Kickstart Programming is a portable Windows application suited to assist students of programming actualize the concepts they learn in class using JavaScript. It’s currently supported on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 and runs on .NET Framework 4.5.
You can download the latest Beta release (v0.1.0.0)
• Kickstart Programming’s main window
• Editor-In-Action
• Creating, opening, and writing new programs
A Quick Story
Since my University years, I was a keen student, ever listening and following up on the guides lecturers would use while training students who were willing to plunge into the world of programming; and this not because I never knew the ins and outs of this beautiful world, but for the sake of the students that were being trained. For some really good reason, my heart has always been in improving the education of students across a number of disciplines and seeing them collaborate, share, and innovate on the currently existing problems in our societies.
And so for my final year project as an IT student, I endeavoured to build a software that would assist my colleagues learn the art of programming in a simpler and different way than was normal at the time (which was starting Notepad++, writing your programs, opening the cmd and typing some compile-executecommands to run). I also cherry-picked one of the most simplified and commonly used programming language (or scripting – if you’d prefer) in our time which definitely was and still is JavaScript.
The response was very much satisfying from my colleagues and a few of my lecturers who managed to peruse through the product’s documentation, design and inspiration. The highest consideration was on the student’s user-experience and so the design of it was very much tailored to assist students understand and feel comfortable with the software’s design and features in little or no time.
Quick Info
Kickstart Programming does not provide HTML DOM support, meaning that you won’t be able to write code such as:
document.getElementById("id")
or:
document.write("hello world")
This is because it onlydeals with JavaScript itself as a language, separate from HTML & markup allowing you to focus on the core language’s concepts.
However, the application provides full support for JavaScript’s popup boxes, namely alert, confirm and prompt. It also supports the console and print APIs for displaying results the Results log panel.
So with Kickstart Programming, you can write:
alert("hello world!")
or:
confirm("what is your name?")
or:
prompt("enter your name:", "name here...")
For logging, you can write:
print(10*10)
or:
console.log(10*10)
Also remember that the Math JavaScript API is fully supported, for example you can get the sine of a number e.g 5:
Math.sin(5)
or:
Math.cos(5)
Features
Here’s pretty much a detailed list of its features and conveniences:
- Runs under .NET Framework 4.5 which allows virtually all modern Windows PCs to run it seamlessly. It also runs on Windows 7 and Vista.
Please note that for Windows 7 and earlier, you’ll need to download and install .NET Framework 4.0 to run the application. For Windows 8 and later, the framework comes pre-installed in the Operating System thus you won’t need to re-install it.
- Fully supports ECMAScript 5.1 language specification (JavaScript).
- Supports JavaScript popup boxes, namely: alert, confirm, and prompt.
- Lets you create, view, edit, and save JavaScript programs with the application.
- Provides full-screen typing mode without distractions.
- Provides a powerful editor with line-numbering, language syntax highlighting, find & replace, editing highlights on changes and code-blocks, automatic brace completions, auto-completion of previously-typed words and language keywords with descriptive guides, access to the Math API and its various functions, code and results-zooming, and a range of shortcut-keys that let you easily perform quick actions from the editor.
- Provides error-logging and debugging of JavaScript code.
- It is performance-driven and pretty fast at runtime and code-execution.
All of the above features were developed with careful consideration based on the needs of both the students and teachers.
Do enjoy Kickstart Programming and don’t hesitate to write-back if you’d like to see it progress in its developments and/or if it does help you achieve little or much in this very vast world of programming.
I’d be glad to hear any of your comments, questions, or suggestions!
Kickstart Programming is not dependent on DeskJS at all. They’re both different applications but built with the same developer.
WK 