Hackety Hack
Original author(s) | _why and 50 friends |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Steve Klabnik |
Stable release | 1.0
/ December 25, 2010 |
Repository | |
Written in | |
Type | Educational software |
License | MIT License |
Website | github |
Hackety Hack is an
History
Hackety Hack was originally created by _why in order to solve "The Little Coder's Predicament":[1] that learning modern software development is complicated, and difficult. Why eventually developed The Bylaws of Hackety in the Hackety Manifesto[2] which lay down the guidelines for the project.
Why enlisted the help of a group of 25 parents and their children to get early feedback, referred to them as "50 of my closest friends". The earliest iterations of Hackety Hack were based on an embedded Gecko browser, but this eventually transformed into the
Post-Why development
Why intended to release Hackety Hack 1.0 at the Art and Code Symposium.
Ruby Summer of Code 2010
Hackety Hack was chosen as a project for the Ruby Summer of Code in 2010. Fela Winkelmolen was the student chosen to work on the project. Chris Redinger, Jeff Casimir, Sarah Mei, and Steve Klabnik mentored.
Comparison with other educational software
The two largest similar projects are Scratch and Alice. There are two major differences: Both of these projects use a graphical programming language based on the concept of "blocks," but Hackety Hack teaches Ruby. Both Scratch and Alice are university projects out of MIT and CMU, respectively, and Hackety Hack has no university affiliation.
Blocks vs Ruby
The difference of 'blocks vs.
Comparison with similar projects
The university affiliation that Scratch and Alice enjoy gives them more resources to bring to bear. Both projects have teams of people, the brand credibility of their institutions, and graduate students to write papers about them and use them in research. Hackety Hack is a more nimble project, since the team is much smaller. It's also truly an open-source project, whereas the Alice project, for example, only releases dumps of the project source every so often. Hackety Hack's development is entirely open.