I'm sure you could put a useful image like XBMC on it and give it to someone without cable TV. Show them how to use an old (deactivated from a cell network) Android phone as a remote. Or use it yourself as a media center or file/print server.
the LXDE desktop in raspian is not that much different from a windows GUI. the most computer illiterate person (my sons mother) I know can (and Does) switch between windows 7, window 8, KDE, Gnome 2 & unity seamlessly without even realising she should be having a problem doing so (it seems to me it's self fulfilling prophecy those who think they will have problems do, those that don't know enough to realise there is a difference don't)
all programming languages are going to be unfamiliar to a non programmer, Python is won of the simplest requiring very little "Boiler Plate" or magic commands to get things working.
Std programming exercise No 2 (because 'hello world' is too simple) in python3
name=input('Enter your name') print ('hello ' + Name)
if the teacher cant get that working then they have no chance with C or anything similar & are teaching the wrong class
-- Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar without his duck ...
Alex Salmond (SNP) read Economics (and History) at university.
Owain
Chris Baird : > [..]and instead ask around your personal network to find out who has > a nerd child and to gift it to them, asking "Could you figure out how > to use this by yourself?"
Here's a another case of someone practicing what they preach--- I've just offloaded 5 RPis via Facebook...
(My financials and lifetime spending history is now being tossed around by foreign Big Data companies and Chinese Hackers, but the little computers are now being useful again..)
-- Chris
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