Eek, I don't really have a good answer, because I started on the Commodore 64, where you had to know a little BASIC to do anything. I was probably 9 or 10 when I wrote my first actual game, but I'd done a fair amount of keyboard graphics animations by then (and also hacked on a few games we already had. I got kicked out of the school library for fixing a bug in Oregon Trail by a luddite librarian). Moved on to AmigaBasic, later BlitzBasic, taught myself C in high school (C++ was still a rising force at the time, considered too big for PCs), and formally studied Pascal. (If it's not obvious, I've moved on quite a bit since then, but you can look at my resume to see what's happened since then)
I think that nowadays I'd try to direct a kid to python. It has the same qualities that made commodore basic relatively easy to pick up as a kid and also enforces a certain amount of "good coding strategies". It's on my list to provide my own kids with a computer that has easy access to python to see if they take to it. ;) In any case, there is an open source version of the old turtle game that I never played (Logo?) that I'd be willing to spring on my kids. There's also a tank battle game that lets you use any language that I'd also be happy to spring on my kids (it runs your program as a separate process and connects pipes to stdin/stdout, it's called realtimebattles or something like that. I'd be interested in someone to play that with myself whenever I have time for such gratuitous programming :) ). Visit my website! http://www.davefancella.com Also, I'm currently looking for a job. So while you're at my website, look at my resume! http://www.davefancella.com/resume/dave.html On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Ryan Joy <[email protected]> wrote: > > I posed the following question to Twitter earlier and thought I'd > probably get some great responses from here as well: > > "Did you start tinkering w/ programming as a child? If so, how? > Which programs? What are the best options for aspiring children > today?" > http://twitter.com/atxryan/status/1389232099 > > Personally, I first tinkered with BASIC programs in MS DOS when I was > in middle school and then got into C++ in junior high. > > You? > > - RYAN JOY > http://twitter.com/atxryan > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Our Web site: http://www.RefreshAustin.org/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Refresh Austin" group. [ Posting ] To post to this group, send email to [email protected] Job-related postings should follow http://tr.im/refreshaustinjobspolicy We do not accept job posts from recruiters. [ Unsubscribe ] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] [ More Info ] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Refresh-Austin -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
