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My mom taught me programming as a 6 year old almost 25 years ago. I went on to study it at college night school from 10 to 14 and held a job before graduating h

My mom taught me programming as a 6 year old almost 25 years ago. I went on to study it at college night school from 10 to 14 and held a job before graduating high school programming ASP, JS, and MS SQL. Sometimes parents can teach their children things and have it stick.

deleted 12y ago
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fit2rule 12y ago
Yeah, not everything involving generations is so myopic. My kids, 7 and 4, are absolutely entranced by computers and love to sit down at our old-school 8-bit battlestation and bash things out. The elder has figured out how to do his maths homework on it, and the younger has become an expert at loading files and running them. None of this would be possible if I hadn't encouraged them to investigate computers by setting up the battlestation in the first place .. I think the key to getting kids interested in programming is to understanding cyclomatic complexity in the first place, and not introducing them to things that will overwhelm their interest. In the case of our 8-bit machines, which are still fully functional programming devices, we seem to have met the sweet spot .. lets see if in a couple of years we upgrade them to a Linux box and compilers and so on. I'm fairly confident this will happen .. at least in the case of the 4 year old, whose affinity for the subject seems to be being amplified by observing daily his elder brothers' competence and confidence as they discover - together - new things.
- nazka 12y ago
  I will be very interested if one day you write about it. How you "designed" the right battlestation (not too hard, but still challenging enough for their age), and how you get them interested while avoiding not to over push them. Really cool!
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Actually I didn't have to do much beyond setting up the machines (in our case an Oric-1/Atmos) and getting the means together to load the old software archives on it.. once that was ready and booted, the kids just took over. It turns out that 8-bit computing is really accessible to little kids, just like it was for me in the 80's, and while that may have changed with the current generation: the old machines still live! ;)
- allendoerfer 12y ago
  It seems to me, that you are exactly doing what I suggested: Provide the platform and let them make experiences on their own.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    In case it wasn't clear - I was agreeing with you and contributing to furthering your point! :)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

fit2rule 12y ago

Yeah, not everything involving generations is so myopic. My kids, 7 and 4, are absolutely entranced by computers and love to sit down at our old-school 8-bit battlestation and bash things out. The elder has figured out how to do his maths homework on it, and the younger has become an expert at loading files and running them. None of this would be possible if I hadn't encouraged them to investigate computers by setting up the battlestation in the first place .. I think the key to getting kids interested in programming is to understanding cyclomatic complexity in the first place, and not introducing them to things that will overwhelm their interest. In the case of our 8-bit machines, which are still fully functional programming devices, we seem to have met the sweet spot .. lets see if in a couple of years we upgrade them to a Linux box and compilers and so on. I'm fairly confident this will happen .. at least in the case of the 4 year old, whose affinity for the subject seems to be being amplified by observing daily his elder brothers' competence and confidence as they discover - together - new things.

nazka 12y ago
I will be very interested if one day you write about it. How you "designed" the right battlestation (not too hard, but still challenging enough for their age), and how you get them interested while avoiding not to over push them. Really cool!
- fit2rule 12y ago
  Actually I didn't have to do much beyond setting up the machines (in our case an Oric-1/Atmos) and getting the means together to load the old software archives on it.. once that was ready and booted, the kids just took over. It turns out that 8-bit computing is really accessible to little kids, just like it was for me in the 80's, and while that may have changed with the current generation: the old machines still live! ;)
allendoerfer 12y ago
It seems to me, that you are exactly doing what I suggested: Provide the platform and let them make experiences on their own.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  In case it wasn't clear - I was agreeing with you and contributing to furthering your point! :)