Kids in Programming
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
Article or it didn't happen! :-D My eldest asked recently how computers worked and I explained how you write programs to do whatever is required and that is what I do. "Good, make my computer pink." Discussion. End of.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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Article or it didn't happen! :-D My eldest asked recently how computers worked and I explained how you write programs to do whatever is required and that is what I do. "Good, make my computer pink." Discussion. End of.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
There's daughters for you. "Honey what kind of car do you want?" Daughters: "put color here". Sons: "put basic chassis and all customizations here"
Alberto Bar-Noy --------------- “The city’s central computer told you? R2D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer!” (C3PO)
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
Jason Hooper wrote:
with logic and control flow right out of the gate
That's the only way to do it.
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
That "Nobody wants to learn how to program" article fits me like a glove. I started with basic because I had played games on the Z80. The I tried to write something other than LOAD "", draw lines, circles, a face, move a circle the hard way. Then make some sounds. It didn't get close to making a game like the ones I was playing but I knew they required a lot of work after I had worked hard to get even a line to move properly. The I started with stuff that required input - guessing games, different sound on different key stuff etc. Then used DIM, for the first time, a couple of years into the adventure. Then I bought a small magazine that supposedly showed you the steps to make a sort of an adventure game with 1 level = 1 screen. But it still was complicated and after reading and xerox-ing the listing it didn't run. Hell, the errors were with some peeks and pokes and way over my limited understanding. I don't even know how good the debugging was. But it was useful as I learned you could redefine a character code's visual, which turned into cars, road blocks, tress and ended up with some sort of driving game. Which worked. And which ended up being what I consider the first real exercise in programming. I almost cried when my tape player didn't want to save it and kept playing and fiddling with it until the old Z80 started showing visual artifacts on the TV. I might still have the listing at my parents' place. The only thing I really missed being in 1st-2nd grade and right after communism fell was lack of any documentation, no parents or relatives in the field (agricultural town), no friends even interested in this and the teacher at some computer club had no materials either. What I wouldn't have done for a working piece of source code that I could load from a tape, some examples for working with memory, with various IO. Who knew 20 years later I'd be playing the same game, different toys but essentially the same. Overall I tend to agree that if someone shows interest in programming you should start with getting them to understand you cannot make Angry Birds right there and then but you can start with things that they make the computer do. Like write code - it obeys, guessing games, drawing, making the speaker blurt sounds. I imagine figuring out how to move something on screen is quite an accomplishment for a beginner. To be honest there was a big bonus in working in DOS or older based stuff, they didn't have that much bloatware to write before you could do something or that got added without
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
My son picked up programming, but he's not a kid any more. He works as a software developer. I'm not sure about the grandkids. As far as I know none of them has shown been endowed cursed with a penchant for programming.
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
My youngest wanted to learn programming so that he could write a Dr. Who based addon for Minecraft. But once he started learning Java, it kinda turned him off.
Steve Maier
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
My 8-year old son loves Minecraft. He also watches ChuggaConroy's youtube channel for gaming tips (not always appropriate language though). He's also dabbled in Scratch, which I highly recommend. Kodu Game Lab in for Xbox 360 is cool too. He spends more time in Minecraft and Scratch though. I've heard good things about Greenfoot, but should probably try it out myself before recommending. My son is a perfectionist and really likes easy entry with less frustrating responses from his mishaps, probably why he loves Minecraft. Check your local Parks & Rec listings or summer events through your city, more and more they have programming for robotics classes where they can meet cool kids too.:cool:
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That "Nobody wants to learn how to program" article fits me like a glove. I started with basic because I had played games on the Z80. The I tried to write something other than LOAD "", draw lines, circles, a face, move a circle the hard way. Then make some sounds. It didn't get close to making a game like the ones I was playing but I knew they required a lot of work after I had worked hard to get even a line to move properly. The I started with stuff that required input - guessing games, different sound on different key stuff etc. Then used DIM, for the first time, a couple of years into the adventure. Then I bought a small magazine that supposedly showed you the steps to make a sort of an adventure game with 1 level = 1 screen. But it still was complicated and after reading and xerox-ing the listing it didn't run. Hell, the errors were with some peeks and pokes and way over my limited understanding. I don't even know how good the debugging was. But it was useful as I learned you could redefine a character code's visual, which turned into cars, road blocks, tress and ended up with some sort of driving game. Which worked. And which ended up being what I consider the first real exercise in programming. I almost cried when my tape player didn't want to save it and kept playing and fiddling with it until the old Z80 started showing visual artifacts on the TV. I might still have the listing at my parents' place. The only thing I really missed being in 1st-2nd grade and right after communism fell was lack of any documentation, no parents or relatives in the field (agricultural town), no friends even interested in this and the teacher at some computer club had no materials either. What I wouldn't have done for a working piece of source code that I could load from a tape, some examples for working with memory, with various IO. Who knew 20 years later I'd be playing the same game, different toys but essentially the same. Overall I tend to agree that if someone shows interest in programming you should start with getting them to understand you cannot make Angry Birds right there and then but you can start with things that they make the computer do. Like write code - it obeys, guessing games, drawing, making the speaker blurt sounds. I imagine figuring out how to move something on screen is quite an accomplishment for a beginner. To be honest there was a big bonus in working in DOS or older based stuff, they didn't have that much bloatware to write before you could do something or that got added without
I agree with you. :-O Great response.
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There is a story about my nephew and I programming on slashdot this morning[^] Do any of you have kids or young relatives who show an active interest in programming without having to be prodded? Any advice you can give that you have found helpful? I think I'm wading him into the deep end a bit with logic and control flow right out of the gate, but with an uncle he can ask questions of at any time, I don't think it's too much.
One strategy is to prevent them to do it. My daughter would not eat cheese until I categorically forbid her to touch my special christmas cheese. When I want her to start programming I will build a little game in VB in my living room where she watches TV