Hi Ben,
2015-09-14 16:08 GMT+02:00 Ben Boyle <
benjami...@gmail.com>:
> I don't think people need a text editor to get started, there are plenty
> of online courses (codeshool and the like) where you can code in their
> tool, and then there are all the codepen/jsfiddle style services where you
> can practice your own code.
>
I agree that's true when you just want to learn. But at some point you want
to code and at that moment you need a text editor. On MDN we assume that
people want to become web developers (even amateur ones). Because of that
we encourage them to quickly get into the basic tools needed to produce
actual web content: A text editor and a web browser. With that simple
requirement they can learn everything about the web and in a learning
curves it provide them with good habits from the start.
> Definitely possible to learn about text editors later on, and not have
> that as a distraction while exploring css.
>
Yes, that's true, but IMO it's pushing back a knowledge that is fundamental
to understand the whole web echo system for those who want to learn the
code. To make things clear, the audience targeted by MDN is people who want
to learn how to produce web sites and we assume some basics skills about
computers and the web (they should know how a computer is working, even
roughly, and they should already be web users). Because of that, setting up
a text editor shouldn't be a big deal. If it's the case, maybe MDN is not
the right place for them.