I find the way he is studying very inspirational so decided to post his (simple) program. But first, here is what he needs to go through to learn: - We the family send him javascript and html books - He studies them and writes programs in pen and paper - He calls me so I input what he wrote on my computer and we debug it live via a phone call, he has to imagine the program in his head. The crazy part is up until a few days ago he didn't have access to…
2020 · its alternatives →
- 18
For the last few years, I've been working at a non-profit called Hack Club developing tools to support self-motivated teens to learn about technology and build community with other like-minded peers while doing so. This has resulted in the development of a model called "you ship, we ship." We build open source creative coding environments, and when teenagers share the projects they make with these tools, we send them materials to dive deeper into the subject and related technologies. Our approach is predicated on the constructionist idea that people learn best by building things they care…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19AE
easyprog.online ist Ihre erste und beste Informationsquelle über easyprog. Hier finden Sie auch weitere interessante Links. Wir hoffen, dass Sie bei Ihrer Suche erfolgreich sind!
2019 · easyprog.online · its alternatives →
- 20
- 21
Hey HN, I just wanted to share that after five months of intense work and countless caffeine-fueled writing sessions, "Master Software Architecture: A Pragmatic Guide" is now available. Writing this book was a crazy time. I entirely focused on it, and it took exactly 753 hours of writing, editing, and image editing & resizing(!) until the premiere. Yes, the last one (images) was a killer. If you ever think about writing a book, reserve a lot of time for it unless someone else does it for you. As a result, I am handing you the nearly 400-page book. It is a guide that will help you connect all…
2024 · leanpub.com · its alternatives →
- 22
Learn Go programming in one evening with our hands-on, interactive online training. Build real projects, boost your skills, and become productive with one of the most in-demand languages. Over 800 developers already joined!
2022 · threedots.tech · its alternatives →
- 23
An interactive functional programming course for children based on clojure and klipse - viebel/kids.klipse.tech
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24IW
As hard as I tried, I didn't find a modern language learning book that's either very academic, or like "master a language with my super-magic great method in 3 months". So I dug into the academic research, tried many techniques myself, saw what worked, wrote a book for learners of any language and any level, and made it free without ads. Today, finally, a 2 years-long project ends. I hope it helps anyone. Book's here: https://thehardway.guide/ Cheers
2023 · its alternatives →
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