You seriously think that AIDE is appropriate for a kid who is proficient at using computers but has never written a program in her life? How many months do you think it would take to walk her through hello world and what do you think the chances are of her getting it?
> But I don't think I would recommend Android for someone in a country in which they can't access the Market/Play/whatever-they-call-it-next-month
I apologise for being a little loose in my language. Her mom already has two Android devices (tablet and phone) and they sell very well there - usual pattern: BlackBerry was king and is being dethroned.
You can access Android Market but you can't buy anything, and a lot of content that is freely available in other countries does not show up. But your gmail will stay up to date and you do get Skype.
AIDE comes with a hello world program as the first thing it prompts you to try. So, iirc, one just has to hit "run", "install", and "open" to have it going. As for "getting it", that worry is very real. No, I don't think java and the android environment is nice enough that I would want to hand it off to a kid to play with without instruction. There is lots of cruft and more abstractions in play than needed right off the bat, and nothing to say which the kid should be paying attention to.
There looks to be a BASIC interpreter in the Play Store for free, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.free.basic. It doesn't have an integrated editor though, so the kid would have to understand typing things up in one program and running them in another.
Grabbing and trying it... some helpful examples to load would be nice, it doesn't have any. But it does have an "Enter Live" mode, in which one can type up a program and run it. So all that "don't miss a keystroke" charm of the old days is there. This I might very well hand to a kid.
There's also a Clojure interpreter for Android devices (including tablets), which I think has potential. Unfortunately, it is currently slow and tedious enough that it isn't good for much more than "Hello Lisp!" sorts of exercises.
You seriously think that AIDE is appropriate for a kid who is proficient at using computers but has never written a program in her life? How many months do you think it would take to walk her through hello world and what do you think the chances are of her getting it?
> But I don't think I would recommend Android for someone in a country in which they can't access the Market/Play/whatever-they-call-it-next-month
I apologise for being a little loose in my language. Her mom already has two Android devices (tablet and phone) and they sell very well there - usual pattern: BlackBerry was king and is being dethroned.
You can access Android Market but you can't buy anything, and a lot of content that is freely available in other countries does not show up. But your gmail will stay up to date and you do get Skype.