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Ask HN: What is the best way to start teaching my 9 year old son programming

• danjoc 9y ago
  Does he even know fractions yet? It sounds like you're setting him up to hate programming.
  • DamnYuppie 9y ago
    why do you need to know fractions to program? There is a myriad of things that can be accomplished without knowing fractions. It is more important that they have a grasp of logic and cause and effect. And or just a curiosity as to how things work, if I do x then I get y.
    • danjoc 9y ago
      >why do you need to know fractions to program? Try explaining a float to him if he doesn't understand division. You're pushing rope. The kid will learn programming, if he's interested in it, when he's ready.
      • timthorn 9y ago
        Not all languages have the distinction between floats and ints. A whole generation grew up on BASIC!
      • Jemmeh 9y ago
        You don't need to start that advanced, they can learn concepts and simple things like HTML easily.
  • subhashp 9y ago
    Fractions have been thought. But, I understand what you are saying and will cover basic stuff. e.g. Print, variables, loops and so on.
• Jemmeh 9y ago
  I really like some of the coding "games" that teach the concepts. For example https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/ https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/ but there's a bunch out there. I think it's important for kids to have fun with it so that they're motivated to keep learning. Also Scratch: https://scratch.mit.edu/parents/ https://scratch.mit.edu/parents/ (Aimed at 8-16 years old)
• subhashp 9y ago
  Thank you everyone for your feedback. I will keep everything simple and stop. Cover advanced stuff later on. I will follow links mentioned by Jemmeh.