On 05/20/2012 09:07 PM, boB Stepp wrote:
This is, in a sense, a related question to the ones I just posted.
While observing me studying programming, my son has become interested
in learning how to program as well. I have given him a very old
Gateway PC to play around with. It was new when W95 came out. I have
started him out with QBASIC, which comes with W95. He seems to be
doing fine, but I am wondering if this is the best way to start him in
the world of programming? Any thoughts about this?
Thanks!
This sounds great! I started programming around 8 or 9 too with BASIC
(QBasic, GWBasic,,,).
Your son is very lucky in two ways:
1- He is an english speaker: When I was his age, all I spoke were four
languages (french, arabic, kabyle and algerian dialect) and none of them
was english. English is the language to really access good resources on
programming.
2- There is Internet in 2012: I didn't log in until I was a teenager and
it was from an internet café because it was very expensive.
3- (I know I said two ways, but you shouldn't have believed me): He has
a father who's an insider. It's a tremendous plus because you "get it".
The syntax is kind of merciful so he'd be up and running in no time,
tackling what he really wants to do.
If I may suggest Zed Shaw's excellent series:
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
The book can be found here (HTML):
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
I'm biased, the guy has similar stuff for C too.
Later, he could do things with C/Python. I'm reading a book called "Real
World Instrumentation with Python" where the author shows a combination
between hardware level programming with C and wrapping/binding with
Python. It's very interesting.
Good luck to both of you!
--
~Jugurtha Hadjar,
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