I think a lot of that is great advice for a thirteen-year-old just getting feet wet, particularly the suggestion about diving in and hacking around. I self-le

I think a lot of that is great advice for a thirteen-year-old just getting feet wet, particularly the suggestion about diving in and hacking around. I self-learned a whole lot about programming (and game design) with http://www.alice.org/ http://www.alice.org/ around the same age. It gives you a built-in 3D engine but learning more and more about Python lets you do cooler simulations. Maybe he should check it out?