So, I got #BitByTheBug. I posted something quick on Twitter and G+, and once again, thanks element14 for your support!
Before actually showing this to anyone, the best thing would be to test it myself, and see what all the fuss is about. It looks cute, it looks well designed, and the website is pretty well done, but how does all that fit together? The "Hello, world!" application took, literally, less than a minute, and I'm (apparently) an expert in "Hello, world!". I've been cited on Wikipedia's Hello, world! page. Anyway. Details.
So, applications. Having "Hello, world!" written on the tiny screen is pretty cool, but it isn't the most useful application ever. On my sofa, nice and snug, I didn't want to go upstairs and get any components, beside, the cat wouldn't let me get up, so I had to use what I had - just the bug. There is a nice 5x5 LED matrix, so let's use that. My daughter wanted to play a game, something she got for Christmas, with about 20 unicorns on it, and so glaringly pink that even someone as colorblind as me can see it. In order to play, you need a dice.
Easy enough. Connect to the CodeBug website, and start coding! If the button is pressed, then I need to do this. It literally is that simple; drag the "If button A pressed" block. Next, I want to wait until the button is released; while button A pressed, do nothing. Okay, done! Next, I need a random value between one and six, and that is, also, is in a block. The value is then assigned to a variable. And so on, and so on...
Within 5 minutes, I had a working project, something my daughter could use. Want to have a look? Here is the program:
I added a little more to it, making it a little more exciting; random values are flashed before showing the final result, something you could expect to see if rolling the dice.
Flashing is even easier than programming; press button A, plug the device into a USB port, copy the binary downloaded from the CodeBug site, and copy it onto your CodeBug, detected as a USB device. And away you go.
The good news is that my project was up and running in 5 minutes. The bad news is that I had to play "dress the princess" a few times. Still... Electronics and family, what could be better!
Next step? Get some croc-clips, some components, and maybe their ColourStar. There is just so much you can do with this...