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We did not restrict access, and when my youngest was 11, he said he wanted to be a game developer. (As he says, "everyone wants to be a game developer.") We a
by NPMaxwell 9y ago
We did not restrict access, and when my youngest was 11, he said he wanted to be a game developer. (As he says, "everyone wants to be a game developer.") We agreed to support him, but only if he wanted to do it "for real". "For real" meant first learning C or Java. He agreed and we did something that seemed obvious after the fact: we hired a programming teacher the way other families hire a music teacher. Our son met with this college senior who had taken Java once a week for an hour and the guy took our son through the first 5 courses of UW's CS sequence. Sort of worked well: At 19, when my son applied for jobs, he could say 8 years experience in Java. By then, he also had C, C++, Lua, Unity, and 3D StudioMax. He made a stab at starting a game-development company, and wiped out on that first try. At 24, he is now coding backend for apps supporting farming and creates games now and then on weekends. (Some day, he might get his G.E.D.)
- Endy 9y agoI say this as a joke, but what if he'd wanted to learn FlashScript instead of Java or C*?
- sandov 9y agoHe'd be selling drugs by now.
- rbanffy 9y agoProgramming is the hard part. Language is a detail.
- ratsimihah 9y agoWhat’s FlashScript? I first “picked up” programming by getting a book that teaches ActionScript. I can’t remember why I bought that book at 12 years old and why ActionScript, but learning about OOP before anything else was interesting. As far as I remember, I didn’t continue with AS, but around 18 I started messing with PHP and never stopped building things since then.
- NPMaxwell 9y ago:) We did reach out to developers and got our list (Java or C/C++) from them. There's a serious parenting question in your joke. We presented the whole thing as if we were in control: it's an illusion. He could have screamed, "SCREW YOU!", and locked himself in his room. As it was, we said, "It has to be Java or C" and he believed us. Lucky!