My forever project's been going since 2008 (yikes!) I've been working on a computing environment for kids, and I'm super proud with how far it has come. https

My forever project's been going since 2008 (yikes!) I've been working on a computing environment for kids, and I'm super proud with how far it has come. https://clubcompy.com https://clubcompy.com I think modern machines and languages are far too advanced for the little little kids. So, I went the old school line-numbered, BASIC language clone route. I felt that that was the simplest (albeit crudest) approach to getting code into the computer that I've ever experienced. Obviously, I want kids to learn to hack, so does everybody. But more than that, my angle is that I want the kids to become expert quickly and bump up against the constrained ceiling my language imposes, maybe after a year or two of tinkering. Then, I want to always dangle something more low level in the system like assembler/byte codes that they can graduate to and use to code more efficient/complex works with. For the hardcore kid hackers, I figure by the time they master my assembler and get some chops, they'll be in high school and be eager to move on to more professional computer languages and Linux. My computing history goes something like this: I got my start with Commodore 8-bit computers, hooked right away on type-in BASIC game listings in Compute's Gazette. (I'm still in possession of boxes of issues.) I was multiplexing sprites with 6510 assembly before I turned 10. I got my first C compiler, the lovely Microsoft QuickC 2.0, in 8th grade. Hacked on my dad's Tandy PC clone like a fiend all through high school. I skipped a year of computer science in college due to my superb AP Pascal test scores, allowing me to graduate in 4 years instead of 5! Did the artistic thing and joined NovaLogic straight out of college, hacking mostly Intel 32-bit Assembly ... to code their game installers, no less?! (Macho bunch, those dudes.) Moved on to a systems integrator in SF and have been developing intranet apps with them for over a decade, making a great living. Family, house, cars, career -- I trace it back to BASIC and a mom with the means and foresight to invest some mad money in her little kid's hobby. I don't think my story is all that unique for my generation, we 30-somethings have a quirky computing history. I do worry about the next generations, however. Maybe it's just the protective dad in me, but I see less and less hardcore geeks coming up the ranks; what I am seeing are people who lack context, cannot focus, and have little love for the craft. It's scary. I feel ClubCompy is a calling: that in order to keep this whole software ball we have rolling, we need to make more hardcore coders. And don't start teaching them in high school, start in grade school. I would be so honored to give kids a start to their life with computers. We could raise a generation of coders who are far better than the current crop, and give them their own quirky history to claim as well. That's my dream, at least.