Learn how to Phrogram.

No, that's not a typo. "Phrogram" is the new name for the Kid's Programming Language (KPL) developed by Morrison-Schwartz. KPL was designed to help first-time programmers have fun learning to code. It has attracted a wide interest from kids, parents, and educators worldwide who have downloaded KPL over 100,000 times since its release. Robert Scoble first introduced me to the creators of KPL last year because he knew I was working on Visual Studio Express and Coding4Fun. So I downloaded their free product and took a look. I was immediately blown away by how easy it was to get started with KPL. I even invited Jon Schwartz to write some fun articles on Coding4Fun showing off how KPL can be used to build some classic arcade games.

One great thing about KPL is that it allows you to take the programs you write in KPL and immedietaly see what the equivelent C# or Visual Basic syntax would look like. In this way a user who starts out learning with KPL can gradually move on to building more advanced applications by graduating to another tool such as Visual Studio Express.

KPL Phrogram
As Jonathan points out, it's time to change the name from Kid's Programming Language to Phrogram. The fact is that it's not just for kids - if you hang out on the KPL forums you'll read about many adults who have also used KPL to learn programming, which is simply awesome. And of course, even some kids don't want to play with something that says "kid" the name. When we are young, we all strive to be more like adults... and as we get older, we wish we were kids again. <g>

I think Phrogram is a great name, and I love the new logo (see below). It's called the Vitruvian Phrog (there's got to be a "DaVinci Code" joke in there somewhere). But I still have one question - hey Jon, how are we supposed to pronounce Phrogram? Does it rhyme with "Program", or should we say "Frog"-ram?