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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

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.

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.