I appreciate the sentiment, having grown up as a younger sibling surrounded by machines in various states of undress. I'll always remember the time I broke a co

I appreciate the sentiment, having grown up as a younger sibling surrounded by machines in various states of undress. I'll always remember the time I broke a corner off a mainboard, and watching my cousin repair it. I firmly believe in giving children room to explore, and never telling them that something is "too hard". But it's a long leap from "this is how I did it" to "we're doing it wrong". I also question the idea that only some kids can/should learn how to code. A computer is not a saxophone or a snail. Today, computer illiteracy is a disadvantage; tomorrow it'll be a handicap. And just like kid-sized pots and pans and screwdrivers, some languages are easier for kids to grasp. Going from DOS to QBASIC to C worked for the author; that was the stuff that happened to be installed. Nothing wrong with laying other "toys" around too.