In the 80's I got some proprietary system with this nice graphics tool (I think I was about 5). It had a basic user interface, but you could get underneath and look at the BASIC behind it. You could make your own games pretty simply. That was the biggest urge for me to get into programming, and I suspect for most others as well. If you are concerned about them neglecting the arts of the Unix world, set them up with a Linux box to play around on. And when Borland/Inprise comes out with their version of Delphi for Linux, get that for them. The nice thing about Delphi/Pascal is that it is easy enough to pick up and start figuring out, but with enough power to still be able to do things. Delphi implements a (limited) object-oriented paradigm, and the syntax of Pascal is generally a good lead-in to C++.
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In the 80's I got some proprietary system with this nice graphics tool (I think I was about 5). It had a basic user interface, but you could get underneath and look at the BASIC behind it. You could make your own games pretty simply. That was the biggest urge for me to get into programming, and I suspect for most others as well. If you are concerned about them neglecting the arts of the Unix world, set them up with a Linux box to play around on. And when Borland/Inprise comes out with their version of Delphi for Linux, get that for them. The nice thing about Delphi/Pascal is that it is easy enough to pick up and start figuring out, but with enough power to still be able to do things. Delphi implements a (limited) object-oriented paradigm, and the syntax of Pascal is generally a good lead-in to C++.