Story time

With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI for short, the accessibility of programming for everyone has grown exponentially. While the exposure is fantastic, a need for understanding foundations is becoming more important with each passing day. Of course, individuals can now bring ideas to life faster than ever before, but that comes often the lack of quality code, prone to simple security holes, and easy crashing points. With this growth of accessibility, the development of online editors built for this very purpose have begun to appear. With some online editors built explicitly for this purpose of quick coding from generative AI, termed as “Vibe-Coding”, others have migrated to appeal to this direction. Tools built previously to execute code in a sandboxed environment are capitalizing in this vibe coding space, changing directions and gaining new users. However, this directional pivot has also lost the appeal for educators and students who previously may have relied on these tools as simple, yet powerful educational tools. In place of this migrations, a void has formed. A void that HashCoded hopes to fill, or at least help in patching.

The problem

Learning to code is still important. Whether the intention is to build a foundation before vibe coding, transitioning into AI assisted coding, or to build from scratch, it’s still crucial to learn the basics.

Having an environment to write, run, and test code is critical in learning how to code. However, not everyone has the access to hardware that can run code effectively. The expectation that everyone has equal access to powerful enough computers to run any program load is naive. According to CommandLinux, about “93% of US school districts plan to purchase Chromebooks in 2025, up from 84% in 2023”. These Chromebooks vary in storage and hardware, leading to a variable around whether they are capable of running simple code editors or code environments. Because of this variable, an accessible online system is required. Additionally, current online systems may not provide adequate forms of user input or may be too scoped to certain programming platforms. Platforms such as CodeSandbox excel at their intended use of web design sandboxing, but any larger load and it becomes the incorrect tool. CodeAnywhere provides a coding environment but has a fairly steep pricing tier. Starting at $9.60 per member per month for their basic tier, going up to $23 per member per month for their premium tier, CodeAnywhere may not be accessible enough for low income families or users. $9.60 for an individual user for a year comes out to $115.2 and $23 for an individual user for a year comes out to $276 per year. While this may not be a lot for some, this can be costly for others. Their free tier only works as a one-time usage, meaning a user that needs to access the system more needs to pay more. ReplIt serves a growing population of VibeCoding users, however, their pricing point may also be too steep, considering their pivot towards being a primary Generative AI platform. According to replit’s pricing page, their free tier allows for 10 projects and 20 hours of development. Their next tier, the Core plan, costs $20 per month. It allows for significantly more, but this, again, may be too much for a student to spend to use for smaller programs.

Solutions online ultimately cost too much for the average user, requiring schools to contact them for enterprise plans.

The solution

HashCoded is the solution to this problem. Upholding the value of access to powerful online editors without physical hardware requirements, maintaining a generous free tier, with access to multiple different programming languages, along with lessons to learn to code through, HashCoded is here to fill the void left by the AI migration of other online tools. Users no longer have to worry about their code being unsaved, or having inadequate hardware to install programming environments, or AI being forced onto them. Users can learn to code and use the tool to teach others how to code, without requiring major education or enterprise licenses. HashCoded aims to bring back easy and equal access to computer science education with programming.