Google Releases Tool To Teach Code On Raspberry Pi

Google has released a free, open source tool that turns the miniature Raspberry Pi computer into a simple web server and web-based development environment.

“Coder” was created by Google Creative Lab employees Jason Siegel and Jeff Baxter, who wanted to find an easy way to teach HTML, CSS and JavaScript to beginners.

Make web stuff

“I wrote my first two lines of BASIC as a five year old, and I’ve loved programming ever since. These days I’m teaching my own kids to code, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how they could have that same simple experience while learning to program for the web,” explained Siegel on Google Developers Blog.

Raspberry Pi is a basic computer that connects to a TV or monitor via coaxial aerial plug or HDMI. It can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, including office work, Internet browsing and high-definition video playback – all possible through a circuit board not much bigger than a credit card.

Coder includes everything a student needs for creating, editing, and running simple web apps on Raspberry Pi, directly in a browser window. To install the software, users have to download the SD card image and transfer it to a 4GB card.

According to the website, Coder takes just 10 minutes to set up. It can then be used with other free resources for learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript, such as Codecademy and Khan Academy.

Creators warn that the open source project is a work in progress, currently at version 0.4 and available on Github.

“We thought about all the stuff we could do to make Coder a more complete package, but we have a hunch that the sooner this gets into the open source and maker communities, the more we’ll learn about how it might be used.”

In June, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched its own NOOBS (New Out of Box Software) installation package, which was designed to make the new user’s first encounter with Linux as straightforward as possible.

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