Er, I forgot to mention. Since so many of my childhood programming experiences involved hacking other people's code, I would definitely set my kids up with open source stuff. That's one thing I truly believe Stallman got right.
Dave 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 4:27 PM, Dave Fancella <[email protected]> wrote: > Heh, I managed to get the thing bouncing fairly easily, even figured > out how to make it bounce like the ball in breakout (never figured out > gravity, though). What I got hung up on was polling for input. I > couldn't even put together the words "poll for input", so I didn't > even know what to ask! My first game wound up being a "guess that > sound" game. After I hacked the animal guessing game a bit, I learned > how to write text adventures, and then I wrote a dozen of those. > Well, maybe not a dozen, but when 90% of your code is data statements, > you can write a lot of games. > > Dave > > 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 1:54 PM, Keith Aric Hall <[email protected]> wrote: >> I started with the C64 and BASIC like Dave. I remember spending hours trying >> to get that little black dot to bounce across the screen...and I was typing >> straight from the manual! Ah, the good ol' days. In fact, I still have my >> C64 and the colossal 5/14" floppy drive. >> >> As for starting off, I agree with Chris (and Dave) regarding Python or Ruby. >> Ruby in particular would allow kids to see quick results to their efforts >> and hopefully encourage them to dig deeper into the foundations of good >> programming. >> >> Keith >> >> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Dave Fancella <[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> 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 >>> > >>> > > >>> > >>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Keith Aric Hall >> >> http://www.keitharichall.com/ >> twitter: keitharichall >> >> >> >> > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
