Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - How do I introduce my son to programming?

Yakk · 03-18-2004, 08:23 AM

Try to teach him to write up a basic text adventure. I wrote one at that age (and damn, did it suck!)

There is the option of finding those books with programs written in them to copy out into a computer.

Or, you could write up a quick infrastructure for a maze game (RefreshMaze, AddWall, RemoveWall, MoveRat), and have the kid play with it. All the code for the infrastructure should be short and readable by the kid.

I think it is important for a beginning programmer to NOT be embedded in the middle of a huge, impossible to understand, pile of code. They should realize that every single bit is understandable. Playing with Java and VB makes you believe that the widgets and buttons are not something you can understand.

03-18-2004, 08:23 AM	#10 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	Try to teach him to write up a basic text adventure. I wrote one at that age (and damn, did it suck!) There is the option of finding those books with programs written in them to copy out into a computer. Or, you could write up a quick infrastructure for a maze game (RefreshMaze, AddWall, RemoveWall, MoveRat), and have the kid play with it. All the code for the infrastructure should be short and readable by the kid. I think it is important for a beginning programmer to NOT be embedded in the middle of a huge, impossible to understand, pile of code. They should realize that every single bit is understandable. Playing with Java and VB makes you believe that the widgets and buttons are not something you can understand. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.