Suggestions on starting a child programming [closed]

Answer 1

Though _why hasn't given it much love in the past year or so, for a while I was really excited about Hackety Hack. I think the key for most new programmers, especially children who are more than apt to losing interest in things, is instantaneous feedback. That was the really wonderful thing about Hackety Hack: a few lines of code, and suddenly you have something in front of you that does something. There are a few similar applications aimed at things like drawing graphics (one of which, I briefly assisted Nathan Weizenbaum on, Scribble!). Kids simply need positive feedback that they're doing something correct on a regular basis, else there's nothing to keep them interested in the task at hand. What I think the future is for teaching children to program is some sort of DSL built on top of a language with friendly syntax (these would include, arguably, Ruby, Python, and Scheme) whose purpose is to provide an intuitive environment for constructing simple games (say, Tic-Tac Toe, or Hangman).

Answer 2

Check out Phrogram (formerly KPL) and Alice

Answer 3

Game Maker might be another approach. You can start simple with easy drag and drop development, and then introduce more advanced programming as you go. The book The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners has a number of sample games and takes you through the steps required to make them.

Answer 4

I think python is a good alternative; it is a very powerful language also you can easily do a lot of things (not boring at all).

Answer 5

I'd go with Scratch, some points regarding it.

• It's a graphical programming language. It isn't text based (this might be positive or negative). It does make it more intuitive and easy for kids (7 and up).
• It's actually highly object. The objects you write these graphical scripts have the code attached to them and can be reused and moved around.
• Very Important: quick and impressive results. Kids need to get going fast and get results in order to get hooked.

I'd like to note that although many of us started programing at a young age in basic or logo and because programmer later in life doesn't mean those are good languages to start with. I think that kids today have much better options, like scratch or Alice. Text based languages (python, ruby, basic, c# or even c) are dependent on external libraries and tools (editors, compilers) while something like Alice or scratch is all inclusive and will teach kids (not aimed at teens) programming concepts. Later they can move on and expand their learning.

Answer 6

I think you should start them off in C. The sooner they can get the hang of pointers the better.

See Understanding Pointers and Should I learn C.