Recommendations for children interested in programming

[russell]

I agree. Start with the basics - variables, if statements, loops, functions etc. Once they've got the hang of that they can think about moving to a more complicated language or topics.

Yeah you are right, C doesn't have any of those......

C is one of the smallest languages regarding syntax, it is procedural and you can stick to the simplest programs without worrying about malloc et, you don't have to start with pointer arithmetic, and all modern popular languages derive from it in some way, and it is also one of the most popular used language to this day.

TIOBE Software: The Coding Standards Company

[amcdonald]

What about going all retro and getting something like Dark Basic ?

All kids like games, so it can be fun and educational

[d000hg]

Yeah you are right, C doesn't have any of those......

By that logic, so does C++... the point is C has way more stuff going on top of that.

For someone learning programming at an age old enough to learn C, then C is a great choice. But BASIC allows one to start learning at an even earlier age, ingraining the entire idea of programming when the brain is super-receptive... you can literally shape the brain to understand programming.

[Sysman]

Its easy writing code with visual studio, its difficult to write good code without the appreciation of how the hardware works.

Amen to that.

And on the BASIC versus C thing, yes. BASIC should be achievable at a much earlier stage. In fact the cover of some C book I bought years ago was full of examples of common C gotchas.

[pmeswani]

Smalltalk?

[Scrag Meister]

C64 and a subscription to Commodore Horizons.

Oh wait a minute...... Doh!!!

I learnt Basic when I was 14/15 and have been programming in it for 30 years, commercially for 25.

Anything .NET is 2 quite separate things as the Framework is one learning curve and the language another. Once you know the framework you can plug in a language, I would say that VB makes more sense at an early age, but I am biased, just easier to read.

[Durbs]

Get him a Lego Mindstorm set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mi...ming_languages

[d000hg]

Get him a Lego Mindstorm set.

What's the programming side of that like?

[Durbs]

What's the programming side of that like?

Uses everything from C to .NET. I'd edited the post above to provide a linky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mi...storms_NXT_2.0

Cant say how easy it is to get into though as never tried it but had considered getting a set for my eldest lad as he's obsessed with Lego and is clever for a young'un.

[Jaws]

You could take a look at Scratch. It is a Smalltalk based programming language introducing the concepts via drag & drop elements. Never used it myself but I believe it is on the Pi already and schools are using it according to another contractor here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch...mming_language)