Hi everyone!
SIMPL is a free programming language and IDE for learning to code. It's based on pseudocode, the plain, readable notation used to teach programming in schools, but it actually runs.
The idea is simple: when you start programming, the language shouldn't get in the way. In SIMPL you write
OUTPUT "Hello, world!"
press Run, and that's it. No setup, no boilerplate, no cryptic error messages: when something goes wrong, SIMPL tells you what happened in plain words and links you to the page of the manual that explains it.
What I care about most is the path. SIMPL doesn't stop at the basics: variables, loops and arrays lead to procedures, records, files, classes and pointers, and then to graphics, sound and modules. By the end you're writing real games, all in the same language and the same environment, without having to switch tools halfway through.
That path is laid out in the manual built into the IDE: 31 chapters and over 200 exercises with worked solutions. It's really an introductory programming book: every example opens in the editor with one click, there's a guided project where you build Snake step by step, and the last chapters walk through two complete programs, a Tetris-like game and a small BASIC interpreter, both written in SIMPL. Along the way, "The bigger picture" sections show how the same ideas look in Python, Java or C, and where they come from.
SIMPL is a free download for Windows and Linux, and works offline.