4 ms·

OK so I'm 7 years old. My parents are my parents, so I've got constraints you would give a child who sometimes wets the bed and can't always put all their own c

OK so I'm 7 years old. My parents are my parents, so I've got constraints you would give a child who sometimes wets the bed and can't always put all their own clothes on. I've got a bunch of paper and crayons. See you in a couple of hours, cause I'm just gonna draw. (or is childhood that different, now?)

meheleventyone 8y ago
Urrm, seven is quite old in respect to doing something like programming. I was writing (quite rubbish) BASIC on the ZX Spectrum at that age in the late 80's. No easy error messages and a single book to help. My own four year old no longer wets the bed and can easily dress herself when she can be convinced too.
- DanBC 8y ago
  1 in 10 children still wet the bad at age 7.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > 1 in 10 children still wet the bad at age 7. Which mean 9 in 10 don't. Not that, in any case, wetting the bed is actually in any way anything but a distraction in this discussion.
oldcynic 8y ago
At under 7 years old my daughter was doing surprisingly fancy things in MS paint. Including finding features we didn't even know Paint had. "Daaaaaaad, crayons are boring, can I use the computer?" (I think there's a few minor differences) :)
TomMarius 8y ago
It was (for some people) that different 20 years ago, at least from what I remember from my own childhood.
- justinator 8y ago
  I was 7, 30 years ago. We wouldn't have a computer in the house for another 10 years. Owning a personal computer in the 80's wasn't given, even in the middle class white Connecticut suburban neighborhood I grew up in. I was introduced to Logo at school maybe not at seven, but maybe 11? Looking back, I would have given anything to just have more play time where I made up the rules, and those rules weren't called "rules" (because that's what playing is, right?) As an adult, I find that I'm not playing by making computer programs, but by going into the woods, and pretending I'm basically a kid and exploring and getting a bit caught up in my own imagination. It's... it's lovely.
dragonwriter 8y ago
I was 7 years old in 1980. I only wasn't using a computer yet because I had another year before I got into fourth grade where thet had a class computer (a Commodore PET), and I was programming a computer at home (a Timex/Sinclair 1000) a year after that, and a PC another couple years later. And none of that was particularly outstanding for my peer group, except some of their families got Apple or Atari computers instead of PCs.
megaman22 8y ago
Many seven year old children I know cannot even read at that age, let alone write computer programs. Most of them have the deck stacked against them in ways that most HN members or their offspring never will, but it's important not to lose sight of the struggles that average and below-average people face.

meheleventyone 8y ago

Urrm, seven is quite old in respect to doing something like programming. I was writing (quite rubbish) BASIC on the ZX Spectrum at that age in the late 80's. No easy error messages and a single book to help. My own four year old no longer wets the bed and can easily dress herself when she can be convinced too.

DanBC 8y ago
1 in 10 children still wet the bad at age 7.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > 1 in 10 children still wet the bad at age 7. Which mean 9 in 10 don't. Not that, in any case, wetting the bed is actually in any way anything but a distraction in this discussion.

oldcynic 8y ago

At under 7 years old my daughter was doing surprisingly fancy things in MS paint. Including finding features we didn't even know Paint had. "Daaaaaaad, crayons are boring, can I use the computer?" (I think there's a few minor differences) :)

TomMarius 8y ago

It was (for some people) that different 20 years ago, at least from what I remember from my own childhood.

justinator 8y ago
I was 7, 30 years ago. We wouldn't have a computer in the house for another 10 years. Owning a personal computer in the 80's wasn't given, even in the middle class white Connecticut suburban neighborhood I grew up in. I was introduced to Logo at school maybe not at seven, but maybe 11? Looking back, I would have given anything to just have more play time where I made up the rules, and those rules weren't called "rules" (because that's what playing is, right?) As an adult, I find that I'm not playing by making computer programs, but by going into the woods, and pretending I'm basically a kid and exploring and getting a bit caught up in my own imagination. It's... it's lovely.

dragonwriter 8y ago

I was 7 years old in 1980. I only wasn't using a computer yet because I had another year before I got into fourth grade where thet had a class computer (a Commodore PET), and I was programming a computer at home (a Timex/Sinclair 1000) a year after that, and a PC another couple years later. And none of that was particularly outstanding for my peer group, except some of their families got Apple or Atari computers instead of PCs.

megaman22 8y ago

Many seven year old children I know cannot even read at that age, let alone write computer programs. Most of them have the deck stacked against them in ways that most HN members or their offspring never will, but it's important not to lose sight of the struggles that average and below-average people face.