It sounds like the author comes from a Windows background. FWIW, way back when I was a beginner, there were already tools geared towards this exact "no command lines ever" audience: xampp[0]. You'd be surprised how far xampp plus php.net docs can take you!
Nowadays, there's also tools like codepen, cloud9, etc, not to mention an endless amount of resources for learning in all sorts of formats (many of which are free).
The thing that bothers me is this idea of "look, I'm a beginner, but your not-geared-at-beginners tool should be geared at beginners!" Imagine you are a beginner at art, and you go around demanding that oil on canvas shouldn't involve brushes and mixing paints because that's too hard, or that metal sculpting shouldn't involve sparks flying out because that's too scary, and instead everything should be as easy as using crayons. That'd just be silly.
At some point in the mastery ladder, you will run into established tools and you just have to learn how to use them.
There's certainly an argument to be made about how rough the ground is when you've veered off the beaten path, but if we were to make a road analogy, while something like setting up a M1 assembler under linux might be way out in the weeds, installing node.js is at worst akin to driving in from out of town.
Nowadays, there's also tools like codepen, cloud9, etc, not to mention an endless amount of resources for learning in all sorts of formats (many of which are free).
The thing that bothers me is this idea of "look, I'm a beginner, but your not-geared-at-beginners tool should be geared at beginners!" Imagine you are a beginner at art, and you go around demanding that oil on canvas shouldn't involve brushes and mixing paints because that's too hard, or that metal sculpting shouldn't involve sparks flying out because that's too scary, and instead everything should be as easy as using crayons. That'd just be silly.
At some point in the mastery ladder, you will run into established tools and you just have to learn how to use them.
There's certainly an argument to be made about how rough the ground is when you've veered off the beaten path, but if we were to make a road analogy, while something like setting up a M1 assembler under linux might be way out in the weeds, installing node.js is at worst akin to driving in from out of town.
[0] https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html