3 ms·

My teenager asked me to teach him to program this summer, here's my plan

5 points by brightball 5y ago

brightball 5y ago
Any suggestions on direction that I can get from the HN crowd would be much appreciated. I've been wrestling with the best way to do this for a couple of months now.
- DrSiemer 5y ago
  Make sure the kid is having fun. Don't put the bar too high; you don't need to understand linux just to build a website. Get quick results, make things they can show or send to friends. Something that is either entertaining or will benefit the people around them in some way is preferred. Help them come up with a plan, something they want to see realized, and the cart will basically pull itself. The rest will follow.
  - brightball 5y ago
    For what it's worth, he wants to learn to program so he can do it for actual work. Also, he thinks the command line is about the coolest thing he's ever seen and that's the main reason I'm starting there. He gets a lot of enjoyment from that. Getting him a system76 linux laptop as his first computer for full immersion sake, but most of the rest of what I've laid out so far is intended to be "light touch" on each subject with just enough to show him how it all comes together.
    - DrSiemer 5y ago
      It's great that the interest in the technical side is already there, that will make things a lot easier. The point about centering on the fun factor still stands. Looking at my own career, the greatest jumps in my development have always been made with projects I truly wanted to see made. Usually those were hobby projects, but sometimes paid work as well, if a project is challenging in an interesting way, or just feels worthwhile for what it is.
      - brightball 5y ago
        Completely agree with you there. Same for me, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to build until I knew what was possible. That’s kinda why I’m hoping to light touch everything to see where he gravitates
- Arnt 5y ago
  «If we list all the natural numbers below 10 that are multiples of 3 or 5, we get 3, 5, 6 and 9. The sum of these multiples is 23. Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000.» That problem, the first in Project Euler, really speaks to a few people. Not to many. Ask your teenager.
  - brightball 5y ago
    I like that! He loves math so it's probably something that he'll gravitate towards.
tcmart14 5y ago
I'd say if your gonna acquire a machine, if you can get one not off a scalper, get a Pi. You can do the thing with introducing linux. You can do web development on it. You can play with databases on it. You can also play around hardware and GPIO pins so you can teach a more diverse set of programming or have the option to delve into a much more diverse set. And perhaps your teenager will find an area they like best. Perhaps they really like twiddling bits on the GPIO and want to make a device. Perhaps they like the web programming. Perhaps your teenage ends up rolling some service on their own they find useful and they can at the end of the summer throw it in a corner somewhere and interact with it from another computer and it won't take much space.
- brightball 5y ago
  That's a great idea. Honestly one of the reasons I plan to move to Elixir towards the end is the potential to gauge his interest in Nerves for that type of thing.

5 points by brightball 5y ago

Any suggestions on direction that I can get from the HN crowd would be much appreciated. I've been wrestling with the best way to do this for a couple of months now.

DrSiemer 5y ago
Make sure the kid is having fun. Don't put the bar too high; you don't need to understand linux just to build a website. Get quick results, make things they can show or send to friends. Something that is either entertaining or will benefit the people around them in some way is preferred. Help them come up with a plan, something they want to see realized, and the cart will basically pull itself. The rest will follow.
- brightball 5y ago
  For what it's worth, he wants to learn to program so he can do it for actual work. Also, he thinks the command line is about the coolest thing he's ever seen and that's the main reason I'm starting there. He gets a lot of enjoyment from that. Getting him a system76 linux laptop as his first computer for full immersion sake, but most of the rest of what I've laid out so far is intended to be "light touch" on each subject with just enough to show him how it all comes together.
  - DrSiemer 5y ago
    It's great that the interest in the technical side is already there, that will make things a lot easier. The point about centering on the fun factor still stands. Looking at my own career, the greatest jumps in my development have always been made with projects I truly wanted to see made. Usually those were hobby projects, but sometimes paid work as well, if a project is challenging in an interesting way, or just feels worthwhile for what it is.
    - brightball 5y ago
      Completely agree with you there. Same for me, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to build until I knew what was possible. That’s kinda why I’m hoping to light touch everything to see where he gravitates
Arnt 5y ago
«If we list all the natural numbers below 10 that are multiples of 3 or 5, we get 3, 5, 6 and 9. The sum of these multiples is 23. Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000.» That problem, the first in Project Euler, really speaks to a few people. Not to many. Ask your teenager.
- brightball 5y ago
  I like that! He loves math so it's probably something that he'll gravitate towards.

tcmart14 5y ago

I'd say if your gonna acquire a machine, if you can get one not off a scalper, get a Pi. You can do the thing with introducing linux. You can do web development on it. You can play with databases on it. You can also play around hardware and GPIO pins so you can teach a more diverse set of programming or have the option to delve into a much more diverse set. And perhaps your teenager will find an area they like best. Perhaps they really like twiddling bits on the GPIO and want to make a device. Perhaps they like the web programming. Perhaps your teenage ends up rolling some service on their own they find useful and they can at the end of the summer throw it in a corner somewhere and interact with it from another computer and it won't take much space.

brightball 5y ago
That's a great idea. Honestly one of the reasons I plan to move to Elixir towards the end is the potential to gauge his interest in Nerves for that type of thing.