I learned programming in elementary school using C-16 and Commodore plus 4 machines in 80s Hungary. It was amazing that we could type in some BASIC command and

I learned programming in elementary school using C-16 and Commodore plus 4 machines in 80s Hungary. It was amazing that we could type in some BASIC command and the computer did what we told it to do. We learned to manage files on disks, I/O, various conditions, etc. It was crazy how a few lines of LOGO could draw a flower on the screen. I was amazed to see it demonstrated that pseudorandom numbers generate the same number on different machines. Then I got my C64 a bit later since I guess I was enthusiastic about the subject. My problem was not being able to learn fast enough, I couldn't ask from anybody, there was no internet and books were limited in my language. I wanted to learn machine code, but just couldn't, it was an impenetrable wall without a mentor. So I stuck with BASIC and transitioned gaming. I still remember encoding sprites by hand in my workbook instead of paying attention to the class I was at :) It was all good for discovering that I actually like dealing with computers and I would be interested in going deeper. It was also good to remember that when I got my first Pentium machine that programming is actually approachable and you don't have to be a superhuman genius to write programs. > But while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually have very little to do with the work of creating software. You have to start _somewhere_, it doesn't really matter where and how kids learn what a variable, loop, function call is.