How To Encourage a Young Teen To Learn Programming? 1095
Anonymous Hacker writes "I'm in a bit of a bind. My young teenage son is starting to get curious about computers, and in particular, programming. Now, I'm a long time kernel hacker (Linux, BSD and UNIX). I have no trouble handling some of the more obscure things in the
kernel. But teaching is not something that I'm good at, by any means. Heck, I can't even write useful documentation for non-techies. So my question is: what's the best way to encourage his curiosity and enable him to learn? Now, I know there are folks out there with far better experience in this area than myself. I'd really appreciate any wisdom you can offer. I'd also be especially interested in what younger people think, in particular those who are currently in college or high school. I've shown my son some of the basics of the shell, the filesystem, and even how to do a 'Hello World' program in C. Yet, I have to wonder if this is the really the right approach. This was great when I was first learning things. And it still is for kernel hacking, and other things. But I'm concerned whether this will bore him, now that there's so much more available and much of this world is oriented towards point-n-click. What's the best way to for a young teen to get started in exploring this wonderful world of computers and learning how to program? In a *NIX environment, preferably."
Whether or not you have suggestions for generating interest or teaching methods, there was probably something that first piqued your curiosity. It seems like a lot of people get into programming by just wondering how something works or what they can make it do. So, what caught your eye?
No ShortCuts !!! (Score:2)
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps, but there are many elements to programming some of which are perhaps easier to learn than others. Teaching his son to program may benefit from being able to distinguish these elements. My initial suggestion would be to give him Python because this will let him learn the critical elements of program structure and algorithms without getting bogged down in learning the idiosyncracies of a language like C++ (which I do love). For similar reasons, Python will also offer fast return on investment. He'll be churning out programs that do what he wants them to in half the time he would be in C++ or Java.
Of course the most important thing is probably to let him drive the learning for the most part. If he's a bright and technically minded lad, he may appreciate the power and intricacies of C++. He'll need the language sooner or later if he gets involved in many of the big open source projects which would also be a great way to get involved. Things are usually more fun when done as part of a group.
Push him into it! (Score:5, Funny)
Granted, to date, it's mostly been used for singers and actors. But there is no reason it couldn't work for other professions as well. Just be careful to dodge the whiskey bottles when he gets older.
Re:Push him into it! (Score:5, Funny)
I was going to suggest dressing him in unmatching polyester outfits and knocking his books out of his hands and telling him to "pick it up, faggot." Maybe find a pretty girl to laugh at this occasionally. In my experience, this is almost certain to drive someone to program.
Maybe combining the two would create the perfect uber-coder.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Informative)
I'll feed the troll today.
So he can learn how important white space is
Indeed. Unlike most other programming languages, Python mandates readability, which is an excellent discipline for a youngster to learn.
and write entire apps with a single line of code
This is possible in most languages, but somewhat less likely in Python owing to the aforementioned discipline.
and no idea how it happened
This is impossible in most languages, and Python is no exception.
and learn to program with no job prospects?
You just keep telling yourself that; the world will change around you.
I have nothing against Python
In that case you need to brush up on your writing skills.
but as a learning language I put it down there with Perl.
A lot of people cut their teeth on Perl. I am not one of them, so I can't comment.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Back when I first learned PERL people were still using it as a Practical Extraction And Report language. A replacement for Sed & Awk. I was taking snippets of Perl from the web, futzing with them, and searching instrument logfiles and pushing the output to comma separated text files and then to excel. I don't remember if they were one line scripts but I do remember frequently using snippets that I wasn't really sure why or how they did what they did but only that I wanted the output they provided. W
Effing Magic (Score:5, Insightful)
You've hit on something there. I started messing around with computers when I was 12, and got such a kick out of getting them to do the simplest things, like print messages on the screen. And I can't say the thrill of getting one of these dumb lumps of matter to do what I want it to has never really gone away.
I think Python would be an excellent starting point, but the language I would choose for a kid's first taste of programming is javascript. They're already familiar with browsers, and within seconds they can be bossing one around, leveraging all its graphical power.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Funny)
I'll feed the troll today.
Considering your nickname, I would have thought that you had learned to stay away from trolls - or would that be orcs?
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Interesting)
At his son's age I learned to program in Pascal and was grateful for the privilege. I even had to compile in the snow uphill both ways. See if I put that on a resume.
Python is a great language to learn on, and there are more and more serious projects that use it especially in the scientific community. If he enjoys python, he'll move on to more powerful and commonly used languages lick Java, C++, and how could I not mention Fortran. (Actually Fortran wouldn't be a bad language to learn on if he's a math nerd. I'm not entirely joking with that.)
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Funny)
If he enjoys python, he'll move on to more powerful and commonly used languages lick Java, C++, and how could I not mention Fortran.
Note to submitter: If python leads to licking Java, just imagine what's next! It's a gateway drug, I tell you!
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics is what got me interested in programming. I remember my high school Pascal classes. Unfortunately they were pretty boring. We did do some simple EGA graphics at one point but that was really the only interesting thing we did in class, though I did end up learning the fundamentals.
Thing was, to do anything cool you had to do all this VGA initialization stuff that was forever out of our reach at that level. Not to mention the computers were pretty obsolete even at that point.
I know there's a lot of (mostly unreasonable) hate around here for Flash, but I'd say get him into Actionscript3. It's really easy to do graphics in without having to setup windows and rendering contexts or getting to know huge APIs. It will introduce him to object oriented programming, but won't involve pointers or memory management or any of the more esoteric aspects of something like C++. Another thing is he can easily share whatever he produces with most anyone else who has a browser. If he is at all into social networking online (all that myspace bullshit) he can make some pretty interesting stuff for his friends' pages. Using Actionscript could also lead him to branching out into other web technologies, something probably more important in today's world than ever. It also has a similar syntax to Java or C++ if he wants to go in that direction. And as far as help and tutorials, there's really one of the richest communities around Flash, being a technology that was practically born in the middle of the blogging phenomenon.
The best thing about Actionscript is how quickly you can put something visual together and how little setup it requires. Graphics is definitely the way to go, and nothing in programming has a more immediate "wow" factor than throwing something pretty up on the screen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about, but agree with the graphics aspect... I got into computing first because I was into games. I stayed with graphics all the way through and work for a post production company writing tools and utilities... not exactly graphics, but I do get to write plugins and scripts for Maya and other high end apps.
Anyway, I was pretty much self-taught BASIC on my Atari, but BASIC was just too slow to do any cool graphics, so I started teaching myself assembly language.
I don't advocate having a young p
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of very good advice here, but the most important of all is to listen to your son closely to see what interests him. For me, prodding away, I had a fascination with memory storage. Arrays in particular stunned me with their beauty and the first programs that I really applied myself to writing were strategy games that were at heart nothing more than 2D arrays that stored types of units, resources etc. Of course the units themselves were arrays. I might have been an odd child, but the thought of all those numbers lined up and structured absolutely thrilled me. Who knows what will really grab your son's attention? Well, actually, only your son does, which is why he most of all, is the one you should listen to.
You don't have to be a great teacher when the pupil is interested. Just try to learn to answer questions at the right sort of level of detail. That's 90% of it when you think about it, it really is.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
More important then the language is that you figure out what he likes about programing. Keep his interest alive. I started coding when I was 10 but around the age
Re: (Score:3)
In the same light, perhaps you should try the observing approach. Give him a problem that will pique his interest and just observe. Don't meddle, don't teach, wait until he gets truly stuck.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, if he doesn't have the drive to learn programming on his own he never will.
Is that really fair? When a lot of us started programming every home computer had a built in version of Basic (or Forth if you had a Jupiter Ace... you lonely lonely soul...) so jumping in wasn't too hard when the first thing you looked at after bootup was the Basic interpreter.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
So no, if he doesn't have the drive to learn and problem solve he's better off outside playing with a ball
I didn't mean that he's gonna have to learn programming himself, guidance is awesome to have, but the really good programmers out there are mostly self taught, people who were able to absorb knowledge wherever it came from, be it a peer, a book or an actual teacher. The ones who were "taught" programming are code monkeys with a very limited ability of actual programming, sure they can code, but they can't Code. If you catch my drift.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Funny)
So no, if he doesn't have the drive to learn and problem solve he's better off outside playing with a ball ... or girls since he's a teen.
In that case just lock him in behind a card locked door with a blank card and a card writer. Leave the ball and girls outside and he'll learn eventually (you might want to prepare some flat food in case he doesn't figure stuff out fast enough).
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Interesting)
For most people programming is a long road of breaking your head against a problem until it gets solved. Long hours spent tapping away at the keyboard and honestly "normal" people think we're all out of our minds.
And then most of them go back to driving a truck, or waiting on tables, or shuffling paper, or laying bricks or whatever "normal" job it is that they do.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with any of those jobs, but let's face it - they're not exactly riveting, and yet we are the mad ones...
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Insightful)
driving a truck, or waiting on tables, or shuffling paper, or laying bricks [...] they're not exactly riveting
Laying bricks is close (both construction), but nothing is as riveting as... riveting.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know at least for me the DRIVE comes from the desired destination... My advice for the fellow in TFA is to have his son pick a project. Start with something simple.. maybe it's just a slideshow or a tick-tak-toe game. Then start building it. Guide him a bit in the basics but encourage him to learn how to search for solutions that are beyond his knowledge. Once you have a basic program built start adding features.
Maybe it's just because I'm partial to this but consider getting a few microcontrollers and teaching him to program on that platform. Writing something that interacts with a mouse keyboard and monitor on a computer is one thing... making something where you physically assemble the hardware as well is something else altogether. This will also test the waters in other tech areas... maybe he decides that he doesn't like programming but loves electronics, or maybe he like them both and wants to get into computer system or robotics.
But seriously... just pick a goal, and work towards it... the best way to learn is though experience.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed! I think graphics are a great way to get young folks interested in programming. They were the thing that captured my interest the most anyway. I can still remember trying to figure out some Apple BASIC code that made a little blip bounce around the screen back when I barely knew what a less than sign meant. But if making things move around on the screen doesn't motivate your kid, then find out what does. Other projects I remember working on early on were tools to make D&D characters, because I liked playing D&D but thought the process of re-rolling the dice a thousand times till I got the stats I wanted for a character was too laborious :-) Also my friends and I tried to create a computer version of the BattleTech board game. We had know idea what we were doing, and never got anything even close to playable, but I still learned a lot from it, and over the subsequent years as I learned knew tricks and techniques I always could recognize them as something useful, as something that would have helped us get over one hurdle or another I faced on those early projects.
These days I think maybe young folks might be more motivated by web stuff that they can show their friends. Hey check out my web page! (Which would suggest javascript or java as the first language) We didn't have a modem till I was in high school so those things weren't really an option back when I was learning. It looks like a lot of kids are writing silly plugins for Firefox too.
But still I think graphics is good, because before long you start to see that you need to learn some math to do more interesting things with it.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Funny)
(or Forth if you had a Jupiter Ace... you lonely lonely soul...)
I had a Jupiter Ace, you insensitive clod!
(No kidding. I did. And a crappy little machine it was too. Think "ZX spectrum without the software library").
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It was quite a bit faster, though. And you got to learn FORTH rather than bloody BASIC.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
jumping in wasn't too hard when the first thing you looked at after bootup was the Basic interpreter.
Get off my lawn you whippersnapper!
I started with a NASCOM-1 1MHz 2K RAM (1K for you, 1K for the "monitor" program) Z80 kit in 1978. When I finished soldering it together the only thing I got after bootup was a prompt at which you could enter hex bytes (after you hand assembled your program on paper) to a chosen memory address.
I'd actually consider this approach for someone learning about computers today. Bu
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Teach him some PHP and HTML, or if you're an elitist teach him Ruby, or if you're a sadist teach him Perl. Teach him some JavaScript and Flash and Photoshop, and then let him go do the things that will impress his friends and therefore hold his interest, like rickroll pages and guitar hero videos.
If he's really into it the serious stuff will follow naturally in time, no point in intimidating him right off the bat.
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No ShortCuts !!! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not "writing them off", that's being realistic.
When I was a teenager learning to program, I wanted to write video games. And I did. It was my first exposure to open source - a Delphi 3D MMORPG project. It was hopelessly over ambitious for our little team but it was fun, and taught me a hell of a lot about programming. And actually the maintainer/founder of that project went on to work for Ubisoft, so it worked out OK for him.
Now the problem is that writing video games is actually pretty hard. Writing simple web apps is much easier. It also has the HUGE benefit that you can show your friends. I was very rarely able to show my friends what I'd written but when I did, it was a great feeling, because my friends intuitively understood that making a 3D world was hard.
So I think writing web apps is not a bad place to start. The main problem is that web apps aren't video games, and all teenagers want to write video games. If our kernel hacker isn't too hung up on Freedom, I'd strongly recommend getting an Xbox360 and setting him up with the XNA framework. It's very much oriented towards hobbyist and beginner programmers.
There are lots of tutorials, you write software in C# which is straightforward enough for novices but won't limit him, and the result can be uploaded to XBox Live or played when his friends come round. Importantly, it looks a whole lot more cool and professional (imho) if your work is running on a real games console.
There is also a full, free 3D engine available (TorqueX) which can help him get started with writing simple 3D games without needing to master trigonometry and Direct3D. Back when I was doing this stuff, you had raw OpenGL or Crystal Space if you used C++ and were feeling brave.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dudes, don't bite my head off. Nobody ever said teenagers couldn't do kernel hacking, they said that shouldn't be how they are introduced to it. And that's totally right!
Here are some aspects of kernel hacking from a beginners perspective (and really this is what it's about - being a beginner, not being a teenager):
Personally I say, start with modding games (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'll aggree that kernel hacking won't get anyone interested in programming, I think programming web sites is somewhat lacking in motivation. As you were saying, you want it to provide some serious bragging rights.
Whatever you want to do on the web at teen level, has been done before and better. Publishing photos? There are a ton of providers which achieve the same thing. Forums? Ditto. All you need for a good guild web site are webmaster skills or maybe graphics design, _not_ programming. Approaching it from the programming side is the way to get the least bragging rights, with the most effort. Everyone won't go "woot, what an original forum you programmed!", but the more discouraging, "geesh, why don't you use PhpBB like everyone else?"
Personally, looking back at what motivated _me_ back then, I'd say start with games. That was my motivation. I could throw together a game as good as Psion and the gang made for the ZX 81 and later ZX Spectrum, and show it to my classmates and get some serious appreciation. The first game I wrote, when I invited a couple of classmates to see it, they ended up playing it all afternoon. Mind you, it was uber-simplistic by today's standards, but it was as good as anyone could possibly do on a 1K ZX-81.
It was motivating enough to get me started on assembly and converting it by hand to hex.
Nowadays I wouldn't advise anyone to write a game from scratch at home, but there's a _lot_ you can achieve as a mod. And mod-friendly games are getting rather common these days. I can think of a few where most of the game logic (i.e., minus the graphics and such) was Python, one even TCL, and one was scripted in Java.
So basically I'd say, show the guy how to make his own mods. Even if it's just for cheating it's a start.
And the distant carrot of making it big and famous is there too. Both Counter-Strike and Team Fortress started as mods, and ended up major successes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now to programming. It is easier to explain the basics and it is very easy to show by example (keep it simple at f
python (Score:5, Interesting)
Teach him python (or ruby, or whatever else that is high-level and easy).
It's the same as basic was twenty years ago, just much more powerful, easyer to learn and more fun.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I second this. most folks I know who love programming learned a nice easy language as a kid (BASIC in my case, a long while back). Python is easy enough to learn how to program in, but flexible enough to draw stuff on the screen, play sounds, talk to remote machines - mess with what the machine is capable of.
I'd definately pick a friendly language to begin with (and I'm not sure C or C++ fit that bill, I'm still learning good C++ practice after a decade of commercial use).
What you choose as a first language matters. It should be easy, and teach basic flow control in a very direct matter that allows for an intuitive understanding of those subjects (BASIC was the name of the game when I was young, python is where you'll want to go today). But I'd definitely leave the door open for C or C++ as well (hell, I learned C when I was 15). Buy a good book on python, and K&R to teach him C, and tell him to start out with python, and get into C if and when he feels like it.
It's also
Re:python (Score:5, Insightful)
>I'm still learning good C++ practice after a decade of commercial use
Don't worry, so is Bjarn Stroustrop
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't teach him anything, its better if he sits down and learns it himself.
I know that learning in lectures in college is a very different ballgame to learning from instruction by one person, but I found that I only really improved my coding ability when I sat down and got myself a project I wanted to work towards. If the kid is interested in learning to code and wants to do interesting things with the computer, then he'll learn it himself - just give him some easy IDE and supply him with ideas for somethin
Re:python (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, this guy's kid looks up to him, as a role model. The number one reason he wants to program is because his dad does it. By all means, give the kid the tools he needs to learn to program. Pick a language with lots of tutorials and books and wide acceptance (C or Java perhaps?). Get him to draw flowcharts or write pseudocode (people still do that?). Give him some fun problems to work out. Go over code with him. Show him ways to improve his code and explain the reasoning behind them. His interest in spending time with you will keep him at it until he's hooked on programming itself.
Re:python (Score:5, Funny)
Forbid him to learn python. Then he'll do it himself to spite you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Additionally, there is only one book currently suitable for learning Smalltalk (Squeak by Example), and while it's a good book and not exceedingly hard, it would
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Python is absolut
No, it is still correct. (Score:2, Insightful)
Your approach is still correct. The point and click gives results fast, but doesn't actually teach you anything. If he find the basics, boring, don't even bother anymore. Programming isn't for him.
Heck, I can say that programming for me became boring the day I started doing it professionally. I would rather direct my son in a completely orthogonal direction.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
heh, he said orthogonal
I would recommend you pick up some sort of embedded logic kit. Something, anything, that translates code into real world manipulation. Even if it just winds up being a fancy digital clock kit, the fact that he can write some code and see something physical happen can completely enamor a kid.
I'm saying this from the perspective of an engineer. Circuit theory class was one thing. But when we could controllably vary the intensity of a lightbulb, and then in digital logic class pattern
More info (Score:2)
I don't know what your family situation is (indeed, I don't know if your his mother or father) but is the other parent any good at teaching?
I'd say let him try out a few high level languages where he can build simple programs that at least do something quickly - he could get bored with the details of C - and see which suits him. Help him out if and only if he gets stuck. If he reaches the limits of that language then maybe it's time to indtroduce C or assembler.
Write a game (Score:5, Insightful)
Write a game, perhaps based on a favourite book. Or something that involves a subject he's already interested. Doesn't matter if it's a simple text game. Let him write it on his own. Then when he's finished suggest a few improvements. Repeat. Once he's bored with that, start a new project.
That's how I learnt.
And for pity sake, do not ask him to kernel hack. It's way too abstract. You need something user-level with immediate and very visible results.
Re:Write a game (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll second that. Many of us learned on 8-bit home computers, where you could understand everything that was going on, and we made games. Brilliant self education.
The best way of doing that now is with the Hydra console [xgamestation.com]. The hardware is completely documented and described at the beginner level in the book. And there is no OS or APIs to deal with, disguising what's really going on. You code straight to the bare metal.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't matter if it's a simple text game.
It's better if it is. Fewer moving parts, much easier to see what's going on.
A pretty good one to start with is a number guessing game. Teaches about control structures, IO, state and validation of input. Go from there on to something like the Animal Game [animalgame.com]. You can use that to teach about decision trees and persistence. And that covers a very large fraction of the foundation of computing.
Re:Write a game (Score:4, Interesting)
My first (memorable) program was written with my dad on the C64. He's not a programmer, but we got a C64 when I was about 4 or 5 and I was keen to know all there was to know about it.
He started reading magazines and got some books that taught him the basics then we'd spend time together building basic (pun intended) things. The first one that did anything memorable was a christmas tree on the screen complete with a flashing light on the top.
It was all downhill from there. Once the basics are in place more and more advanced things follow. Soon you've outgrown your interpreted language and are sitting at the machine level to make it do things fast enough.
Of course, back then it was all very easy. The 8-bit machines only had a handful of opcodes and a small amount of unmanaged memory (well the C64 had a ROM bank that you could cut out if you needed the RAM it shadowed). To make graphics it was a simple matter of poking in a few registers and then writing to the graphics memory directly.
There was no pesky OS or memory management getting in your way. The machine also wasn't very fast, so to do cool things you had to learn about interrupt driven events, 'multi tasking', and designing for optimisation from the start.
These days learning programming like that is nigh-on impossible. The OS hides the machine from you and presents a not-so-neat interface to all the hardware. The machine is fast so there is never any real desire to optimise and programmers aren't learning good principles for it.
If the GP's teenage son is really interested in learning programming perhaps a small microcontroller project would be a good place to start. PICs and AVR cores are quite simple to implement and program. Investigate a development kit instead of diving into programming the PC.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If he's also interested in electronics you can get a small Atmel and the neccessary components and build your own Lego Mindstorms workalike. Low-level programming and electronics sure sound interesting to a geeky kid if they allow him to
Game programming (Score:2)
Teach about game programming. E.g. show how to draw simple graphics using libSDL and then perhaps give hints how the graphics could be moved etc.
I started programming myself, because I wanted to write games. I've been programming for 10 years and I still write games on my free time.
Start him off here... (Score:5, Informative)
C++ primer plus by stephen prata.
http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Plus-5th-Stephen-Prata/dp/0672326973/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216718603&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
It is one of the best ways to learn programming from absolutely knowing nothing! Because it explains in very accurate, precise and simple language that is very well expressed.
This is where I learned to program years ago, and I'd challenge anyone to find a better place to bring an absolute know nothing about programming into the fold.
It explains all the simple functions and whatnot for console programming, etc, if he can't dig that then he's not fit to program, the book makes C++ as easy as something as python, or the old visual basic.
The old visual basic 6 is not a BAD place to start if you can find some good programming books, because the old VB gave "immediate" results that kids often look for.
Re:Start him off here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wanna teach a language, then take one that's both interpreted and compiled like Python, Lua, Ruby. Take something that is radically efficient like Erlang or OCaml. Take something that is meant for teaching like Logo.
But C++ ?!? Hah, why not Perl, then !
BASIC? (Score:2)
It's fairly easy to read, i.e. TO, FOR, LET, GOTO etc, are self explanatory.
The most important thing to get through to him is program flow, learning other languages is cake once you understand how to efficiently break a task into parts.
In my day... (Score:2)
In common with (I suspect) a lot of Slashdotters, I started out on computers in the Spectrum/CBM64/BBC days when you had to program, in BASIC, to get anything done and that's what got me going.
I stayed in computers, eventually doing a Computer Studied degree and worked for several years as a programmer for an IT consultancy company, using C++, Visual Basic, Java and C#. In the end (about five years ago) it seemed that all there was in "programming" was SQL. Now I'm not knocking database developers, but th
Hackety Hack (Score:2)
http://hacketyhack.net/ [hacketyhack.net] is the answer!
You can write blogs, mp3 downloader/reader and basic graphical interfaces in a few (Ruby) lines. :-/
I wish I had it when I was a kid... GWBasic wasn't so glamour
Do 3D (Score:2)
Basic "Hello 3D" with triangle rotating can be done in ~ 20 lines.
It takes a while to grasp, but it encourages and rewards experimentation.
First they will fiddle with numeric constants and see what it ends up, then they will add lines to add more objects, eventually learning cycles and arrays for some animation ...
Just don't bore them with background stuff unless they want to know it.
Solving problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics Programming (Score:4, Insightful)
Being able to produce pretty pictures is always fun. I learnt programming by spending all my time drawing bouncing balls that changed colour in 320x200 VGA. Of course nowadays kids can use a lot more powerful graphics libraries like the aforementioned SDL, which can let them make a lot cooler stuff.
If he gets the hang of it, you could even teach him how to write a raytracer. That would also be good for his math, and be a nice project where more advanced programming techniques (e.g. data structures, recursion) and more advanced math (calculus, 3D geometry) have practical uses.
NetHack! (Score:5, Insightful)
Give him nethack (or any other OSS game) to play. After a while when he will get interested - give him the source code for it.
Programming games is probably most engaging activity. I'm 31 now - but still on it ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
btw, there are bunch of games written in Python using PyGames framework. That to me sounds definitely as good idea. Using PyGl you can also utilize 3D things.
Not NetHack! (Score:3, Interesting)
Not NetHack! It was written by the evil Wizard of Yendor with help from his idiot minion Eric S. Raymond; consequently, the source is a horrifying abomination worthy only of the renegade god Moloch. It is not a good learning example. You should be at least a level 20 Kernel Hacker to venture inside.
Can I suggest instead that you look for a simple game written in Python or Ruby. They are likely to have source that is possible for level 1 Noobies to understand.
The best language... (Score:5, Funny)
The best language to teach him is $trendy_language_of_the_moment. If you don't teach him that then he'll never get anywhere. How can people hope to encourage people to learn when they're using $formerly_trendy_language? It's just so horrible that I'd rather gouge someone else's eyes out with a spoon that use it instead of $trendy_language_of_the_moment!
Javascript? Facebook apps? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, really. That way he can share his games or whatever with his classmates, simply by sending them a link.
Of course it'll be a longish road to get to that point, but it might be a goal he can relate to - and I know I simply wouldn't learn anything unless I could see the point. Still don't at 34, come to think of it :)
Make it about programming and something else (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, I think you should start with a language such as Python or Ruby. I started with BASIC which was easy to grasp, and more modern languages are easy yet more powerful.
Second, when I started programming I was first looking at my brother, writing really simple BASIC programs on the C64. Later, I was interested in fractals and wrote algorithms for drawing fractals. I had a book with code examples for different fractals, but in some other language (I don't remember which). The process of interpreting the algorithm in the first language and translating it to BASIC was very good for learning. Tweaking and extending the algorithms and seeing the changes visually was very encouraging.
Today, if I were to teach a kid programming, I think I would look into Lego Mindstorms [lego.com]. It helps if the kid is into Lego or robotics, of course. That's a contained environment with a powerful and easy language, which is also part of something else, with immediate feedback on the changes. You can program it in either the Lego-supplied RCX Code (BASIC-like) or ROBOLAB (LabView-based), or any of a number of languages supplied by the community (C, C++, C#, Java, Lua etc).
Explicitly disallow it. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's THE way to get ANY teenager to do ANYTHING.
How about Logo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see that not having a flashy GUI means anything. I grew up in a world where I saw flashy GUI's for exactly what they were. I was much happier hacking DOS to get that extra few KB of base memory than I was playing about in Windows 3.1.
The problem is that you can't foster curiosity, which is the main driver here. Nothing will make you sit down and learn a programming language more than curiosity for what you can make the computer do, whether you can do something better than Microsoft, etc. You can try very hard to keep interest, though, and there practical results tend to have greater effect - this is why most basic ICT in schools is based around roaming turtles, Lego RCX, "traffic-light" kits etc. Computer-controlled with visible, physical effect.
Personally, I think the best way to foster the right computer skills isn't to use a computer much at all (this is a philosophy I've held for most of my life - the best way to program is in your head, not a machine - the best way to write a story is on paper, not a word-processor, etc.). The best things to use to learn are simple gadgets. I'm not a gadget person. I'm not even very good at electronics but I struggle along and get a lot done.
Wire your house for a burglar alarm, controlled by a computer, and involve your children in every step. If your practical skills aren't up to scratch (good, you can "learn" by your mistakes together and your child can try to "out-think" you when you both hit the same problem), you can get X10/DMX-style equipment that makes it a cinch. But there's nothing like a bug that'll scare the crap out of you when the alarm goes off because you didn't cater for a niche-case (opening the back-door while the power was out etc.). It only needs an ancient "sacrifical" computer that doesn't matter if you blow its parallel port, and it introduces every single reason behind having computers - automate tasks that a human could do using simple, cheap components.
You can learn programming, you can learn embedded programming, you learn about the importance of bug-checking and clean code, you learn about interfacing, buses, serial/parallel data transfer, physical and real-world effects and how to counter them in software (e.g. switch debouncing). You even get to learn how the damn computer does its job so that it's no longer a magic box that does stuff. You get to interface with all types of cool gear. You get to bring practical, real-life skills into the learning environment which can help immensely if your child learns better that way. (And I don't count "how to write a letter in Office", I mean REAL life skills, like practical problems, electricity and electronics, wiring, why the bloody ladder won't stay still and why Daddy put his foot through the roof).
The rewards are instant, visible, practical, extendible and "show-off-able". The "reward" of having the whole family laugh at a a doorbell that plays a WAV when someone presses it is very rewarding especially when "it was all my son's work". My particular favourite is a doorbell that goes "knock knock" when you ring it. I also bought an old-fashioned door knocker which has an integrated switch in it and want it to set off a "ding-dong" sound, just to see the postman's face. I'm doing it with simple electronics and one of those recorable greetings-card chips but you can do it with a PC easily. Ten minutes of very basic wiring to an old-fashioned joystick port (ancient laptops are great for this sort of thing), a WAV file off a free website and a twenty line program. You can see exactly where his skills lie. Is he a better programmer? Is he a better thinker? Is he better at practicalities? But no matter what he is, it's so simple to do that you can have great fun wiring it up (probably with Mum in the background tapping her feet because she's getting sick of "Yankee Doodle" every time the neighbour's call).
Then you need to get to the point, as quickly as possible, where he can *think* of new stuff to do himself. You started with a doorbell
Low-level game programming (Score:3, Informative)
Video games are fun, and making your own video games is fun too.
Start by making him learn text game programming, like the price is right. That's both on the very basic level of programming, and a quickly gratifying game to learn.
Then, maybe I suggest low level game program. And by low level I mean no SDL (well, maybe a wrapper), but writing your own pixels to a frame buffer is more gratifying. As in, teach him how to make a function that write a rectangle on a frame buffer depending on the rectangle's size and the coordinates of its center, then make him move the rectangle around by pressing keys.
Build on top of that by making he do a very basic game like pong. My first graphical video game was a pong and I coded it in two days, that's how easy it is.
From that point on, he will probably start to get ambitions. As in, he'll want to draw lines, load sprites, rotate them, use physics, learn about tcp/ip network, signal processing theory and techniques, etc, to achieve a precise purpose. All of these things will fuel his interest towards mathematics and physics, and give him a good reason to learn about and understand these things.
Finally, introduce him to more "real world" type of programming, by giving him some of the stuff you have to do at work, for uhh.. the sake of his education!
My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
I started programming when I was about 12, and I am completely self taught. My parents knew nothing about computers, and still know nothing now despite my efforts. Anyway, i started with javascript, html, and php. (This was around 6 years ago). I think it was much easier to start learning the basics of this kinda stuff when you don't have to deal with all the boring (to a 12yo) details of memory management, libraries, and compilers etc. Web programming is something were you can get the instant results and action, you can just keep tweaking the source file and hitting F5 until you get something that works and looks vaguely like what you're after; this is especially useful when you don't know what you're doing. :)
I had a few books which taught me the basics, a javascript book and a html book. They only covered simple things, (I think the js book was a For Dummies..., actually), but it was enough to get me started. After that I found the php.net docs and a friend showed me loads of his php code and i picked that up fairly quickly.
Being a website, it's something easy to show off too, it was kinda cool to be like "dude, the whole world can see my webpage!". Following that theme, i got started on irc bots, eggdrops are written in C, and you can script em with tcl. Be careful tho, tcl is kinda quirky and weird (at least, that's how i remember it). But it's great for simple stuff, get the bot to parse some text and reply etc. This might also be a good time to learn some networking stuff. Also since eggdrops can also have C modules written, this is a possible path into C, although I didn't go that way so I don't know how good it is.
I eventually learned C(++) from some online tutorial, http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ [cplusplus.com] I think. And I wrote a load of code for manipulating some large binary files (game resource files, from Halo). I certainly don't recommend letting anyone learn C solely from some tutorial, since I had rather large gaps in my knowledge at this point (that code i wrote is terrible), but it was some great experience anyway. I played around with some .NET (ugh!) gui stuff, because I didn't know how else to make a gui program at the time (seriously, I don't know how I was meant to know about qt, gtk, or win32 etc at this point) and a program that just prints text on the command line got boring real fast.
Hacking at computer games was what really drove my interest in C at that time. Reverse engineering of the file formats was fun! Even if I did kinda suck at it and just found most of the info on the web.
Looking back, I'm thinking I probably would have liked someone to show me python (and maybe perl) much earlier than when i eventually discovered them. php sucks as a general purpose scripting language and C gets tedious for those little tasks.
Sorry that was all probably a little incoherent, I spent the time I was meant to be doing english homework programming ;)
Do yourself a favor... (Score:5, Insightful)
Draw on the experience of the community (Score:3, Funny)
Draw upon the extensive knowledge of the GNU/Linux community, for example:
If he actually does find a bug, here are some of the basics you should tell him about bug reporting:
Now this post may seem like a troll, but if you do exactly the opposite of what I advise, he should do well.
Show Your Enthusiasm (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether you teach him programming or someone else does, the most important thing you can do for him is to show your enthusiasm for programming and demonstrate why you love it. Those kinds of things are infectious. If he catches the bug then he'll learn it, one way or another.
My own remembrances (Score:4, Insightful)
When I was 15, I had never seen a computer, but I knew that I wanted to work with them. The _idea_ of computing, of writing instructions to make the computer do what I wanted, of playing with something that exhibited some of the powers of human mind, was terribly interesting to me. Getting my hands on my first PC, a thing with a BASIC interpreter and graphics! display in a TV monitor, was an intense experience, even if I cannot say why, what clicked inside me. The making of my very first BASIC program, unaided, reading a manual in a foreign almost-unknown language (English) was a triumph. The making of a program that draw a circle on the screen by calculating the distance to the center, was making mathematics come alive for me for the first time.
What I mean is that, in my case, no stimulation was needed, and probably difficulties just added emotion. The interest and emotional attachment to the computing world was immediate and intense. I don't know if I'm a typical case, but my anecdotal evidence is yours for what's worth.
From NAND to Tetris (Score:4, Informative)
Once he has a solid knowledge of basic programming and if he's still interested in learning more of the basics of how computers work and if you are willing to dedicate quite a lot of time and effort to destroying the social life of your kid once and for all and turning him into a full blown geek I'd recommend that you take a look at a course that has been called "From NAND to Tetris" in which students are given a NAND logic gate and must construct their own (simulated) computer out of that by gradually building on top of that NAND gate. Eventually they end up implementing a simple game, such as tetris or snake in a computer that they build from the ground up.
Here are some links for this material:
A short introduction to the course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtXvUoPx4Qs [youtube.com]
A long introduction to the course (Google Tech Talk) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7654043762021156507 [google.com]
The course material itself: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/news/colloquia/December8_2005.html [rpi.edu]
Above all else I think you need to be sensitive to your kids needs and longings. Who knows, maybe he will not be interested in all about learning the internals of computers but more interested in the usability and design of interfaces (I know, your worst nightmare I'm sure). My point is, don't push him into a direction that isn't to his liking.
Find something he wants to be able to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
This could be just about anything - if he likes sports, it could be a sports results and stats database, if he likes RC modeling it could be an interactive application for setups for his radiocontrolled cars. Your only real role here is to ensure he chooses something feasible in a reasonable timeframe (don't suggest writing Quake5
The thing I like about this approach, is that it will teach him far more than just "how to do it" - you can start it with a discussion about how he wants to go about it, to start with which language (pros and cons, quick GUI development vs. old school stuff - basically just see what ticks his boxes) and it'll then take you through the basics of data models, and the fact it'll be useful will keep him motivated. Help him break the task up into little bits, and use the first few to teach him the ropes, and then let him try some on his own.
Make it clear it's his project, that you're there to help whenever and wherever you can - but don't judge. If he wants to start with an Access DB - by all means point out the pros and cons, but it's his toy - let him do it, he should be old enough now to see for himself whether it's "right" or "wrong".
Well, for one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry for the polemic, but believe me, your son will stretch himself to understand you far more than he will even for the most gifted teacher. What I owe to my parents can never be repaid, and there isn't a day goes by that I don't miss them.
Let Infocom be your shepherd (Score:3, Informative)
Why don't you write a game with your son? A text adventure a la Infocom, or a slot machine or dice rolling board game?
Instant Gratification. (Score:3, Informative)
For some reading on education in general, in case you're curious, Dimensions of Learning is a good place to start. It's a relatively current teaching model. I have the textbook on it, but you can find general outlines of it everywhere; though, curiously, it doesn't have it's own Wikipedia page. I might need to do something about that, unless it's in another article.
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought geeks didn't have sex ...
Geeks clone themselves, it provides the same benefits without all the hassle with bodily fluids.
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
Geeks clone themselves, it provides the same benefits without all the hassle with women.
It seems you made a mistake in your post, I've gone ahead and fixed it though.
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Son? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are girl geeks... Few, but some... So you can't assume your % of woman / water, it could have been % of male / water, etc..
Off topic, but...
One GG that I know, and is rather pleasant to view, decided the biological ticking was too loud. Having not found a suitable male after being hurt/rejected a few times, she decided to completely forgo the male part of the equation. A few Dr. visits, lots of $$ for fertility drugs, and some frozen sperm = twin babies on the way, no father needed.
Now, in reality, a male was the initial donor of the frozen sperm, and I told her that she could of saved a lot of money by just going to a bar and drinking a lot of vodka, but she went on spouting about genetic core, family traits, selectability, et al...
I almost wanted to point out the story of Dr. Jacobs [nytimes.com] who was convicted of fathering children with his own sperm instead of the donor sperm that was selected, but figured that would only cause too much angst.
BTW, I guess this is becoming a trend among some women today, so the available men better figure things out soon, or the next generation will all be wearing "popsicle"(tm) T-shirts... (I'm out of the game, married with 2 kids myself, so don't blame me.)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
...the hassle with women.
It seems you made a mistake in your post, I've gone ahead and fixed it though.
Why don't you two just stop complaining and fix the problem once and for all by writing a proper manpage on women?
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
Just show your son these comments. It'll convince him to learn to play the violin or become a social worker instead.
Can he sing? Tell him to get three of his friends and start a boy band. Then you can retire and hack your kernel in style.
Re:Son? (Score:5, Informative)
Seems to me the best thing you can do to get your teenager involved in *nix programming is to get them involved in an online community that will give them some positive feedback and the possibility of celebrity, then show them some of the success stories out there that started in just that way. And, of course, let them know you're genuinely proud of them when they create something.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Son? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My dad always told me, "Women are like martinis for lunch. One is never enough, but two is just too goddamned many."
Re:Son? (Score:4, Funny)
I know you're lying : you actually enjoy telling him.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with SDL. pyglet [pyglet.org] would be a much better idea [google.co.uk].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:PHP will ruin your mind (Score:5, Insightful)
There are so many reasons not to start with PHP, that I'm not even going to start listing them here. PHP is a HORRIBLE first language, and a horrible second, third or forth language. It corrupts minds, and makes it harder to learn other languages. It's a lot worse than corrupting someone by teaching BASIC as a first language.
You should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting teaching PHP to a kid.
-Don
Re:PHP will ruin your mind (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I learned PHP as a first language you insensiti-Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/a9286564/public_html/x/forum/bb-settings.php:169) in /home/a9286564/public_html/x/forum/bb-admin/install.php on line 10
Re:PHP will ruin your mind (Score:5, Informative)
If you're a PHP programmer, you're irresponsible if you're not already aware of its flaws, because you have not educated yourself by reading any of the following well publicized articles. Once you understand the flaws of PHP, you can't honestly make the statement that it's a well designed language suitable for teaching programming to kids.
First there is this classic article, Edwin Martin's "What I don't Like about PHP" [bitstorm.org], which goes into detail about the following fundamental flaws:
Then there is the mind-set of the PHP language designers and community, which is deeply flawed. Ian Bicking's "PHP Ghetto" article [ianbicking.org] sums up the problem with PHP's design and community pretty well:
Jonathan Ellis' "Why PHP sucks" article [blogspot.com] makes a lot of good points and links to many other sites with more information to back up the claim that PHP sucks.
He perfectly summarizes the yapping of the PHP apologists when he says: Basically these all boil down to, "I don't have enough experience to recognize PHP's flaws because I haven't used anything better."
He summarizes:
There is also a lot of great stuff about why PHP is so bad on http://www.ranting-wolf.info/category/technology/programming/php/ [ranting-wolf.info] including a concise description of why the "Smarty" templating system is such a horribly ill conceive and terribly implemented idea.
And if you're still not convinced the design of PHP is deeply flawed, because language design is HARD and should only be attempted on purpose by experienced people, here's what the Father of PHP Rasmus Lerdorf himself said in an ITConversations interview [itconversations.com], quoted in "Why PHP sucks, Part III" [dasgenie.com]:
Re:Start with basics. (Score:4, Funny)
Right, and let it save him on cassette tape, that, if it doesn't get corrupted by itself, you should demagnetize in random intervals. Just like we learned the true stuff!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Javascript was my first programming language. It's something everyone's got simple access to, it's very forgiving (though it does set you up for some bad habits), and it's very simple to make GUIs and interact with the user.
Re:Do what my father did (Score:4, Interesting)
IMHO, if he has already started teaching C, then that is what he should use. Not because C is superior language, but because teaching multiple languages will certainly confuse the student.
I think that C might actually be pretty good language to start with. You have to do a little more work to write something you might be able to write less lines in e.g. Java, but then again it is pretty logical how things work. E.g. first you initialize SDL, then you get the surface where to draw. Then you draw into it, then you display it.
In Java, you initialize by creating certain classes inherited from certain classes, get the drawing surface as a method parameter for a method, which name must be something special then you draw to it and then it is automatically displayed. Then you have to study API to find out how is it updated.
I'm not saying that Java is hard to use for experienced programmer, I think it is very easy. A lot easier than C. But IMHO it is harder to understand for someone new to programming. Or even someone new to Java programming.
Re:Javascript (Score:4, Informative)