Advice needed, son wants to learn how to program

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨foofiepie@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨programming@programming.dev⁩

Hi all,

My 8 year old is asking if he can learn how to program. He has asked specifically if I could set him up with a ‘programming kit with lessons’ for a Christmas present. I’d like to support this, and it seems like it’s not a transient interest as he’s been all over scratch, and using things like minecraft commands for the last year. I have an old (pre 2017) MacBook Air I can set up for this. How do I / what would you advise I set up for him, to a) keep him safe online (he’s 8!) and b) give him the tools he needs in a structured way.

I am not a programmer. I know enough bash/shell and basic unix stuff to be dangerous and I was a front end dev a very long time ago, but I wouldn’t call myself a programmer and don’t know what concepts he needs to learn first.

Hugely appreciate any advice, thanks.

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
IMO set him up with some of the modern engines and tutorials… Godot 4, Unreal etc…

actually if you are looking for some stuff to have ready for him.

humblebundle.com/…/game-programming-with-c-unreal…

If he has access to youtube there’s also lots of really good tutorials etc… out there. Heartbeast has some awesome ones for godot etc…

source
JSocial@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve had good luck with edubuntu with my nephews and nieces. www.edubuntu.org

source
antidote101@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Try a more advanced node based programming language that aligns more with a specific language. Something like NodeRed for Java…

…or maybe he’s ready to try game development on something like Godot, which has a language a lot like python.

Python is apparently a good first language to learn.

source
krdo@lmmy.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I was going to suggest something like Kaboom.js for simple game development, but their site is currently down…

source
malba@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Some high-level ideas here:

There’s lots of opportunities in programming to make mistakes, or where they’re faced with big open-ended problems that a programmer can build an entire career in dealing with in themselves. Being aware of what resources you need to look for and learn from is one of the first steps to getting what you want out of your interactions with those areas. If he persists in learning programming, he will soon run into these areas, and how well he handles them will play a large role in determining how successful he is as a programmer. A small number of examples of different domains that have unexpected nuances which suddenly become important to a new programmer, and catch them by surprise:

Internationalization Password handling Interacting with the host operating system and filesystem Interacting with programmers from groups with different social norms and standards than they’re used to - this is partly solved by READMEs and project documentation, but only partly. Social skills are important. Interacting with end users Programming languages often have weird corners to them which can waste a lot of time, cause a lot of confusion, and cause bugs. Looking at C and C++ especially, but no programming language is blameless. He’ll have to test his code. If he needs to do involved tests on his code, which he might eventually, there are a few areas of testing code are virtualization, unit tests, and fuzz testing. These all take significant effort to learn how to do. Ethics, legal issues, and politics. GUI programming

There are plenty more areas, of course. I’m not saying this to discourage you or your son - learning about these sorts of things can help your son grow as a programmer and maybe even as a person if he’s fortunate. But my biggest piece of advice is to be very careful where you put your time and attention on, in programming, and probably in life in general. There’s no limit to the time you can waste on being foolish, except the limits you have for yourself.

My second biggest piece of advice is that maybe he should switch to using Linux and Free and Open Source Software at some point. It’s very convenient from the perspective of a programmer who’s very motivated by being engaged with a community or by benefiting others - he can learn about a community he’s likely to want to engage with in the future, he’ll be more able to change aspects of his computer to suit his needs or desires, and honestly, my experience as a Linux user who’s learning programming is that learning how to use Mac and Windows feels more like work than learning Linux does. Learning how to use Linux feels like learning how to program.

Maybe you would want to introduce him to Godot and Blender, since they’re FOSS software, and less at risk of weird decisions being made with them like happened with Unity, where companies pulled a very weird and developer- and user-hostile and security-hostile decision out of nowhere.

source
purelynonfunctional@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
For general Unix skills, get him a laptop and help him install a Linux distro on it. Show him a few different desktop environments, buy him a Linux magazine with a DVD and articles or projects. Then just let him try whatever he wants and promise to be there to help him fix whatever he breaks (by pointing him to docs, belong him write good forum questions, helping him revise search queries, etc.). These skills are perhaps a bit simpler to pick up but can eventually grow into scripting and programming skills.

For programming, start with simple programming exercises or koans, and maybe give him prizes (like a quarter or a piece of candy or something) when he solves them. Let him solve lots of similar problems/puzzles over and over as he builds his confidence; rather than pushing him to harder material, just offer harder material with higher rewards. You’ll probably have to write your own exercises at first, like just translating arithmetic expressions from a notation he’s learning in school to one used by whatever programming language you’re working in together. Eventually, you can start to do online exercises together.

Once he has been messing with this stuff for a year or two, revisit fundamentals by working through a carefully selected introductory textbook together. You can include shell scripts at this point to tie the Unix stuff and programming stuff together, and maybe use a good Linux magazine or Learn Enough Developer Tools to Be Dangerous as the ‘textbook’ for that side. Then he’ll at least know basic version control and surrounding tools.

After you’ve gone through a chunk of those basics together— full mastery is not required— sign up for an introductory programming class together at the local community college. Taking it together, you can make sure he’s keeping up with the material, encourage him to ask questions, and help him with homework if necessary. If you want, you can also do this with networking or systems administration.

This is based on some things that my dad did with me, including a couple of community college classes we took together. (Idr exactly how old I was during those classes, but I think it was before I started high school.)

source
swab148@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Ground him into a room until he learns to make a game with only assembly, give him a Tandy to figure it out

source
T4V0@lemmy.pt ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
There’s Colobot, an old game with a C++ based language where you control bots through scripts.

source
TigrisMorte@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
a linux web server on an old PC https://www.linuxbabe.com/ubuntu/install-lamp-stack-ubuntu-20-04-server-desktop , a tutorial https://www.w3schools.com/ , and a text editor https://notepad-plus-plus.org/ is all you need to get started.

source
dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
There was a software developed in Bratislava called the Comenius Logo. It was specifically developed as a programming environment for kids and we did 2 full years learning it in primary school, I’m still thankful for my teacher for making kids learn this. He shouldn’t have to do that it was not part of the program. I’m out of the education scene so I’m not sure if there are modern options to this but you may look it up as well. It uses a C-like code to move a turtle around the screen and draw shapes.

source
brotbuexe@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Maybe this is something for you:

www.microsoft.com/en-us/makecode

www.calliope.cc/en en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calliope_mini?wprov=sfti1 microbit.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit?wprov=sfti1

source
Kissaki@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

A couple of things on resources: he has expressed interest in 3D worlds and I noticed comments on engines, but wonder if that’s too advanced?

I most certainly wouldn’t start out programming with / in 3d worlds.

Drawing 2D shapes seems like a good way to spark interest though, with immediate visual feedback.

source
fbmac@lemmy.fbmac.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
When I was a kid, this book was fun

archive.org/…/vgmuseum_usborne-hayes_introcomppro…

source
planish@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Alice is a pretty good 3D programming environment aimed at kids, with little programming blocks to snap together.

You might want to try going back into the archives and pulling out something like MS-DOS and QBasic, or Logo. You can find a good tutorial in book form, and you can get a system that was designed to be programmed offline, with things like local help in the editor instead of behind a Google search, so it should be 100% safe to leave the kid alone with the machine.

source
MrJay@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
minecraft can work really well for learning how tp program, when I was 9 that is how I started, unfortunately its been a long time since I took that course but if you are willing to do the research there should be a some for server programming and java modding at least that is what I took over 11 years ago at this point, and maybe javascript for gametest framework for bedrock edition. there is also minetest which is a little better for learning but isn’t minecraft so is a little bit more annoying but lets you modify basically anything you want which is very fun. also a great way to learn boolean algebra/circuit design in minecraft/minetest, redstone can be used to make micro computers like calculators, fun and can be applicable to making games in minecraft which makes it more engaging as well. also the minecraft commands can be put into a mcfunction file as you can image this can be generated by outputting text to the file, this is great because you learn file io and a programming language and mostly he would be using math to generate things so teaches math, its limited but that is something he would find fun that is super easy and can be done in basically any language.

source
HurgletOfficial@lemmy.basedcount.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Give him a laptop with Alpine Linux installed on it, and make him setup Root-less Xorg with DWM on it

source