Google has introduced a new mobile application that makes it easier for beginners to learn to code. Featuring mini-games and quizzes, the Grasshopper application is available for free on Google Play Store and Apple app stores.
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About Grasshopper app:
The Grasshopper app was created by a team of coders know as an ‘Area 120’, to help beginners learn programming languages on their smartphones.
According to company’s blog post “Coding is becoming such an essential skill, and we want to make it possible for everyone to learn even when life gets busy. We made Grasshopper to help folks like you get into coding in a fun and easy way. We put Grasshopper on a phone so you can turn your commute or wait in line into a learning moment”.
The prime aim of the app is to get coders proficient in the basics and core concepts, so they can take the next steps in their coding education
How to use the app
Now, coming to the actual utility of the app – coding – it covers the basics of JavaScript and some of the building blocks of programming. The app covers ‘The Fundamentals’, which include information on how codes work, calling functions, variables, strings, for loops, arrays, conditionals, operators, objects, and how all these things work together. Once the fundamentals are complete, the app takes you to ‘Animations I’, which helps you learn drawing shapes using the popular D3 library, defining functions, callback functions, and animations.
The Animation I is followed by Animations II, which helps you create more complex functions using D3 and the topics from The Fundamentals course.
Every section has an introduction followed by some instructions and an example. There is a ‘your code’ box at the end of every puzzle that is where you put your code, based on learnings. Once you put the code and run it through the app, the app analyses the code and confirms if it is right or wrong, both with supported reasons.
Android users can find the app in the Play Store.