Beginner question: what does it mean for a TinyFPGA BX to be sold without pins?
That's not an FPGA, that is a complete device that includes an FPGA. To be specific, it's an FPGA development board, that has an FPGA, memory, a button, a USB connector, a bit of voltage regulation.
The FPGA itself is the black square in the center of the board.
As you can see, the board itself has two rows of holes, one on each side. You can solder in pin headers to these.
These pin headers are not included in the offer you've linked to.
Again, this is not &quot;an FPGA without pins&quot;, it's &quot;an FPGA development board that doesn't come with pin headers&quot;. So, yeah, how would you plug that board into a breadboard?
Also note that I'd think this is pretty cool gift, but it expects the gifted person to want to dive into digital hardware design – that is quite a bit more involved than, say, learning a new programming language.