Phrogram

Phrogram (formerly Kids Programming Language, or KPL) is a programming language designed to be understandable and appealing to children. Version 1 (KPL) was released in August 2005, and Version 2 (Phrogram) is now the latest release.

Technical overview

Phrogram is an programming language and integrated development environment, or IDE, bearing some similarities to Visual Basic. The language supports a number of scalar and complex data types, including structures, but does not support the definition of objects.

Phrogram is closely tied to the Microsoft .NET Framework and provides many runtime functions and methods for interacting with that platform. Because of this, Phrogram is currently only available for the Microsoft Windows series of operating systems that support the .NET Framework.

A Phrogram program is a collection of nested code blocks. On the highest level is a Program block, and within this Method blocks and Function blocks are defined. Functions and Methods in KPL are both chunks of reusable code, available in the Program scope; Functions return values, while Methods may not. Data structures are defined within the Program scope. Variables must be declared and typed at the time of declaration.

The latest version of Phrogram, v2.1 (released June 2007), runs on Windows Vista as well as Windows XP and Windows 2000. Phrogram Express, formerly free, is now a commercial product; it does not include the Class Library Browser or the ability to export code to a free-standing executable package (capable of running outside the Phrogram IDE). Phrogram Academic, the full-featured version available for educators and students, is attracting some interest as a way of teaching programming but is not usable to teach programming on operating systems other than Windows or to teach the concept of portable programming.

Hello, World! in KPL

<nowiki>
Program Hello_World
    Method Main()
        PrintLine ("Hello, World")
    End Method
End Program
</nowiki>

Philosophy

Jonah Stagner started development on Phrogram (KPL) when he wanted to teach his children how to program. He discovered that the tools and technologies were not at all as beginner-friendly as they needed to be, or used to be. Since then Jonah, Jon Schwartz, Walt Morrison and David Witus, have formed the nucleus of the Phrogram team, working to develop the product (including extensions through add-in libraries) into a commercial venture focusing on the educational software value of Phrogram as an accessible programming language and environment.

The Phrogram Company's primary goal is to deliver a simple yet powerful set of tools that makes learning to program easy and fun. Phrogram (KPL) captures a novice's interest by the ease with which one can write attractive multi-media programs with eye-catching graphics, music, sound effects, and animations.

A secondary goal for Phrogram is Providing a modern language with some features of advanced languages such as C++, Java, Visual Basic and C#, and Visual Basic syntax, to make the transition into those languages as easy as possible. Phrogram, (KPL) supports object-oriented programming (OOP) and allows for definition of classes and their associated properties and methods, which provides beginning programmers with an introduction to OOP programming.

To accomplish these goals, Phrogram's developers built Version 2 upon the recent .NET Framework Version 2 which was released in November 2005. Phrogram (KPL version 2) intends to be fully compatible with other languages that use the .NET Framework, so that runtime libraries can be shared in either direction.

Other information

Phrogram is commercial software with a 30 day trial. Phrogram’s user interface is available in 18 languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Thai, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Danish, Czech and Catalan. KPL’s website is currently available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch and Danish. All non-English translations have been provided by a global community of volunteers, and the company encourages users to translate it.

Although KPL was originally designed with 10- to 14-year-old kids in mind (hence the name “Kid's Programming Language”), it is appropriate for beginning programmers of any age, and hence the name change. It is currently in use by many older people who have downloaded it for themselves, rather than for their children or students. Phrogram is suitable for a first programming course at any level of education, and is being used by primary and secondary schools and in universities in many countries, including the US, Britain, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Russia, Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Brazil, China, Guam, the Philippines and New Zealand.

The Phrogram Company

KPL version 2 was released, renamed as Phrogram. The new community site is at The Phrogram Company.

External links

es:Phrogram fr:Phrogram pt:Phrogram