> If a beginner wanted to do anything "cool-looking" today, this same beginner programmer would need to set up render to texture on an OpenGL surface. Yuck! And so they lose interest, believing programming is the mysterious and complex domain of gods.
Or just use the web platform: JavaScript, HTML5 Canvas API, WebGL, all of that. I think it's pretty close in terms of getting a pretty (motivating) result quickly without much prior experience.
(Unrelated, but I can also remember writing the first lines of code of my life in qbasic on a dos machine in ~1998; the blue screen definitely invokes childhood memories!)
Or just use the web platform: JavaScript, HTML5 Canvas API, WebGL, all of that. I think it's pretty close in terms of getting a pretty (motivating) result quickly without much prior experience.
(Unrelated, but I can also remember writing the first lines of code of my life in qbasic on a dos machine in ~1998; the blue screen definitely invokes childhood memories!)