

How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon - jnoller
http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-kids-stole-show-young-coders.html

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sophacles
_“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom
full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to
break their computers,”..._

I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to
code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it
from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of
youth.

Personally, I know I owe a lot to this. I "broke" the computer more times than
I can count, by just experimenting, playing and otherwise doing stuff that I
now know to be "reckless". There was a guy in the IT department and my dad's
work who gave me an absurd number of hours of free tech support and teaching,
because I couldn't figure out how to undo some of those mistakes, and would
patiently walk me through getting things put right before my folks came home
from work. (In retrospect, I don't think they would have minded, but I didn't
want to get in trouble for breaking the expensive toy!)

~~~
Dewie
> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age,

As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I
don't stand a chance.

~~~
spamizbad
Early coding gives you a head start, but in my experience, things start to
even out when everyone reaches their late 20s. I see a lot of developers who
started young basically lose interest in learning new technologies by the time
they reach 30; after 15-19 years of 'coding'.

I'd argue if you're willing to embrace a complex new skill in adulthood,
you're probably going to be more willing to learn new stuff as your career
progresses. This will give you an edge when your peers start getting set in
their ways.

Another thing: I learned to code when I was 13, and was fortunate enough to
have some friends in grades 7-12 who did the same, but ultimately the stuff we
did was simplistic and hacky. It was totally undisciplined, and wasn't exactly
production quality stuff. We were juvenile, and our code was juvenile. In a
good way.

~~~
dchichkov
Fifteen years of coding? He he. These are just babies. Just started learning
how not to over-design things.

And in reality years of coding doesn't matter. Learning to code early doesn't
matter. What matters is with how many people you've collaborated. And how many
releases of different products you've shipped.

You can code you whole life, but if it is the same damn piece of code, you
wouldn't learn a thing. And if you don't actually release stuff, you also
wouldn't learn a thing.

Last point (releasing stuff) is very important. If a kid 'learns' to code, but
doesn't release his stuff - it is not real. Most of that learning is far from
reality and wasted.

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cwbrandsma
Just talking on the interest you can get from having kids give talks at
conferences...

We just had Boise Code Camp 2 weeks ago. We had one talk on Kid Programming,
which was given by two 11 year olds (using Scratch) and a 6 year old (using
LOGO) -- and two of them were girls. We put the talk in one of our larger
rooms and we packed it. People standing in the back and sitting on the floor.

As an aside, just about every year we have had a large number of parents
attending who would bring one or two kids with them. Out of 400 people I could
usually 15-20 people younger than 18. We have not had any trouble because of
it.

I think there is a lot of interest, both from kids and parents, to learn about
programming. A our code camp, I'm hoping to open up multiple sessions for kids
(I'd like to have a multiple hour block). Some of those kids already have good
resumes going. One I saw in particular was able to talk on Java and C without
any difficulty (and he preferred vi as his editor) -- he was maybe 12.

For other conference organizers, (if you have room) please consider having
talks aimed at kids. But also just encourage parents to bring their tech
interested kids with them.

~~~
jetsnoc
Hello. I would like to get involved with Boise Code Camp. We're a small
60-employee software company in Twin Falls. It's exciting you have such an
effort and we'd like to get involved. My email is in my profile -- couldn't
find yours.

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undershirt
I was interested in teaching a 6th grade class how to make a video game. I
volunteered at Citizen Schools to teach a 90 minute session per week over 10
weeks at a low-income school. Made them a simple IDE where they could draw
things and make them move around the screen with high-level Lua code.

It was largely a disaster due to classroom management issues, though 3
students did complete a game. I definitely think the 1:3 teacher-student ratio
mentioned in the article is necessary to making this kind of thing successful.

~~~
therealkatie
(I'm Katie, one of the teachers! Normally I'm kcunning, but I' lost my
password.)

I think we would have had a disaster of our own, if we had done this without
volunteers. Kids are notorious for not speaking up if they're having issues,
and from the front, a kid that is 'getting' it looks the same as a kid that's
completely lost.

I was surprised at how many people wanted to volunteer, as well! We already
have a list of eager people for next year.

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enemtin
The ways in which kids are going to change the world will be mind blowing. We
teach young girls how to code with www.ladieslearningcode.com and the talent
that these girls have is incredible. I can't wait for that generation to be
the future CEOs and CTOs of the world.

~~~
ChuckMcM
As long as I don't see any posts that say "I'm 12 and I haven't done anything
important, should I give up?" here on HN

~~~
simeonf
Heh. Louis (awesome kid - 12 years old maybe? at PyCon) told me "I can code
but I have no original ideas!"

I told him to give it time...

~~~
csense
Original ideas aren't a necessity in this business. Execution and timing are
really important too.

Anyone remember MySpace? LiveJournal? Xanga? ConnectU?

I'm pretty sure they all predated Facebook, were quite similar to Facebook,
and Facebook just outmaneuvered them with execution.

Or think about Blizzard in the mid-to-late '90s. Warcraft/Starcraft weren't
the first RTS games -- Blizzard wasn't an innovation leader -- but they were
extremely polished products. Flawless execution beat first mover advantage;
have you heard anything about the Dune series lately from someone who's not a
hardcore retrogamer?

------
mcintyre1994
This is the generation that can extinguish gender issues, and this is the kind
of news that should be coming out of these conferences.

~~~
incongruity
And, honestly, when you look at the number of people involved/directly
impacted, _this_ is a much bigger story for PyCon, IMHO.

