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I have just started teaching my daughter to program. I would certainly agree that starting off is not nearly as easy as it used to be. Kids love interactive an
by SeanDav 11y ago
I have just started teaching my daughter to program. I would certainly agree that starting off is not nearly as easy as it used to be.
Kids love interactive and graphical environments and trying to do this in any mainstream language quickly becomes non trivial.
I chose Python and pygame but it gets confusing for the child to see things like:
from pygame.locals import *
and
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == QUIT:
pygame.quit()
and
size = (120, 640)
screen = pygame.display.set_mode(size)
One can tell her to ignore these and just accept they are necessary but it does cause issues and looks very intimidating to a beginner.
- technomalogical 11y agoif you want to stick with Python, try looking at the turtle library (https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/turtle.html https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/turtle.html). Right in the documentation is a 10 line program that creates a yellow and red starburst. It even supports entering the commands in the REPL so she can see the commands running as they are entered.
- bitJericho 11y agoIt's as easy as it used to be because these old computers still work well and are relatively inexpensive. I own and keep operational both an Apple IIc and a Commodore 64 and my children have easy access to them.
- clouddrover 11y agoFor a beginner I'd say Pascal is more approachable than Python and even BASIC. Free Pascal 3.0 (http://www.freepascal.org/ http://www.freepascal.org/) runs on lots of platforms and Lazarus (http://www.lazarus-ide.org/ http://www.lazarus-ide.org/) gives you a visual development environment.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoPascal was the third language I learned growing up (right after Commodore BASIC and assembly). I highly recommend Pascal even today. It's a simple, yet powerful learning language.
- gosub 11y agoprocessing may be a nice alternative. very small boilerplate to have a graphical/interactive program running, and a cute ide to keep your sketches. https://processing.org/ https://processing.org/
- gregorymichael 11y agoLove your username.
- wvenable 11y agoI had really good luck with old school Visual Basic 6 teaching my daughter to program. It was already obsolete but still ran at that time. It was far easier and more straight forward to get something done in that than any other language. It's probably still the case.