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>Children can learn programming or other skills later but playing with toys Not debating you but I find it interesting how both your comments _differentiates_
by jasode 5y ago
>Children can learn programming or other skills later but playing with toys
Not debating you but I find it interesting how both your comments _differentiates_ "learn programming" vs "playing with toys".
When I learned coding at age 11, "programming a computer" _was_ "playing with a toy". Programming wasn't an "adult" job that grownups did. Instead, programming was like playing a music instrument or painting art with brushes.
That said, I agree that not all kids exposed to programming will think of it as play.
- Jtsummers 5y agoSame for me when I was first learning. I just wanted to get to whatever version of BASIC we had (I have no recollection now what specifically it was, but I asked my dad and he showed me how to use the DOS prompt) so I could make pictures like they did in my math textbook (end of chapters had lessons on BASIC and programming). Making pretty pictures was play, and then simple games (a hobby I continued with to pass the time in science classes in high school with my TI-85/86). And at some point in middle school I realized I could use these programs to solve problems and started doing that, too. Just like there's recreational mathematics, a lot of programming can be "recreational", something for play not for "serious" work (even if it happens that the serious bits follow from the play).