4 ms·

The 8-Year-Old Programmer

4 points by robg 16y ago

wccrawford 16y ago
I was programming at 10 years old without the GUI doing everything for me. It could be done at 8. But kids have so many things they could be doing, and programming is a long-term reward. In the short term, it is incredibly frustrating. Even with these fancy GUIs, it's still going to be difficult to get the system to do what you want, and to get it to do interesting and cool things is even harder. On the other hand, games like Little Big Planet let you create amazing worlds very easily, and if you want to do complex things, there are ways to add logic and automation to the world. It's a more gentle introduction than a language designed for children, and a LOT more rewarding. LBP2 is apparently going to allow even greater complexity. Kids who play LBP and make their own levels with logic are on the path to being programmers... Or working in other fields that require logic. Sure, not all of them will, but at least they're being introduced to it in a way that they find fun.
- abalashov 16y ago
  But kids have so many things they could be doing, and programming is a long-term reward I think it depends somewhat on the cognitive reward mechanism. I could not help but learn to program at that age not because I went long on a career bet[1] or a committed theoretical pursuit, but because I found addicting the short-term effects of making the computer do what you want. For example, I would love it when, as a 10 year old, I wrote a few lines of code, compiled them to test, and they spit out some additional output on the screen. That very small, local effect, and, as I got older, more complex derivations of the same underlying feedback mechanism, gratified me in itself and kept me glued to the keyboard for many years. [1] In fact, coming from an academic family with scant social knowledge of business prior to being working age, I had only a very distant, nebulous, and unsubstantiated awareness of the fact that I had skills that were actually marketable -- and did not really think they presented a particular job market advantage -- as late as 18. I had seen them as aesthetic pursuits. I could've just as easily gotten into violin or oil painting as into programming, if we're going by mindset and sense of purpose alone.
TYPE_FASTER 16y ago
Using a game console is smart. The VIC-20 and C-64 used to drop you at a programming prompt. START CODING! Using a PC is just work now. You have to apply Windows Updates, protect it from virus attacks, don't click on popup ads, yada. It's not fun, just annoying. Getting back to the fun of using abstract logic to solve a problem, which is the fun part of programming, at least to me, will get more kids interested.

4 points by robg 16y ago

I was programming at 10 years old without the GUI doing everything for me. It could be done at 8. But kids have so many things they could be doing, and programming is a long-term reward. In the short term, it is incredibly frustrating. Even with these fancy GUIs, it's still going to be difficult to get the system to do what you want, and to get it to do interesting and cool things is even harder. On the other hand, games like Little Big Planet let you create amazing worlds very easily, and if you want to do complex things, there are ways to add logic and automation to the world. It's a more gentle introduction than a language designed for children, and a LOT more rewarding. LBP2 is apparently going to allow even greater complexity. Kids who play LBP and make their own levels with logic are on the path to being programmers... Or working in other fields that require logic. Sure, not all of them will, but at least they're being introduced to it in a way that they find fun.

abalashov 16y ago
But kids have so many things they could be doing, and programming is a long-term reward I think it depends somewhat on the cognitive reward mechanism. I could not help but learn to program at that age not because I went long on a career bet[1] or a committed theoretical pursuit, but because I found addicting the short-term effects of making the computer do what you want. For example, I would love it when, as a 10 year old, I wrote a few lines of code, compiled them to test, and they spit out some additional output on the screen. That very small, local effect, and, as I got older, more complex derivations of the same underlying feedback mechanism, gratified me in itself and kept me glued to the keyboard for many years. [1] In fact, coming from an academic family with scant social knowledge of business prior to being working age, I had only a very distant, nebulous, and unsubstantiated awareness of the fact that I had skills that were actually marketable -- and did not really think they presented a particular job market advantage -- as late as 18. I had seen them as aesthetic pursuits. I could've just as easily gotten into violin or oil painting as into programming, if we're going by mindset and sense of purpose alone.

TYPE_FASTER 16y ago

Using a game console is smart. The VIC-20 and C-64 used to drop you at a programming prompt. START CODING! Using a PC is just work now. You have to apply Windows Updates, protect it from virus attacks, don't click on popup ads, yada. It's not fun, just annoying. Getting back to the fun of using abstract logic to solve a problem, which is the fun part of programming, at least to me, will get more kids interested.