

Ask HN: What gift to teach a 7 year-old programming? - lylejohnson

When I was a kid I learned programming (in BASIC) by copying programs out of Creative Computing, or their books with collections of programs, and running them on whatever computer I could get my hands on.<p>My nephew is 7, and sharp as a tack, and I'd like to get him something for Christmas that he could use to at least find out if programming is something he'd be into. I don't think he's too young to get it, but I'm not sure what toys/gifts might be appropriate. He lives too far away, unfortunately, for one-on-one lessons or anything like that. Any suggestions from the HN community on good "gateway" toys or gifts to look into?
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squidbot
Assuming he has a computer and an internet connection, send him this link:
<http://inventwithpython.com/chapters/>

The author has done a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of the Basic
Computer Games book where you can just type in the code and fun stuff happens.
I've got my 7 year old daughter started on it and she's having a ball.

~~~
lylejohnson
I might be able to coax his parents into installing Python on one of their
MacBooks for that purpose. Of course that may lead to him wanting his own
MacBook next Christmas. ;)

So does your daughter work out the programs in IDLE? That's very cool, and
encouraging to hear. (This is one of the reasons why I wish we lived closer to
my brother and his family, so that it's something the nephew and I could work
on together).

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bluesmoon
At that age, he can teach himself just like you did (same with me). I was 9
when I learnt BASIC out of the ZX Spectrum+ user manual. It all started when I
typed in the first example program in the book and realised that I could
change the example text to my name. Ego programming does wonders to boost
interest.

~~~
lylejohnson
Yes, but...

When you turned on your ZX (if I recall correctly) it popped up in a BASIC
interpreter. As did the Commodore PET, VIC-20, C64, TRS-80 CoCo, ... and you
get the idea.

My nephew does not yet have his own computer, but if he did, it would boot up
into Windows/Mac/Linux. So then I suppose the question is what sort of
"encapsulated" (?) programming environment we could install for him to work
with. Maybe Hackety Hack would be an appropriate choice in this circumstance.

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sky87
+1 for Lego Mindstorm, maybe a book about Processing when he is a bit older
and if he likes the stuff

~~~
lylejohnson
Ah, Processing. Yes, I like that idea.

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rman
Lego Mindstorm.

~~~
lylejohnson
Thanks for the reminder, that's a good idea. Actually, I want someone to get
_me_ some LEGO Mindstorms for Christmas. ;)

