If there's one message I've been pushing across all of the Talk Python episodes, it's that programming is a superpower.

Rather than all of us abandoning what we're interested in and becoming CS majors, we can take our passion or our expertise and tent exit with a little programming skill.

In that case, we should be teaching kids fluency and programming at a younger age.

And yet, almost every platform or example meant to do so pulls its punches.

We teach kids programming concepts, but not code itself.

We'll use these blocks because text-based programming, that's a bridge too far.

But it's not, and that's why I'm excited about code combat.

It's an online coding platform that uses real Python syntax to guide your hero visually

through a dungeon full of challenges.

Yet the editor and customized error messages means this is approachable for kids before they

can even reliably type.

On this episode, you'll meet Nick Winter, one of the co-founders at CodeCombat.

There's a lot of philosophy

behind the tool and technology to make it kid-friendly and real Python at the same time. Oh,

and it's running Python in the browser. This is Stock Python to me, episode 278, record at July 19th, 2020.

Music 2020. Welcome to Talk Python to Me, a weekly podcast on Python, the language, the libraries,

the ecosystem, and the personalities.

This is your host, Michael Kennedy.

Follow me on Twitter where I'm at M. Kennedy.

Keep up with a show and listen to past episodes at talk python.fm.

And follow the show on Twitter via at talk python.

This episode is brought to you by Linode and us.

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