Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to My brother wrote this program from jail
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…
This is a simple JavaScript and HTML program written by someone learning to code while incarcerated. The developer studied programming books, wrote code by hand on paper, and debugged it via phone calls with family… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. My brother wrote this program from jail launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1IT
2019 · s-poony.github.io · its alternatives →
- 2
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 →
- 3
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…
2024 · easel.hackclub.com · its alternatives →
- 4IW
https://www.manning.com/books/data-oriented-programming-in-j... This book is a distillation of everything I’ve learned about what effective development looks like in Java (so far!). It's about how to organize programs around data "as plain data" and the surprisingly benefits that emerge when we do. Programs that are built around the data they manage tend to be simpler, smaller, and significantly easier understand. Java has changed radically over the last several years. It has picked up all kinds of new language features which support data oriented programming (records,…
2024 · its alternatives →
- 5
- 6IW
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 →
- 7
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 →
- 8IB
2021 · codigo.so · its alternatives →
- 9
Lessons From Teaching Myself Web Development
2017 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
- 10IL
I strongly believe that every developer is a teacher and likewise. Every time you are asked to help someone else understand your code, you’ll always be grateful to be able to share your own knowledge with others. Explain Code App is the place you can make this happen! I am eager to hear your thoughts on what I have put together so far. Would love to hear your feedback! Let me know if there are any other features you would like for this site, I’m open for ideas and would love the community feedback. Here is the link: https://www.explaincode.app/
2022 · its alternatives →
- 11CA
Hey Hacker News, I’m excited to introduce ClassroomIO – a project that I’ve been working on for the past few months. It’s an educational platform that provides an in-browser code editor and execution environment. The idea is to make teaching programming easier by eliminating the technical barriers that educators and students often face. Feature highlights: * In-Browser coding: Write, run, and debug code directly in your browser. No more downloading software, configuring environments, and resolving compatibility issues. * Course management: Manage classes, assignments, and student…
2024 · classroomio.site · its alternatives →
- 12AE
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 →
- 13
Hi HN! Korean high school senior here, about to start CS in college. I built a browser engine from scratch in C++ to understand how browsers work. First time using C++, 8 weeks of development, lots of debugging—but it works! Features: - HTML parsing with error correction - CSS cascade and inheritance - Block/inline layout engine - Async image loading + caching - Link navigation + history Hardest parts: - String parsing(html, css) - Rendering - Image Caching & Layout Reflowing What I learned (beyond code): - Systematic debugging is crucial - Ship with known bugs rather than chase…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
Hi, I'm Will. I'm 24, autistic, and have OCD tendencies. I'm learning to code and this is my first public project. I’d really appreciate your feedback and encouragement! This project lets me solve some of my OCD problems online. There are a couple of parts of the forums that I visit – Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and Questionable Questing – that I want to remove. Specifically, I hate seeing indicators of how much is left in a forum thread, because I keep thinking about how much content is left. It stops me from immersing myself in the story. It stressed me out. Before I learned to…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15MF
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.wtfsoftware.wtfgeneratorfunnypics I submit it as a proof that in 14 days anyone can become a (crappy) programmer :) I'm 32, educated in humanities, I work in a bookstore and in my entire life I have never tried programming. Just a typical user, I knew basic HTML, like adding bold to text etc. Few months ago I started lurking on hackernews, I read about CodeAcademy and decided to learn how to code JavaScript. Fast-forward 14 days: Wow, it's easier than I thought;) Here's my first app. It's written in Javascript and compiled in Appcelerator Titanium.…
2012 · market.android.com · its alternatives →
- 16SL
When I was getting into web development I used a combination of Anki and git to help me quickly learn and retain skills. Figuring there might be demand for a product that uses the same strategy (without the requirement that you already know Anki and git), I created SkillPress. No account is needed to start learning. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
2022 · app.skillpress.io · its alternatives →
- 17
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 →
- 18LP
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 →
- 19
I've been working on this small, slightly weird expression-oriented programming language for a little while now and feel ready to share it with others. I use it pretty often now in my day-to-day and work life, as a scratchpad for doing a bit of quick math or picking some pieces of data out of a JSON payload. Would really appreciate any feedback about the syntax, docs, features that are glaringly missing, etc. Before anybody mentions it: I know the performance is pretty lousy when dealing with a lot of data. If you can believe it, the runtime is about 100x faster than it used to be! Long term…
2025 · blots-lang.org · its alternatives →
- 20IM
I'm writing a book which teaches Python/Django web app development for non-programmers, and fundraising on Kickstarter (passed minimum funding, 2 days left): http://hellowebapp.com https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1868398473/hello-web-app-intro-to-building-web-apps-with-djan It's basically the process I used to teach myself programming as a web designer a few years back, which I then launched a small web app (infant-version of WeddingInviteLove.com), which has grown into my bootstrapped startup which supports me full-time (WeddingLovely.com). Most…
2014 · its alternatives →
- 21
easy online programming language to learn to programm
2019 · easylang.online · its alternatives →
- 22
Hey HN! This is a fun/educational project I built to learn OS programming. I started working on it right after graduating high school last year and have been working on it on and off during my first year of university. It features a TCP/IP stack, an HTTP server, a RAM file system, a BIOS bootloader, paging and memory management, and concurrent tasks based on cooperative scheduling, along with a custom library. It's written in a C programming style focused on safety (based on a custom library of core abstractions) that's inspired by the writing of Chris Wellons (nullprogram.com).…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23IT
I created http://devtest.net as a weekend project, and I'm pretty proud of it from a technical and UI standpoint. The problem is, I've built this by myself in a bit of a vacuum, to "scratch my own itch", and I don't know if this is useful to anyone other than me. I'm also not so hot on the business side and don't really know what I'm doing. Basically, I'm looking for some advice, now that I've actually launched, what now? One thing that this has shown me is that I'm capable of putting together a pretty decent web application on my own in my spare time. Should I stick with this idea, or…
2012 · devtest.net · its alternatives →
- 24MF
Hey HN. I've just launched my very first webappp and would love your feedback. http://www.7bks.com It's a book list sharing website - kind of like playlists for bookworms. The site is built on pyton/appengine - and I learned to code in under 4 weeks to build the site. There's more details on the background of the site here: http://www.7bks.com/blog/179001 I've also published the full Python code for the site here: https://gist.github.com/670034 Feedback is really important to me and I want to work hard to make the site better so any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. Contact…
2010 · 7bks.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →