Technical ability does not directly imply an understanding of ethics or responsibility. To say that it does would be comparable to saying that technical ability directly implies knowledge of grammar, chemistry, and Victorian-era poetry. There is no reason to suppose that a programmer should have priviledged knowledge of ethics merely on the basis that he is a programmer.
I learned C when I was 11, but I'd say I didn't really grasp the concept of "ethics" until around the age of 19, making me a bit immature compared to the set standard of 18.
I got started on early Sierra games. Then I ended up learning C after my parents moved to a rural area when I was 11, mainly out of lack of anything better to do. I learned enough to write a DOS-based pong clone, then quit until college, where (from what I've seen) most graduates still couldn't write a pong clone.
My advice would be to allow your kids to explore programming if they wish, but don't force them. My parents didn't encourage it or discourage it, and left me to my own interests, even though my dad was a programmer who was fairly passionate about computers (at least at the time).
C was my first language, and I think it is appropriate for a kid to learn, despite what other people say. But seriously, I would have been a lot happier now if I didn't spend as much time in front of a computer when I was younger. Encourage your kids to go out and play, so they don't become nerds who only learn that they don't really care about computers until they're 5 months from a BS in computer science (like me). Programmers, especially those from newer generations, are typically not well-adjusted. Don't propigate the cycle if you don't have to.
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Technical ability does not directly imply an understanding of ethics or responsibility. To say that it does would be comparable to saying that technical ability directly implies knowledge of grammar, chemistry, and Victorian-era poetry. There is no reason to suppose that a programmer should have priviledged knowledge of ethics merely on the basis that he is a programmer. I learned C when I was 11, but I'd say I didn't really grasp the concept of "ethics" until around the age of 19, making me a bit immature compared to the set standard of 18.
I got started on early Sierra games. Then I ended up learning C after my parents moved to a rural area when I was 11, mainly out of lack of anything better to do. I learned enough to write a DOS-based pong clone, then quit until college, where (from what I've seen) most graduates still couldn't write a pong clone. My advice would be to allow your kids to explore programming if they wish, but don't force them. My parents didn't encourage it or discourage it, and left me to my own interests, even though my dad was a programmer who was fairly passionate about computers (at least at the time). C was my first language, and I think it is appropriate for a kid to learn, despite what other people say. But seriously, I would have been a lot happier now if I didn't spend as much time in front of a computer when I was younger. Encourage your kids to go out and play, so they don't become nerds who only learn that they don't really care about computers until they're 5 months from a BS in computer science (like me). Programmers, especially those from newer generations, are typically not well-adjusted. Don't propigate the cycle if you don't have to.