Someone should build a social and pedagogical programming environment for kids on the web. The main problem here is the frustrating fact that one stupid browser doesn't support an HTML tag that's now 4 1/2 years old.

There are some very nice programming environments for kids. MIT Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) immediately springs to mind, for example.

Any particular reason it needs to be web-based?

Yes, because every kid (at least in the 'developed' world) nowadays has web access but not every kid can install software on the machines they are allowed to use (for instance in school, the library or their parents' machine).

And, they can very easily show it to there friends, if it is in javascript. My niece loves designing webpages that she shares with her mates. Of course, getting her to program rather than put up pictures of twilight is another issue.

True. I guess these are the same two reasons anything needs to be web-based: (1)Easy to get started. No hurdles. (2) Sharing

Scratch is definitely a cool introduction to the world of programming. But I worry that in its attempt to make programming accessible sets up kids for a rude awakening. Most "real" programming isn't like that at all. Yet the kind of code I wrote in the 80s in Apple BASIC isn't so different "in kind" from a lot of the code I write professionally today.

Sorry for posting so many comments: I'm a teacher so the issue of computers, programming, and education fascinates me to no end :)

How is scratch so different from other programming environments ?

Typing. The physicality of an interaction is not to be understated. I've seen wizards with specialized interfaces (Flash, PhotoShop, Final Cut, etc) struggle miserably with text based input.

Yes, but programming is about patterns, and, in my opinion, patterns are more simple to spot visually than with text. It's maybe more important for a kid to learn that than learning about the "materiality" of programming.

> Teach children to draw on a canvas in javascript.

I've thought a few times that this is the modern equivalent of the immediate feedback "plot via BASIC".

It's even better, given the fact that JS is a decent language and the results are more easily shareable with your friends.

Are there decent tools to debug and check JS for you, so that you don't have to rely on the browser built-in support (which is incredibly forgiving but also doesn't tell you what is going on)?

A massive advantage of BASIC was that it would tell you it was wrong as soon as you typed something with a syntax error in it, and it put a big flashing "?" (or similar) right there until you fixed it. Can JS be made to do that?

Editor+syntax highlighting for static analysis, and firefox+firebug for runtime errors?

There's JSLint, you can surely build it in.

And it would have syntax colouring which basic lagged in.