

What do you recommend for a teen programmer? - Aeiper

What do you think are the best resources and books?
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JC_Identity
The worst thing you can do when trying to become a great programmer is to
think that you need a book to learn how to program. I used to think that and
had to learn the hard way that the whole joy of programming and the proper
learning approach to programming comes from having an interesting project idea
that you want to build and use. That should be the driver at all times, and
you will see that after you have developed a couple of those project that you
learned a great deal and had a lot of fun doing it. Now that said, if you
still want to use books, which can be useful if you are a complete beginner, I
would recommend books that are based around building an example application.
In web development one such book is "agile web development with rails". If you
want to develop for iOS I would strongly recommend "The iOS Apprentice". This
last one is the best single learning resource I have come across ever. The
whole course is a joy and you learn how to think as a pro programmer and the
natural iterative workflow of a pro programmer. I cannot recommend it enough.
I wish you good luck!

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orangethirty
I tell people to just sit down and build something. Nothing genius or great.
But _something_. Even if you get bored half wy and change projects. Just build
it. Need help? Build a hacker news replica in whatever language you like.

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RubberSoul
Don't shy away from technical content. I used to program as a teenager, but
ended up not going into computer science. I mainly focused on learning
whatever would help me accomplish a short-term goal (usually creating a game).
Now I am a doctoral student and mainly program for research purposes, and
sometimes regret not focusing on more difficult material like algorithms,
applied mathematics, and low-level languages. There is high returns to the
stuff that seems boring as a teenager, but a lot of that stuff will be
relevant even if the language you choose to learn now turns out to be
unpopular when you try to get a job.

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juvoni
I created this document full of curated lists of resources, recommendations
etc.. check it out [http://www.scribd.com/doc/126959684/Learning-Technology-
Codi...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/126959684/Learning-Technology-Coding-Care-
Package)

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retrogradeorbit
What do I recommend for a teen programmer? Unit testing. Best resources and
books? There are just so many good books. Last one I enjoyed was The Pragmatic
Programmer. Next I'm going to try reading Clean Code. Keep learning. Keep
reading. Keep writing.

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kris121
I thing it's totally Wrong :(

You confuse the teen by tell him to learn "Clean Code". It's should be about
Learn Basic skill First.

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csense
Two words: Video games.

Sweigart's tutorials [1] are a perennial favorite. The materials formerly
hosted at simpson.edu [2] are also good.

[1] <http://inventwithpython.com/>

[2] <http://programarcadegames.com/>

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Aeiper
Thanks everyone!

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informatimago
learn lisp, read sicp.

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daniel-cussen
I did this, and honestly, it's kind of steep. In hindsight I might have
learned it after Python.

