Teaching kids to code
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Never said I wanted him to be a software engineer like me, but I reckon by the time he gets to the job market everyone from stockbrokers to milkmen will be getting on the coding wagon.
Stockbrokers have reasons to acquire elementary coding skills, such as advanced analysis spreadhsheets etc. so maybe they were a bad example. I think the days of everybody jumping on the coding bandwagon are over. With software factories you may find people semi-skilled at coding, but skilled in other areas such as business analysis, will jump on the software production bandwagon, but they won't be coding. I think more people will require more casual services from developers, so instead of always being hired for big projects, developers will be increasingly hired for customisations etc. and the development profession will become more a normal part of society, like other professions.
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My girlfriend's son is 7 and pretty good at maths, so I wanted to start teaching him the basics of coding. Now when I was a lad the school had a computer room with a ZX81, BBC B, Commodore Pet and 64, Vic 20 and we learned to program in BASIC, but these days a PC is too complex to learn the basics on. What do people recommend as a good teaching and learning language / package?
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Never said I wanted him to be a software engineer like me, but I reckon by the time he gets to the job market everyone from stockbrokers to milkmen will be getting on the coding wagon.
That I agree, programming will easier and salaries will be low, like I said get into stock brokering, my youngest brother in law is learning the ropes at the moment it's where I would of like to at his age. No doubt he'll be retiring by 30:~ Bio mechanics/medicine are probably better than programming in the future.
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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I would say C++ would be a very good way to start him off.
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
At the age of 7? :omg:
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I would say C++ would be a very good way to start him off.
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
Bradml wrote:
I would say C++ would be a very good way to start him off.
LOL!, yeah great for a 7 year old to cut his teeth, better still assembler. Nah forget it, get him to do something worthwhile, where the money is going to pay better, and that certainly won't be in the world of IT.
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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At the age of 7? :omg:
________________________________________________ Personal Blog [ITA] - Tech Blog [ENG] - My Photos Developing ScrewTurn Wiki 2.0 (2.0 Beta is out)
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My girlfriend's son is 7 and pretty good at maths, so I wanted to start teaching him the basics of coding. Now when I was a lad the school had a computer room with a ZX81, BBC B, Commodore Pet and 64, Vic 20 and we learned to program in BASIC, but these days a PC is too complex to learn the basics on. What do people recommend as a good teaching and learning language / package?
I'd start him on the Lego Mindstorms first (I still play with it many years down the line). Then show him that you can program stuff using the simple SDK. At least with the version I had the commands were identical to the stuff in the custom Mindstorm programming thingy so that you can get up to speed very easily.
I have no idea what I just said. But my intentions were sincere.
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My girlfriend's son is 7 and pretty good at maths, so I wanted to start teaching him the basics of coding. Now when I was a lad the school had a computer room with a ZX81, BBC B, Commodore Pet and 64, Vic 20 and we learned to program in BASIC, but these days a PC is too complex to learn the basics on. What do people recommend as a good teaching and learning language / package?
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Bradml wrote:
I would say C++ would be a very good way to start him off.
LOL!, yeah great for a 7 year old to cut his teeth, better still assembler. Nah forget it, get him to do something worthwhile, where the money is going to pay better, and that certainly won't be in the world of IT.
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
norm .net wrote:
Nah forget it, get him to do something worthwhile, where the money is going to pay better, and that certainly won't be in the world of IT.
That is not what he is doing, this isn't a career move thing (from what he has said). And yes C++ is perfect for this. A simple cin and cout would be very simple task.
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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My girlfriend's son is 7 and pretty good at maths, so I wanted to start teaching him the basics of coding. Now when I was a lad the school had a computer room with a ZX81, BBC B, Commodore Pet and 64, Vic 20 and we learned to program in BASIC, but these days a PC is too complex to learn the basics on. What do people recommend as a good teaching and learning language / package?
Well, I started my son off with java and some simple "put a dot on the screen", ok now a line, ok now a little catapillar (an array of little circles), ok now click where the catapillar starts, etc, etc, etc... But he just wasn't interested. Still isn't :(( Prepare for the same if the kid is 7 ;P Stick with reading to him for now. That's one of my fondest memories of that time. ...Steve