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How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program?
thelordx writes "I've got a much younger brother who I'd like to teach how to program. When I was younger, you'd often start off with something like BASIC or Apple BASIC, maybe move on to Pascal, and eventually get to C and Java. Is something like Pascal still a dominant teaching language? I'd love to get low-level with him, and I firmly believe that C is the best language to eventually learn, but I'm not sure how to get him there. Can anyone recommend a language I can start to teach him that is simple enough to learn quickly, but powerful enough to do interesting things and lead him down a path towards C/C++?"
Python is multiplatform and is free. There are quite a few free tools and libraries available. It is a 'real' language that is at the same time suitable for youngsters to learn on. With the huge Python ecosystem that exists you can have them cranking out code in a text editor, an interpreter or a full blown IDE. (A wide number of them in fact). Python also makes for a nice bridge to C as it pretty easy to integrate the two. If you feel competent, you could probably just hit the Python docs and work your way through them. If you'd like a little help and have material already prepared for teaching younger people how to program with Python, there are resources out there.
I recommend Hello World! which uses Python. (You can read my full review of it here.)
If you don't want to buy a book, then you may want to look at Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python 2nd ed. I haven't read it myself yet, and a quick glance showed it to have some rough edges, but one can't be too picky at that price. It is available to download or read online.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You didn't tell if he actually is interested in programming at all. Because if he isn't, he will never be. I tried to show programming for my little brother too, but he just couldn't be interested. It's something you need to be interested at, and if you are, you've probably picked it up yourself at that age. But maybe it's worth giving it a try at least, but don't feel bad if he doesn't get interested in it.
I started programming with Quick Basic. I don't remember exactly how I got there, I think I was doing "programming" like stuff with Paint or other such programs and my father instructed me to Quick Basic (this is when I was 7-8 years old). I remember having some game programming with quick basic book, that had simple examples and exercises. It was probably perfect for that age; simple, but still you got to see nice results. If i would had been dropped in to c/c++ instantly, I would probably had dropped whole programming thing.
Next logical translation from that was to Visual Basic, continuing on making own games, mostly top-down ones. It was nice to be in Windows environment, while still having easy language to go by. And there were DirectX libraries available too, and I learned first basics in 3D programming and raytracing. There were also some nice sierra style adventuring games game developing books released and I had couple of them.
Next step is more interesting tho. I had tried c++ for some times already, but I never really liked it. It was too much shit to get by, and wasn't that nice to develop with. I mean, I knew it and could code with it, but I really didn't want to. But I tried Delphi, and fell in love with it, mostly because of it's comprehensive component library, good help and nice coding. To this day I still prefer Delphi in GUI programming unless I really have to use C, it's just a lot nicer.
But the main point being, do not throw him right away to the nerdy shit that programming is. Get him started with the more easy programming languages first. There's a lot more such now a days too. Hell, don't except him to get to c++ programming ever. It's a limited area in work sense. Sure it's good to know it, but it isn't the best language or answer to everything.
Just let it be fun for him, and get him interested on programming on its own merits. Otherwise it's not going to work.
There's nothing particularly wrong with plain C as a first language. (I'd avoid all the intricacies of C++ syntax for a first-timer. The OO stuff is, in my opinion, totally unnecessary for a first-time programmer to learn.)
Another good language for first-timers is a scripting language like python or ruby. (I like perl, but perl's syntax is goofy, and if he does want to explore OO at some point, it's better to learn it in a language that uses more standard OO syntax.) I've used python as a teaching language in the past, and it works fine.
One thing to think about is what programming projects he's interested in doing, and make sure he's set up for success. A lot of kids that age want to program games, but programming a real-time video game requires a *lot* of skills. Whatever project he wants to do, make sure you have a combination of OS, development environment, and libraries that will work.
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If he has any interest in programming, then Python in combination with pygame is probably the way to go. Python is easy to learn, and pygame will give him instant visual (and audio) gratification. The instant gratification part is the really important bit if you want to keep his interest up.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
You don't want to raise a sissy, do you? DO YOU?!
:D
It has to be Perl, of course.
That way, he'll either write Haikus and become a rock star programmer, or write Haikus and go raving mad and prove the rest of Hilbert's unsolved problems.
Either way, you'll have Haikus, either as errors or from your brother. You can't go wrong with that!