
I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018) - dijit
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/i-m-a-developer-i-won-t-teach-my-kids-to-code-and-neither-should-you
======
Nursie
I would, were I going to have kids.

"while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually
have very little to do with the work of creating software."

Yes, and learning to read has little to do with the dramatic structures of
high literature, but without the one you're going to struggle to express the
other.

This article comes across as attention-seeking contrarianism.

~~~
spacephysics
That’s a good point. It also shows that those who are worried about everyone
learning to code, and our job market subsequently becoming saturated, is
rather a needless worry.

Sure some saturation will occur, but furthering your point, just because most
can read and write doesn’t mean they’ll all become professional writers.

~~~
fongitosous
what worries me is the code-monkey idea behind everyone can/need to code. I
don't want coding to become the blue-collar skill of the next decade.

~~~
paul_f
I hope you didn't mean this as elitist as it comes across. There's nothing
wrong with blue-collar coding

~~~
fongitosous
I meant it in a way that if coding becomes a blue-collar job salaries will go
lower, people who have ambition will move into another field, work life will
get harder.

------
BiteCode_dev
My brother asked me when and how I though I could teach my baby niece so that
she could make "a lot of money as a developper".

My answer was "when she asks for it".

There are many things a kid should learn, and among them, a huge number are
more important than programming (plus sometimes a pre-requisite for it):

\- reading

\- writing

\- basic maths

\- critical analysis

\- building your own idea

\- defending yourself verbally, mentally and physically

\- expressing yourself

\- chosing ingredients and preparing food

\- proper life hygiene

\- understanding the current society, the medias, the political system, etc

\- learning a second language

I recall that when I was a freshman, some kids were still not be able to read
out loud correctly.

Programming can come later. Way, way later.

In fact, she may even not enjoy programming at all, or even consider it.

I think the best bet is like with music. If it's something you want to share:
demo a lot of it in regular life, associate it with joy, and the kid may just
show an interest in it.

Then foster than.

Then setup lessons, discipline, etc.

But don't make it a requirement.

~~~
Nursie
I think programming should enter a kids learning environment around the same
time and priority as a second language.

How would someone know whether to consider it, if not exposed to it at all?

Most people in the English-speaking western world won't make a vast amount of
use of that second language. Some will though, and the rest of us will
appreciate that the training we did get helps us see things from a different
perspective and maybe lets us interact a little easier on vacation. Most won't
use their Chemistry or Physics education in day to day life, but it will help
them understand the world better.

As our world becomes dominated by software, training in it becomes similar -
even those who aren't going to go all in and follow a career in it, can
conceivably benefit from some training.

~~~
stevekemp
Languages can start very young though. Locally I'm familiar with a lot of
families of mixed-nationality. In my own case my partner's native language is
Finnish and mine English; our child grew up hearing/understanding both, and
now speaks both of them to the appropriate parent.

(It's quite fascinating to see that play out, we were walking in the street
recently and somebody stopped to ask me a question. He butted in and said
"Daddy speaks English", in Finnish, to the stranger.)

~~~
Nursie
True, I meant at about the time languages are often introduced in schools,
which tends to be a little later.

------
OliverJones
I gotta say, I had this same thought twenty years ago when my kiddos were pre-
teens. Be creative! Make beautiful things! Don't haul up the data on the Xerox
line like your old man!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDkmVo2fg4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDkmVo2fg4)

Man, was I WRONG! What a MISTAKE. My spouse and I fouled up some lives by
teaching that attitude.

My youngest wanted to do game dev. So she got Masters of Fine Art from an A
school concentrating in 3D animation and motion capture. Now she doesn't make
enough money to afford to live in a tiny apartment in the Bay Area exurbs
working a full-time temp job for a big game dev outfit.

My oldest also went to a A art school for an MFA. Now she's an office
administrator, almost forty, raising a family.

We're super-proud they don't have any debt. That took hard work. Still,
there's no way they're going to have the opportunities my spouse and I had.

Who has the labor market power to earn enough to feed their families in the
overpriced coastal areas? Engineers, lawyers, executives.

My mom was a classicist and really wanted me to spend a lot of time learning
to read the ancient greats in Latin and Greek. But she didn't push me too
hard; she let me make my own choices. That was good for me.

Please, please, young parents, be careful about how your ideologies affect the
small people in your care. Don't let your ideologies make them think their
choices are limited.

Seriously.

~~~
sebastialonso
I think I might be losing something, but why would you put your kids into art
school if you want to develop games?

Even thinking about the aspirational reason, game artists don't make the money
you might be thinking. That's engineering and engineering only.

It's like a tower of mistakes.

------
schwartzworld
> This gives the impression that not teaching kids to code is somehow
> equivalent to not teaching them to read. That is, of course, ridiculous.
> Coding is not the new literacy.

Except coding is like literacy. Not everybody needs to be a professional
writer, but there are few jobs today where reading and writing isn't a
necessity and even fewer where it isn't a useful skill. Outside of work,
reading and writing can be sources of pleasure and applied in many different
hobbies and disciplines.

Coding is the same way. If you know how to do it, you may see ways to make
your life easier by programming that someone who doesn't know how to could
never even imagine. sure, lots of people do fine without the skill, but when
reading wasn't taught to everybody, those people also got by without that
skill.

There was a time when using a computer and programming one were much more
tightly coupled than they are today, but with computers more powerful than
ever and users less savvy than ever, their magic is lost on many.

My (already born) children will learn to code, not because I want them to be
developers, but because I want whatever job they have to be simpler and easier
and more fun.

------
remram
The entire argument seems to be around how painful and pointless it is to
teach kids syntax. However most of the tools and courses I have seen that
introduce programming to kids do away with syntax, by using visual programming
and similar. Does the author think no improvement was done to programming
tutorials in the last 40 years?

------
waynecochran
Yep. I was a CS prof for 18 years and I now work as CS R&D engineer and I am
not teaching my kids to program. Teach them math. Teach them to solve
problems. They can learn to stare at a screen later in life.

------
jkhdigital
My son is almost 6 and I can say with near certainty that he will learn to
code regardless of what I have to say about it. He is absolutely mesmerized by
computers and as soon as he discovers that he can tell them exactly what to do
he will most likely teach himself. It’s exactly what I did—my father worked at
IBM and we always had a fairly capable PC at home but he was a mechanical
engineer so I was on my own for learning to code.

I really hope we don’t add coding to the laundry list of rote skills that kids
are evaluated on in school. Sure, make it available for those who are
interested, but let’s be honest—most kids will have little interest in coding,
and forcing them to learn it anyways will not provide any lasting benefit.

~~~
_curious_
"I really hope we don’t add coding to the laundry list of rote skills that
kids are evaluated on in school."

Why?

~~~
sebastialonso
Seriously.

> Sure, make it available for those who are interested, but let’s be
> honest—most kids will have little interest in coding, and forcing them to
> learn it anyways will not provide any lasting benefit.

This could apply to mathematically skills also. Personally, I would never
raise any kids under this ideology. It seems to foster ignorance and
conformism.

------
Stratoscope
> _One day, my son was concerned that a chair of his was wobbly. We looked at
> it and he helped me isolate the problem: One of the screws was loose. I
> found one of our many leftover hex wrenches and showed him how to screw it
> back in. After that, he was curious what would happen if he screwed the
> other way, which he did until the screw came out. We ended up taking the
> chair all the way apart and putting it back together a couple of times,
> often mismatching pieces, before he was satisfied the job was finished. Try
> something. See how it works. Try again._

My dad and I did this too! Not the chair, but things like it.

One time he gave me a sock full of shaver parts and said "I took my shaver
apart and can't figure out how to put it back together. Can you see what you
can do with all these parts?" It took a lot of experimenting and trial and
error, but I managed to get a working shaver put together.

TVs had tubes in those days (not just the picture tube, but a couple dozen
tubes in the circuit). As the tubes burned out, the TV would "go on the
fritz". So I got to pull all the tubes out, and we drove down to the corner
grocery where I plugged them into the tube tester, set the dials and checked
the meter readings to find the bad one. We went home with the replacement, put
the tubes back in, and the TV worked again! For a while.

Mom liked to sew, so I got to be the sewing machine repairman, cleaning and
oiling, untangling and threading the bobbin.

Then I went to kindergarten where I had fun pranking the other kids and the
teacher. For show and tell I brought a big fat electrolytic capacitor that I'd
charged up at home, and a screwdriver. I told them what capacitors were and
how dangerous they could be unless they were discharged. Then I "accidentally"
touched the two terminals, one with each hand, and pretended I was getting
electrocuted.

I somehow managed to break free, and then shorted the screwdriver across the
terminals with a big spark and a loud and scary pop. I put my hands on the
terminals again, smiled, and said, "It's discharged. It's safe now. You can
try it." And a few brave ones did.

What I didn't tell them was I'd only charged it up to six volts!

------
tiborsaas
I learned programming in elementary school using C-16 and Commodore plus 4
machines in 80s Hungary. It was amazing that we could type in some BASIC
command and the computer did what we told it to do. We learned to manage files
on disks, I/O, various conditions, etc. It was crazy how a few lines of LOGO
could draw a flower on the screen. I was amazed to see it demonstrated that
pseudorandom numbers generate the same number on different machines.

Then I got my C64 a bit later since I guess I was enthusiastic about the
subject. My problem was not being able to learn fast enough, I couldn't ask
from anybody, there was no internet and books were limited in my language. I
wanted to learn machine code, but just couldn't, it was an impenetrable wall
without a mentor. So I stuck with BASIC and transitioned gaming. I still
remember encoding sprites by hand in my workbook instead of paying attention
to the class I was at :)

It was all good for discovering that I actually like dealing with computers
and I would be interested in going deeper. It was also good to remember that
when I got my first Pentium machine that programming is actually approachable
and you don't have to be a superhuman genius to write programs.

> But while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they
> actually have very little to do with the work of creating software.

You have to start _somewhere_, it doesn't really matter where and how kids
learn what a variable, loop, function call is.

------
jonahbenton
I'm generally in agreement with this, but as I grew up programming and have 3
kids now will provide my $0.02 commentary-

* kids are shaped by what you share and demonstrate with them and what others share and demonstrate, and what takes root and grows in their hearts and minds is what you should encourage and support

* following the taking root metaphor, all kids have different soil and growth patterns and acquire different knowledge domains at different rates. A great deal of the domain acquisition is due tho not to IQ, however one defines it, but by EQ. That is, my observation is that feelings of safety, explorability, curiosity, satisfaction, and competition/conformance are what drive acquisition, and those are mostly or all EQ.

* programming as an activity is horrendously dumb, with stupid incantations and magical abstractions, and a complete disrespect of the human's time and engagement tempo. When it comes to kids, this is absolutely worst case.

* I have seen two very small, narrow exceptions to the above- some robotics kits, and Scratch. My son is 8 and found in Scratch a vehicle for exploration, curiosity and satisfaction, and has done some absolutely amazing things. It is a matter of curiosity for me that problems I found interesting in 6502 assembly when I was 13 and 14 he is tackling at 8 in Scratch.

* we don't have a voice interface tool in our house but I can definitely see voice-first being an engaging "programming" platform for kids, especially for girls.

------
cryo
Want to share my first hand experience as a kid of a programmer.

My father was a programmer in 70' to mid 90'. He would had loved for me
getting into the topic as well and showed me various things like early VESA
programming and simple games in the 80' (in Germany GDR on a self made
computer wired to a color TV). But programming and how it works didn't caught
my interest at all - zero. I was completely hooked by the graphics and games
though.

In the early 90' after the fall of Berlin wall, a friend of my dad gave me 3D
Studio for DOS on 14 floppy discs, and oh' boy this changed my life.

Started a career in the 3D film industry and it was 20 years after my
childhood that I caught interest in programming. I was blown away by what the
programmers could do with the 3D software Maya and slowly was dragged into it
and the curiosity never ended.

Nowadays I'm mostly a programmer who's also interested in graphics. Have
worked on various commercial products with embedded firmware, C++ GUIs and
Web/JS projects.

I'm a programmer not because my dad showed me that stuff in my childhood, I
got here out of an coincidence of getting 3D Studio for DOS.

Anyway, my dad is glad how it turned out in the end :)

~~~
stevage
I can relate to some of that. My dad, who was a programmer amongst other
things, tried to get me interested in electronics, but it just never really
caught on for me. Whereas programming I was pretty hooked from the start. I
did lots of BASIC and Pascal. He tried to get me onto C, but I was reluctant,
although I do remember him explaining pointers (I was maybe 10?) and it
finally making sense. Most of the learning I did along the way was driven by
me though, going to him when I got stuck.

Now I'm approaching 40 and a full time web developer.

------
Protostome
Coding is just the means to an end... I bought my daughter (4 yr) a microscope
(kid's version) and she is putting almost everything under it's lenses

Of course, being a biologist is much more than playing with a microscope, but
it's just a way to get kids excited about science and inspire them to be
curious and inquisitive.

Coding is just like this microscope. It enables children to discover the world
of computer science and software.

------
kissgyorgy
I just was thinking about this the other day and I concluded that I will teach
my kids TO THINK, but no display or programming language is required for that.
You can teach the basics on paper or drawings, teaching a programming language
syntax and features can come when they are interested in programming at all.
Otherwise, they can apply thought processes in other areas of life.

------
chrisabrams
If you don’t want to teach your kids to code, ok. I actually think the sugar
cookie example is analogous to web development, especially styling/CSS.

As someone who has taught children how to do html/css/ basic JS it’s amazing
to see how they progress; the creativity a child can have is unpredictable but
usually inspiring.

Also, why is pocket acting like amp with the url? :/ :/ :/

~~~
humps
The real URL, had to search to find it as there's no way to access it from the
linked Pocket version

[https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-
ki...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-kids-to-code-
creativity-problem-solving.html)

~~~
josteink
So the post should be linked here instead and have a [2018] suffix added to
it, then.

Any mods care to fix?

------
soared
This sounds like not teaching grammar because your child might not be as goos
if a poet. Not every developer is solving interesting problems with creative
out of the box thinking.. most just write boring code.

------
watwatinthewat
The argument seems to mostly boil down to this one part: "Coding books for
kids present coding as a set of problems with “correct” solutions. And if your
children can just master the syntax, they’ll be able to make things quickly
and easily. But that is not the way programming works. Programming is messy.
Programming is a mix of creativity and determination. Being a developer is
about more than syntax, and certain skills can only be taught to the very
young."

Isn't that true of most "adult" things taught to young children? Says you want
to teach a sport, basketball. At a young age, all the kid is going to do at
best is "master the syntax". That doesn't mean it isn't useful to start at an
early age.

The author's argument can be applied to anything complex. You don't think kids
"master the syntax first" learning math? Should we not start teaching math at
a young age?

It seems the author is really just upset that anyone thinks coding is
something simplistic to any degree.

------
sz4kerto
As a developer, my personal competitive advantage is that I understand humans
quite well. Most of the devs I've seen were limited by their soft skills.
Learning Javascript is trivial compared to acquiring soft skills that are
necessary to be successful in most domains.

------
outime
I don't have kids but I never understood why some parents think that their
kids have to learn about their passion, specially at such young ages. I
understand this in countries where prospects are poor and your best option is
stick to the family business but this is something else with different
ramifications.

I'd let my kid learn about coding if he/she asks for it and is curious,
otherwise I'd never try to shove it. Let kids be kids and if they become
interested then be happy to be their personal teacher.

------
blackbear_
Agreed, and you could say the same of mathematics. If we teach coding as we
teach math, devoid of creativity and reduced to a set of rules, coding will be
hated by most, just like math.

------
fit2rule
I completely disagree. I've been programming since 1977, when I was 7 years
old. My kids, now in their teens, have been coding since they were able to
bang on one of my 8-bit machines, having a blast all the way to comprehension
and understanding.

Oh, wait, yeah. Sorry. I have every computer I've ever hacked on, going back
to '77.

Yeah, now I get it. DEFINITELY don't try to teach your kids to program
computers with, say, a modern web stack or whatever..

------
onion2k
The article is spot on. Teaching kids to code so they learn skills like
problem solving and dealing with ambiguity is a good reason to teach them.
Teaching them to code because tech jobs pay well today is a lot less likely to
be useful in 20 years when they're entering a job market that's _very_
different to what we have right now.

~~~
scarface74
I’ve been in the job market since 1996. While it didn’t pay the astronomical
salaries that it does now, it consistently has paid a nice wage. What trends
do you see that would lessen the need for software development in the next 20
years?

~~~
tartoran
I see a trend thats pushing away older experienced programmers just to replace
them with young ones.

~~~
scarface74
I’m 45. I haven’t seen it. I’m getting just as many offers and doors open now
as I have since 1996. I’m very focused on keeping a network warm and keeping
my resume buzzword compliant.

~~~
tartoran
Im happy for you. I personally lost my patience to keep up with the buzz-
world, I update my knowledge on a need basis, but never pursue shiny stuff.
This is a reason for which being 40 and knowledgable of a mixed bag of
technologies but a lot of it older makes me quite unattractive to many
companies. When I was in my 20s I was always keeping up but lately I don’t
care as much. My family’s more important and it suits me more to have some
tech-unrelated hobbies.

------
remote_phone
I hate when people tell other people how to raise their children. It’s the
most useless advice. Let children do what they want. It doesn’t have to be so
serious. If the kids enjoy it then great. They don’t have to write operating
systems or SAAS at age 10. Syntax, coding style etc doesn’t matter at that
age, it’s better just to learn something.

------
dimitar
To code or to work with computers (for example doing system administration or
testing) is a work skill, and children and teenagers are much, much better at
learning them than the essential theoretical subjects at school.

So, instead of turning programming in yet another rigorous and testable school
subject, I think kids should be encouraged to make things regardless how bad
they seem to be. Maybe not using BASIC, but some web design, but also how to
fix common computing issues. Ideally they should be able to do an entry level
IT job.

Historically teenagers and bigger children worked as apprentices or helped in
the fields. In some communities, this is still essential to their survivor,
but people who can afford for their kids not to work discount the boost to
self-worth and the practicality of doing some work.

~~~
dimitar
I'm also thinking of those kids I've seen who can solve textbook programming
problems at an early age, but cannot even setup their IDE.

------
thelazydogsback
I agree (at least from personal experience w/classes my son has taken) that
most "programming" courses, especially those using Scratch-like and gamified
environments, have taught him absolutely nothing -- they'll get a sprite to
move or whatever through trial-and-error or copy/paste, but I don't think
there's much learning -- they just get "games" that look like total crap
compared to what they're used to without the slightest clue how to get from
here to there. (Whereas when we programmed text games in Z80 asm or Basic, our
result was pretty much on-par with what you'd expect to get from somewhere
else.)

OTOH, as a developer, teaching your own kid programming, if you are passionate
about it, certainly beats teaching them nothing.

------
flr03
I think there is a set of skills that are really worth learning early. When it
actually makes a difference to be "native". Like learning a language, playing
an instrument or technical sport like let's say skiing or swimming. I'm fluent
in English now but will never sound like a native. I swim several time per
week but I'll never be as efficient as if I started at 6. On another hand I
started skiing at 4 and I've been doing great in this sport.

For coding, I think the author wants to emphazise the fact that the code
syntax and the logic are different things. Syntax is easy to pick up at any
age with a bit of perseverance. Kids can practice their analysis skills and
logic at a young age but that doesn't require any coding.

------
eqmvii
I got interested in coding when I started high school in 2001. When I
discovered that several students were already somewhat proficient programmers,
ostensibly because of parents who introduced it while they were young, it was
a rude shock. It left me feeling behind some kind of curve.

I did become a software engineer later in life after a career change, but I
wonder how a home environment where I could learn the basics would have
changed my trajectory.

I take the author's point that the problem solving and creativity are more
important than syntax. But you need comfort with syntax to get deeper into the
ecosystem to stretch those muscles.

------
robalni
There are many things that can help you learn programming. Problem solving is
one of them. Language/syntax is one. I don't think it's wrong to teach kids
one of them, but yes, we should not forget the other ones.

I think it's usually easier to learn one thing if you already know related
things. It might be easier to understand a problem if you know a programming
language. It might be easier to learn more about programming if you already
know the syntax of a language.

------
vidanay
I went through an attempt to teach my son (10 at the time) some basic
programming principles and he was completely disinterested. I am of the
opinion that I am not going to force the topic on him, so I left it alone and
didn't pressure him. In the last couple years since then, he has completely
blown me away with his programming (mostly logic) capabilities that he has
learned from games like Scrap Mechanic and StormWorks.

------
aSplash0fDerp
Each generation will have its own bias.

In the analog world, "jack of all trades" is an inefficient model to develop,
but in the digital world, knowing something exists (and having working
knowledge) makes planning and execution of innovation that much easier.

They just call it smart and dynamic in the tech world instead of "master of
none".

How times change.

------
_nalply
Pushing things to children to be learned is not efficient.

You can try but what goes into one ear leaves the other ear.

My approach: wake the curiosity (for example by playing games on itch.io and
showing a tiny glimpse of the possibility to change a game). Then carefully
steer. Let yourself be pulled by the curiosity of the child.

------
llacb47
Link should be changed to: [https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-
teaching-ki...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-
kids-to-code-creativity-problem-solving.html)

------
christefano
Source article: [https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-
ki...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-kids-to-code-
creativity-problem-solving.html)

------
b20000
the reason there is a push to teach more people to code, who would otherwise
not, is that it increases supply which then brings the cost down for large
companies who need lots of cheap coders.

------
wcarss
tl;dr: "Instead of teaching syntax, you should actually teach kids to problem
solve, be curious, and care about quality! Because those are underlying skills
with more value to programming and to life in general.

But, also, most people should not become programmers. No comment on why."

I'm torn between anger at the clickbaity title, agreement with and enjoyment
of the majority of the article's valid work and spirit, and acute annoyance at
that last bit that shamelessly, sans evidence, recalls the clickbait premise
that I originally wanted. The author pulled me slowly out of my disdain, and
then shoved me back into it again right before leaving.

I often hear this idea echoed around my social network that most people should
actually not learn to program. That it is not a literacy. That it isn't useful
for your kids' minds or long term status or for society. But then I often find
people slyly avoiding explanations as to why, like here, or merely asserting
that the arts also have value (which isn't an exclusive claim!), or mumbling
over some hoakum about learning styles and not everyone being capable of being
a programmer.

Occasionally there's someone saying, "of course many people will program, but
they won't be programmers. But the other things they do will require them to
do programming", which is exactly how literacy works. I'm ready to agree with
that idea, but it's often similarly wrapped in a "don't teach your kids to
code!" label, which it seems antithetical to.

Does anyone seriously feel that developing the skills involved in writing code
(and learning to be comfortable using code and computer tools to solve
problems) isn't broadly applicable to people's lives at this point? I'd love
to hear and discuss a qualified explanation for that belief, and I've been
looking, but (as with this article) it seems not to be found where advertised.

~~~
asdf333
this isn’t really an explanation but some of the most talented programmers i
knew at one of the top engineering schools in the world didn’t start
programming until college. in contrast i have known some mediocre programmers
who have been doing it a long time.

let’s contrast this to say classical music, if you don’t start before the age
of 8, it is physicslly impossible to become a professional. your fingers will
never move quickly enough. what about soccer? could you be a pro level player
starting the sport in college? probably not.

this tells me that the skills to be a good programmer have less to do with
programming and more to do with other stuff like being able to think clearly
and reason about complicated things like math, problem solving and logic.
those are things that don’t have to be taught using code and in many ways it
feels to me like you need to learn syntax as a prerequisite to begin the
intellectually challenging parts whereas you could just do it by studying math
directly or building something with legos.

anecdotally most developers i know are not interested in teaching their young
kids coding. the ones i see most interested in it are non technical parents.
but of course this is not true across the board

------
xellisx
I have a feeling this was posted a couple months ago here...

------
foogazi
> and Neither Should You

Don’t get the point of this part

~~~
asdf333
clickbait is the point ;)

------
larsrc
Click-bait title, but many good points.

------
4636760295
While I have no interest in breeding, if I did have kids I would let them
choose their own interests rather than forcing mine onto them.

~~~
annoyingnoob
Kids find what they like and don't like by being exposed to things. Giving
your kid a book is not forcing your interests on them, its okay if they don't
like it. I think the author is expressing concern over feeling pressured to
teach his young child coding. I don't think its probably that helpful to teach
young kids syntax. My 10 year old recently started playing with Scratch on her
own, bought herself a book about it at a book fair. I think the Scratch
approach of putting together the steps you need to accomplish something is
much better training than learning specific functions or where to put a
semicolon.

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4636760295
I agree with this. My family didn't have money to buy me things, but I found
ways to get into computers and programming myself. In the 7th grade I started
helping the school computer teacher run the IT systems because the school
didn't know how to do it themselves. In exchange for helping the school manage
the computers, they let me play on the computers after school and install BSD
and Linux on an older machine that became my toy.

