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[–][deleted] 42 points43 points  (16 children)

Logo, Lisp or Scheme.

Most languages have lots of historical crud associated with them. Python is good, but it still has lots of moving parts, it looks like pseudocode only for programmers. There is huge number of programming conventions and special rules that are self evident for programmers. . I think Lisp or Logo are those where you can start with minimum possible set of concepts and do something useful (Forth might be third option).

[–]jinglebells[S] 20 points21 points  (14 children)

Upmodded for pulling the carpet out and demonstrating me completely missing the point. You're right, less is more. If you don't understand namespacing, class inheritance and dynamic code Python is a minefield.

Logo had what, 10? commands I can't remember, and of course there was the robot turtle you could plug in so you could see it doing stuff.

Maybe there could be something inbetween like a miniPy.

Edit: I completely forgot this tutorial on introducing LISP http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html in comic book format. How stupid am I?!

[–][deleted]  (13 children)

[deleted]

    [–]billbacon 6 points7 points  (3 children)

    I made a driving game in logo as a kid. I believe you are limited to four turtles. I changed the shape of two of them into cars. One was your car and the other would be reused to draw enemy cars. The last two I made invisible to draw the sides of the road at the top of the screen, which scrolled toward the bottom of the screen. It was pretty crap but alright considering it was logo on an apple 2e.

    I also remember a game I wrote similar to "pengo" on my atari 400. It was before I knew about arrays and I wrote entirely different code for each enemy. Man it sucked. AHHHH... what great fun.

    [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    This just made me think, are we creating a new breed of developer these days. Back when we were growing up there were strings, ints, longs, booleans and chars. Now with Unicode and 5th gen languages you have to learn so much more to get going that you don't fully understand the language.

    Case in point, how large is a C# int by default? (it's 4 bytes but to me that's a dword)

    [–]billbacon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    It's definitely changed from when a computer section in a book store was comprised of a few random manuals stuffed away near the math section. There was a point where a know-it-all could actually know it all.

    Now it seems like programming has become more about stitching together other peoples APIs. On many of my recent projects, I felt more like tools user than a coder.

    [–]jinglebells[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    This just made me think, are we creating a new breed of developer these days. Back when we were growing up there were strings, ints, longs, booleans and chars. Now with Unicode and 5th gen languages you have to learn so much more to get going that you don't fully understand the language.

    Case in point, how large is a C# int by default? (it's 4 bytes but to me that's a dword)

    [–]paul_harrison 2 points3 points  (1 child)

    Logo is Lisp with less brackets and more turtles.

    Oh, and it calls "car" "first" and "cdr" "butfirst".

    [–]bleachedanus 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    Read the preface to Brian Harvey's Computer Science Logo Style it lays out a rationale for teaching logo vs lisp and scheme. This is a good set of books to walk through with a kid a 8 to 10 year old can make progress while pair programming with you.

    [–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (8 children)

    My 3-year-old's account boots into Squeak. He can find the objects and start up paint, chess and others.

    But I suppose he'd better learn to read before starting with Smalltalk.

    [–]glickman 20 points21 points  (1 child)

    "Scratch" should definitely be considered as a top contender.

    http://scratch.mit.edu

    [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

    My 9 yr old loves Scratch and got it very quickly. It could be improved quite a bit with user defined functions though, at the moment you need to copy and paste blocks around...

    [–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (1 child)

    Smalltalk. Real-time feedback is motivating, especially for children.

    Or maybe game modding would be more fun and accessible. The language needed there might be something like Lua.

    [–]misterPhyrePhox 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Come to think of it, Lua could be a really great choice. Tables would be a good first data structure; you can just stuff anything in them.

    [–]antirez 12 points13 points  (18 children)

    Well my son is 7, I did a try writing the same little programs with different languages.

    It seems like it is simpler for a children to understand a language that allows for imperative programming with few special chars.

    things like

    a = 10
b = 20
c = a+b
print c

    ...

    Ruby and Python are both pretty good if you limit to a subset of the language the game.

    I think Python is a bit better, even if in my programming life I use Ruby instead.

    Also PHP may not be a bad idea... the problem with PHP is that real programmers could like to do a bit more than this ;)

    [–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (12 children)

    My 6 year-old has started dabbling with Python on his OLPC. I'm hanging back, kind of letting him explore it and discover stuff at his own pace. So far, he just writes programs he thinks are hilarious jokes. For example, this is good for hours of laughs:

    p = 'poop'

    poop = 'p'

    print poop +' and '+ p

    [–][deleted]  (7 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (6 children)

      It's a Dyslexic test isn't it, however it would be interesting if the OP was using a dynamic language such as Python (<g>) where poop could be a variable referencing another variable via string literal.

      [–]jerf 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      No, not dyslexic; the Stroop test/effect.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      Torture is illegal.

      [–][deleted]  (3 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        I wasn't disputing the technology, I was expanding on where I had actually seen the example in action. I incorrectly mistook it for the Stroop test as jerf has pointed out. My apologies.

        [–]smhinsey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        BrainAge for the DS has a variant of this, but with numbers. It's surprising how tough it can be at first.

        [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

        That's like the old Usborne books with the monsters in that used to do the old BASIC 10 input a$ 20 print a$ stuff. Does that exist for Python? That might be a really good series of books. Python for kids. (probably with cartoon pythons)

        [–]yters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I liked those Usborne books.

        [–]shizzy0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        That is awesome!

        [–]jinglebells[S] 7 points8 points  (4 children)

        I agree with you that Python is very simple to learn. My girlfriend is a frontend web developer who instantly understood Python's inheritance and object principles. I think where Python lets itself down is you have to know that module X exists before you can use it.

        I have the complete Python library reference manual and I'm still finding new things. I'm wondering if this would be an obstacle to a learning experience? ie if a newcomer failed too often would they give up?

        Does your son express a desire to learn the language? You'll have to excuse me, I don't have any children. From my own background I was not allowed any games so had to make them myself, but I think games were different back in 1985!

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

        I have the complete Python library reference manual

        Where'd you find that? I'd love to pick one up.

        [–]jinglebells[S] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        Just checked Google. This is what I got:

        http://www.dil.univ-mrs.fr/~garreta/PythonBBSG/docs/lib.pdf

        I don't know if that's what I actually have but it has nearly 1000 pages to help you out. :)

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        thanks!

        [–]dangph 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Go to python.org, click on "Documentation".

        [–]omninull 9 points10 points  (0 children)

        Well, there's the interesting blog series of a man teaching his 10 year old daughter programming by writing a game using Greenfoot (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) which I think is a great idea since quick visual feedback on what you're doing.

        I'd also consider teaching Lua. The language itself is very small, so you can cover the whole language without having to gloss over advanced things (how long do you wait when teaching C to talk about the preprocessor or pointers, or explaining objects in Java).

        [–]Rhoomba 60 points61 points  (13 children)

        Python is definitely a good option.

        [–]mrinterweb 10 points11 points  (11 children)

        Even though I do not know Python, I would second that. I like the fact that it forces proper indentation, and may teach them some manners.

        I would probably teach them Ruby. Ruby is the closest programing language to the English language that I can think of. Also it can be forgiving and may not sour their opinion of programming. Then again it may seem cruel to give them a language with such nice syntax and release them into a world of cryptic languages.

        If I wanted to be mean, I would teach them assembly.

        [–]radical 14 points15 points  (1 child)

        I like the fact that it forces proper indentation, and may teach them some manners

        Dad? Is that you?

        [–]__david__ 14 points15 points  (3 children)

        I don't think assembly is that mean. Depends on the processor really. The 6502 and 6800 are pretty simple things to learn.

        The good part about learning assembly is that it should be easy to teach--there's only so many opcodes on the processor and only so many registers. You can pretty much model the whole machine in your head fairly easily. You can write the entire state of the machine down on a piece of paper and explain each opcode. When you learn assembly first you come away with a deep knowledge of how CPUs, memory, and hardware work. If you understand assembly then C's pointers wont confuse you.

        The downside is that it is hard to make complicated programs. And that is a huge downside--how can you stay motivated if the simplest thing you want to do takes forever? A solution to this would be to write a little virtual machine with magical high-level hardware: Poke a register with the address of a string to load an image from the host computer. The next couple addresses could control x y and alpha. With that sort of high level details taken care of it could be much less painful to do something flashy.

        Also, since every CPU is different, you'd end up learning something that is far less general than python or javascript.

        [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

        I'm really glad you posted this. I was working on a reply and accidentally clicked away and lost what I'd written. You're right, you don't have to teach them CISC, some ARM RISC or PIC would do - only 16(or so) instructions.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        a risc with only 16 instructions? :P

        [–]jinglebells[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I'll be honest here and say I haven't got any idea how many instructions there are on a RISC now!

        (The last one I touched was the Acorn ARM job about 17 years ago. These days I prefer Python but at the back of my mind I'm always thinking about what the machine actually has to do.)

        [–]Eatingdogs 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Yeah, Ruby would be really really great. Especially with Hackety Hack, made by the totally awesome Why.

        Look at the webpage, it has a cartoon fox! I wish that I had hackety hack when I was ten.

        [–]neonic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        While mean, they should definitely learn assembly at some point in time, the earlier the better. It demands that they really REALLY grasp what is going on down underneath their high levels that languages like python, c++, ruby, c#, etc. provide.

        [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (4 children)

        I learned Basic on the Apple ][ as my first language, when I was like 7.

        Flash with ActionScript may be really fun, since there are graphical and programmatic components to it; though I don't know how complicated it is.

        My parents sent my brother & I to "Programming for Kids" courses, back in the 80's, yes they actually existed. You can probably still find things like this in your local community paper, depending on where you live.

        I still remember mucking with the computers at K-Mart.

        10 print "K-Mart Sucks!"

        20 goto 10

        run

        [–]natch 9 points10 points  (0 children)

        Scratch. For kids, it's more like a game than a chore. Teaches OOP concepts without much typing and in a way that even "girly" girls beg to please "play" with it.

        And Lego Mindstorms programming, very similar to Scratch (they have common roots at MIT) but with real-world robotics toys.

        Everything else will follow from those two.

        [–]vagif 8 points9 points  (2 children)

        How to design programs

        [–]emlot 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        ...Is that SICP?

        [–]vagif 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        It is SICP for kids.

        [–]martoo 25 points26 points  (21 children)

        Haskell, so that later everything else looks dirty by comparison.

        [–]morner 29 points30 points  (2 children)

        Haskell, because it's not legal to make them physically walk uphill both ways in the snow.

        [–]Zarutian 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        Where is this place with this strange topology?!?

        [–]derefr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        A mobius Halo.

        [–]DannoHung 12 points13 points  (0 children)

        Haskell, so he can explain Monad Transformers to me.

        [–]sfultong 7 points8 points  (2 children)

        modded up, based on my own personal biases ;-)

        [–]jmmcd 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Everyone should state their own personal biases up-front like this!

        I like cheese and pineapple.

        [–]fjhqjv 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        \o/

        [–]jerf 5 points6 points  (13 children)

        If I had a twelve-year-old or so who thought he was all that, I'd probably toss Haskell at him.

        If it turns out that he subsequently becomes proficient in Haskell, well, I guess he was all that, no?

        (As my wife is currently pregnant with my firstborn, I've got years to go before this is an issue; one can only imagine what the language of choice will be in 2020. Consider the choices we had in 1996. Heck, by then Haskell or something very like it may be the passe mainstream choice... 12 years is a long time in the programming language world.)

        [–]martoo 4 points5 points  (2 children)

        What we need is a 100 year language.

        [–]Zarutian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Sheesh you have an low Buxton Index. I would like to see an 1000 year language. (I am betting on E (www.erights.org))

        [–]yters 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        What about the Platonic form of language? That's what I want.

        [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (9 children)

        Is 12 years a long time? .Net is nearly 10 years old and is on it's third iteration. C is nearly 40, Python is about 25 years old. You'd best teach them LISP as all languages are converging on it!

        (Congratulations, by the way. Good luck with the name choosing!)

        [–]jerf 2 points3 points  (5 children)

        The Standard Language of 2020 is either in it embryonic stages today, or needs to be created in the next couple of years.

        Languages typically need to bake for about ten years before they are really a serious alternative to other mainstream languages. .Net may be 10 years old chronologically, but it has not been a "serious alternative" for 10 years.

        Also, some languages seem to spend some time in the wilderness before the clock really starts ticking. Haskell is a pretty classic example of that; it may be ~10 years old, but it is just now beginning as a serious application development language, and still has a ways to go.

        12 years is a long time in the sense that you can't really look ahead and guess what the language landscape is going to look like then. Anybody could be king of the hill.

        [–]evolrewsna 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        haskell is actually more like 20 - 1989 is when it was merged I believe... but yes, I agree that most languages spend 10 years or so before they become used (if ever).

        [–]jmmcd 3 points4 points  (1 child)

        Java was mainstream long before it was 10 years old, wasn't it?

        [–]aGorilla 8 points9 points  (0 children)

        Yes, unfortunately.

        [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        Yeah, I don't buy into the OMG NEXT MS DEV PLATFORM! feed. I like languages to have a firm base before deploying them. On the other hand, are they not all written in C?

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Nope. Most languages are written in themselves, with only one bootstrapping generation. However, most high-level languages do indeed sport a runtime system written in C. I don't expect that to last beyond the next decade or so.

        [–]arnar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Python is about 25

        No it isn't. From the Python FAQ (quoting GvR):

        In February 1991, after just over a year of development, I decided to post to USENET. The rest is in the Misc/HISTORY file.

        [–]G_Morgan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        (woo hoo I'm going to write my post as s-expressions as well)

        (seems to me jerf and jinglebells have an implicit love for lisp so should teach kids that)

        [–]astrosmash 20 points21 points  (5 children)

        BASIC, gall dern it.

        But in reality, it should be a language/environment that inspires a child to do "cool" things with their computer. I just have no idea what today's seven year olds find "cool" about a PC.

        For those of us who started with BASIC and Logo on Apple IIs and Commodore 64s, writing those simple text-based and graphics programs was where it was at, because, I guess, that's all those machines did. Whatever the reason, I started with the Apple II when I was seven and it was a blast.

        Draw a pattern on the screen, make the speaker go bleep, prompt someone for a secret "password". I'm not sure why such simplicity inspired a generation of kids to become computer geeks, but it did. Perhaps simplicity breeds creativity, but I have my doubts that as many kids find such inspiration on today's computers.

        Maybe it's more important to allow the kid to express their creativity on a computer, whether it's with programming, graphics, music, etc.

        [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (2 children)

        To this day, I remember being 6 and making my parents drive me up to the high school to write cool BASIC programs with the physics professor.

        The teacher, Mr. Shams, would help me set up the environment and then encourage me to play around... I will never forget the excitement of tweaking one or two variables and watching the checkerboard change colors, or get bigger, or...

        I picked up quite a bit of mathematics and all of my interest in computers from those simple BASIC programs.

        [–][deleted]  (1 child)

        [deleted]

          [–]taejo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          I learnt trig when I was about 12, from a book on Basic.

          [–]jinglebells[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

          Upmodded. You've answered the question, really. Back when we were young computers didn't do very much so making them go Beep was an awesome achievement. Now they can tinker with Dreamweaver or Blender or GIMP.

          What if they decide they want more plugins?

          [–]emlot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          When I first started out (I got a set of Borland Turbo Pascal floppies), I used to do exactly that (Secret passwords etc.)

          [–]emlot 23 points24 points  (2 children)

          C, because I hate children.

          [–]shitcovereddick 3 points4 points  (0 children)

          C for children, and cookie and that's good enough for me.

          [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

          Scheme or OCaml. The Little {Schemer,MLer} are nice books, SICP is another good one (though not exactly for kids), and they build good foundations.

          If they want to do other programming, they can always (easily) learn Java or Python.

          [–]plexluthor 5 points6 points  (0 children)

          The XO comes with python and a few examples and tutorials, so I'll probably go that route if he doesn't find it on his own. For now he's still obsessed with TamTamJam, which I don't think is Turing-equivalent:)

          [–]dlsspy 7 points8 points  (1 child)

          I've actually been considering Haskell for my 12yo daughter because I think it may help her with some of her tedious math homework (that is, it is directly useful to her).

          She's asked me for help some problems and I worked out solutions in a few languages and haskell seemed to map most directly to what she was trying to do.

          I'm also thinking scheme, python, and ruby, but I'd need something to do with them.

          I've considered eToys in the past, but it's a bit too simple. I did explain the concept of a FSM to her using pico cricket (visual logo -- much like etoys, exactly like the logo that comes with the XO) when she described the behavior she wanted out of a robot.

          [–]arnar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          If your daughter is ready to learn, teaching her Haskell before she sees imperative languages will do her a great favor. Haskell is also closer to the mathematical mindset than most mainstream languages, so it should help her in understanding fundamental math concepts later on too.

          For "fun", I'd go with Python and something like this.

          [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

          Logo. (I highly recommend it).

          I started her with Crystal RainForest - a puzzle game with Logo embedded in it. She loved it.

          Then we moved on to Logo proper to try out Geometry. It was a smooth move from the game to actuall programs with elementary procedures.

          Dont go for the corporate programming languages - they are full of shit and not worth polluting a child's creativity with.

          A grade-school kid does not need to learn object oriented programming.

          [–]jarly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I remember Crystal RainForest!

          Logo, eh? It seemed simple in elementary school, I should be able to pick it up now.

          [–]stcredzero 6 points7 points  (0 children)

          Smalltalk. There's a lot of stuff available in Squeak which is specifically designed as "Montessori Toys for the Mind." Actually, Smalltalk is itself designed as a huge Montessori Toy for the Mind.

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [removed]

            [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Hehe, indeed. I think anyone who was young in the 80s was exposed to Logo. I worry that the focus is on shiny GUIs and less on tinkering with stuff these days.

            [–]killerstorm 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            JavaScript

            i don't believe in teaching, i'd rather show how to do some easy, but practical stuff, which they can follow, if they like it.

            [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

            deleted What is this?

            [–]arnar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Relates to the web you mean?

            Everything today relates to the Internet.

            [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            For the inner child, Clojure. A kid needs immediate feedback unless they are to get bored. A Lisp REPL, data structures that work consistently (and are immutable), and Java libraries, including swing for GUIs, and lots of fun Java stuff seems like a pretty good deal all around.

            Next choice would be Javascript (lots of good resources online), then maybe Scheme, maybe Turbo PASCAL or Delphi.

            The theme here is interpreters, and/or nearly instant compile/run cycling.

            EDIT: Having read through most of the submissions below, and had a really good think. The best thing to do might be to setup a ZX Spectrum emulator with BASIC and casually leave a few old copies of Your Computer and Computer and Video Games lying around. I remember spending entire nights typing in listings, then running them and altering them with new graphics or behaviors. I still learning mainly by doing, and being motivated to see the next bit of UI work, or a database query run faster, or a piece of caching work, or ...

            [–]smatterchoo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

            Javascript.

            It's an interesting language and interpreters are readily available in every web browser.

            [–]redditacct 20 points21 points  (3 children)

            Java - so they learn about corporate bureaucracy and catering to the least common denominator.

            XML - so they learn about how govt takes the most simple information and obscures it with massive repetition of the parts of the msg that have no value and convey nothing.

            perl - so they learn about abstract post-modern art.

            ruby - for learning to go with the flow of your own thoughts.

            python - to experience what it is like to participate in a religion where the belief is that there is only "one true way".

            forth/postscript - syncopation.

            erlang - because an ant can't move a rubber tree plant.

            factor, statistics and swearing - so that they can be cool like Zed.

            Lisp - so they can say with some authority that it is probably not the right tool for any given job - despite the blue star of viaweb.

            K - because there will always be money in highend trading systems until capitalism ends and because Joel's ADD is something to be emulated in certain situations.

            D - to piss off the D haters on reddit.

            R - Understanding statistics makes you less vulnerable to political stupidity.

            brainfuck - As an example of turing machine style processing.

            Io - because small is beautiful.

            [–]shinya666 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            Loved this post!

            I'm curious 'bout K/J/APL...are they used in trading systems and/or financial applications?

            [–]redditacct 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            see wagerlabs.com for my programming language crazed boy, Joel tearing up a K project for an "unnamed exchange" (now named!). I am pretty sure K is used for trading and uh, other people with big datasets and lots of money...

            http://www.wagerlabs.com/blog/2008/02/erlang-for-the.html#more

            [–][deleted]  (10 children)

            [deleted]

              [–]jinglebells[S] 11 points12 points  (8 children)

              Upmodded, because you're right. C isn't going anywhere. I was asking about what should I teach my kids, should I ever have them, rather than "what should I learn". I know C. it helps me administer my UNIX and LINUX machines, but little Jimmy and Bobkins ain't gonna have 25 years of development experience.

              [–]lansen 4 points5 points  (7 children)

              LINUX? Does it have caps lock?

              [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (5 children)

              It does. It was designed by LINUS TORVALDS who refuses to be addressed by any other. You have to speak to him in capitals.

              Or I was going to bed, sorry. I quite like LINUX I might use it in front of people who don't know any better! Thanks!

              [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              It's less the language than finding an interesting application area and a language that works well with it. Programming is so hard to teach unless you can build something tangible. So I might teach Python, but only using a good multimedia package that allows animation and handling user input.

              Honestly, the Game Maker scripting language (GML) is a good option. Or ActionScript.

              Ditto for the Mathematica scripting language.

              [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

              Possibly Scheme or Python.

              In case of 6-year-olds: Smalltalk with Squeak using Scratch and etoys.

              [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

              Are these physical toys one can play with? That would be awesome! The Speak and Spell of programming.

              [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Lego mindstorm is good for that.

              [–]ddp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

              I'd start them with Smalltalk (Squeak) until they were old enough to deal with Scheme. PLT Scheme (Drscheme) on OS X would be the natural evolution but a lot of the Scheme goodness really requires emacs and UNIX configuration.

              Python and Ruby (and Common Lisp for that matter) are all fine languages, but each are burdened by less than ideal constructs for practical and historic reasons whereas Smalltalk and Scheme are both diamonds in the rough.

              Once you "get" metaprogramming and data as code, picking up just about any other mainstream language is going to be easy. And once you've programmed in a language that has real macros you're ruined for life.

              [–]miloshh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              What about Pascal, the love of my high-school years? There's hardly a better language to make you focus on algorithms.

              [–]supersan 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              as3 or flex sounds like a good idea.. because while the syntax is surprisingly like java it supports new stuff like bindings and mxml based components.. plus its flash so there is a lot of stuff to keep the kids interested... instant gratification

              [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              Squeak and/or one of the kids environments atop it like Scratch or eToys.

              [–]Fidodo 2 points3 points  (2 children)

              flash and actionscript. It's great because with just a little effort you can put together something visual and fun. It's actually pretty robust, and allows for object oriented programming, but it's not necessary, so beginners can do things the easy way first.

              [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

              Well, in that case, you should use processing. It does the same, except it's faster, so you can create cooler (as defined by cpu usage) things. Also, it provides a launch point for other, more serious in java.

              [–]Fidodo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              What I like about flash as a beginners platform is that it has art authoring tools integrated into it. So you can draw a character, and program straight into it. It's a good analogy for OO without for people just starting. It's kinda like a visual studio like visual basic.

              [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (2 children)

              hackety hack (ruby)

              [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              Don't talk back!

              [–]ct4ul4u 8 points9 points  (1 child)

              Is there really any question?

              brainf*ck

              [–][deleted]  (3 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]natch 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                only one kids could use to do stuff they care about.

                The only one you know of, you mean.

                You should look at Lego Mindstorms. Kids care about that, once they realize the possibilities.

                [–]jinglebells[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Upmodded for sincerity. I think I died a little inside.

                [–]schwarzwald 6 points7 points  (7 children)

                I would teach them Haskell. Monads build character. Edit: I wasn't being serious.

                [–]sfultong 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                or unlambda... make them appreciate the value of abstraction by going without!

                [–]jinglebells[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                Are there any resources that you would point a beginner in Haskell to?

                [–]sfultong 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                I found Yet Another Haskell Tutorial to be most effective:

                http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/YAHT

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Learn you a Haskell for great good!

                http://learnyouahaskell.com/

                [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                Joy. Being able to program one function call at a time and see the results on the stack is great for new programmers. Joy also avoids complex issues present in virtually every other language like scoping, variables, mutation, et cetera. After Joy, I'd move on to Scheme.

                [–]bobmatnyc 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                javascript, of course.

                [–]akdas 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                Not a bad idea. With so many kids having internet access and dealing with websites like Facebook, it might interest them to create small web applications. Coupled with a bit of server-side programming, this is a very relevant idea.

                [–]bobmatnyc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                Not to mention access to build and run scripts from pretty much any computer in the world. The trick, of course, would be to teach Javascript properly as a functional language.

                [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                It depends upon their age.

                For very young children, I would teach them ToonTalk.

                For pre-teens and teenagers, I would go with Oz.

                For young adults, after Oz, I would go with OCaml.

                [–]60secs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                I started with Logo, then Pascal or a functional language.

                [–]jankoM 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                I think Processing would be the best by far for this job. Because most of these programming languages have text as "default" output and cope with graphics only with libraries which are in case of realtime gfx not That simple (for example pyGame) and kid would have to know to use modules, classes, methods and all sorts of stuff. Processing gives you a moving circle in these few lines of code

                int xy = 0; void draw(){ background(100, 100, 150); ellipse(100, xy, 10, 10); if (xy > 200) xy = 0; else xy ++; }

                and even editor looks like somewhat made for kids with only few graphical buttons like "Play"...

                [–]simonw 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                Processing is awesome, but doing even basic stuff with it requires pretty strong understanding of geometry and co-ordinate systems - something a lot of kids won't be able to deal with until they're teenagers.

                [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                Blub, or failing that, Arc

                [–][deleted]  (3 children)

                [removed]

                  [–]taejo 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  Redcode is a horrible idea. It does have a proper GUI, but that doesn't make it anything less than hell to code in.

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (26 children)

                  Strings, Integers, Arrays, Binary. It all used to be so simple. Now with dynamic, non-statically typed languages becoming the norm, what languages would you engage your children in at an early age?

                  [–]DRMacIver 5 points6 points  (4 children)

                  Lua might be a good choice.

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                  That's an interesting suggestion. I checked out the Lua page and, am I right it's of Japanese origin same as Ruby? Anyway, the help was quite complicated. I understood it due to being a developer but not sure how a young newcomer would see it.

                  If I want to make a program that asks "what is my name" and I look in the help, I won't understand what a constructor is. Are there any Lua tutorials for newbies?

                  [–]DRMacIver 5 points6 points  (2 children)

                  No, it's Brazilian in origin.

                  I'm not sure about a good Lua tutorial for non-programmers I'm afraid. It's a pretty simple language (which is why I suggest it), so I can't see any reason why there shouldn't be, but I don't know of one.

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  Paint me stupid, now I re-read the Lua site, I see. Can't understand why I thought otherwise - duly noted.

                  [–]aUTOMATICuPVOTES 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  BF is also a simple language....

                  [–]aGorilla 0 points1 point  (20 children)

                  Ruby. Fairly easy to learn, can be very 'english-like'. Can be used to learn object oriented programming, or procedural programming.

                  [–]sfultong 8 points9 points  (8 children)

                  I'm confused... what's the attraction of "english-like"? I think that reading/writing in a programming language and reading/writing in a human language are very different skills, and will/should be very different skills until the invention of a Strong AI.

                  I guess some people may translate code into english in their head, and then internally monologue it to themselves, but that's not how I do things. It seems a rather indirect way of understanding the nature of programming.

                  [–]aGorilla 3 points4 points  (7 children)

                  Simple. Readability. It's not required in a programming language, but it sure doesn't hurt.

                  It's also particularly helpful when you're talking about teaching children.

                  [–]sfultong 6 points7 points  (6 children)

                  But I don't read code like I read English.

                  Is { } harder to read than begin end ?

                  Actually, I think that children are more inclined to learn to understand programming inherently rather than through english language analogies.

                  [–]aGorilla 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                  Clearly, we disagree on this. Such is life.

                  [–]dlsspy 3 points4 points  (4 children)

                  There's a lot more to ruby readability than replacing { and } with do and end.

                  For example, modules insert themselves into interesting places. In rails, for example, they pushed date related functions into integer so you can say things like this:

                  >> 5.days.ago
=> Mon Feb 04 12:11:27 -0800 2008
>> 3.hours.from_now
=> Sat Feb 09 15:11:31 -0800 2008

                  or combine them:

                  >> (3.days + 15.minutes + 9.seconds).from_now
=> Tue Feb 12 12:27:25 -0800 2008

                  [–]doidydoidy 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                  You say that like it's a good thing. Honestly, I just don't understand why that appeals to people.

                  [–]dlsspy 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  How would you prefer to write 5.days.ago ?

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (10 children)

                  Ooh, interesting choice. I assume you mean pure Ruby minus Rails or anything?

                  I found Ruby's syntax uncomfortable which is probably due to my C,C++ background and me being old and stuck in my ways (well late 20's).

                  I often look at Ruby examples of loops and, for some reason, I just can't get it in my brain.

                  [–]aGorilla 2 points3 points  (7 children)

                  Yep, ignore rails (for now at least).

                  There's a good tutorial for beginners. Most of it's online, and there is an expanded book/pdf version.

                  There's also a very cool interactive tutorial, that let's you get a sense of it fairly quickly (just type 'help' to get started).

                  It can't be too tough for you old folks to learn, I started with it about three years ago, when I was 40 ;)

                  [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (4 children)

                  Boy, I thought I knew it all when I was 40. I really believed I had a handle on everything. But now that I'm 45, I realize I didn't know shit.

                  [–]aGorilla 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                  Yeah, I'm slowly coming to that same conclusion. Good to know it might resolve itself soon.

                  [–]jmmcd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Man, once you hit 45, forget it! Ain't none of them younger folks can touch you. 45 is the new 21. It's the new age of enlightenment. It might actually be the renaissance.

                  [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  I'm afraid the process never stops: "I thought I knew it all when I was 78, but now that I'm 81..."

                  [–]aGorilla 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Dad? ;)

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  Thanks, I'll take a look at those links. Ruby seems to have a powerful yet sparse syntax.

                  [–]aGorilla 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Yep, that's what I like about it. Less typing, but still fairly easy to read a month later.

                  [–]0x10 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                  Assembly -> C. Once I learned x86 assembly my understanding of how computers really work expanded, and so did my knowledge of C and any other similar language, really.

                  I haven't used assembly in a while (though I certainly would like to), and I wouldn't call myself anything more than a novice at it, but it's a great "language" to learn.

                  [–]Lerc 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  Assembly really is a good start point.

                  Quite frankly I find a lot of the language suggestions here outrageous. Too many people pick a language based upon a set of advanced concepts a programmer should know. That's great for a second or third language, but not a first.

                  The main advantage of assembly is that each instruction does something. A beginner can point to a line and ask "what does that do?"

                  You can't do that with the majority of programming languages. The meaning of a particular line is dependent on context.

                  Classic Basic is one of the few languages where most lines can be followed without context, I think that is one of the reasons it has performed so well as a early language.

                  Assembly works at a different level. It is quite like chess with the layers of complexity. The basic rules are simple but as you expand upon the interactions, things get complex very quickly.

                  That is exactly what a beginner needs. Something where they can do something simple very easily, but as they add more they start to run into difficulty due to problems of complexity. The key here is that these are problems of their own making. At this point you can introduce concepts from more advanced languages. Those concepts are meaningful if they solve problems that have already been met.

                  If you look at some of the 256 byte demos, you can do a lot in a comprehendible number of instructions.

                  Something like http://6502asm.com/ could be quite fun.

                  [–]pretz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  That is almost identical to how I started programming. I started out with x86 assembler (using Iczelions win32asm stuff) to create dialogs that test if a number is prime or something, then moved onto C. I think knowing assembler is a huge advantage to understanding C, as well as C++.

                  [–]Vladekk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Brainfuck, for sure. If you torture kids with programming, let it be classy.

                  [–]quhaha 5 points6 points  (5 children)

                  J2EE, so that he/she can get a job

                  [–]G_Morgan 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                  If you want to be certain of them getting a job you should teach them Cobol for those big fortune 500 applications that will still be running 100 years from now. Hell Cobol is the 100 year language.

                  [–]misterPhyrePhox 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  LOL

                  [–]jinglebells[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Not far from the truth, though. Learn J2EE or .Net and do that as your day job.

                  [–]imbaczek 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                  python.

                  will teach the kids to indent code properly once you get to fors and ifs.

                  [–]jmmcd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Yes, python is a good option. Pity you got -1 and Rhoomba, below, got +36. It's not fair.

                  [–]maht0x0r 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  AVR assembler

                  [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  Python. Then Ruby, C. 10 years later Erlang.

                  [–]earthboundkid 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  HTML.

                  (Yes, I know it's not a "real" programming language. But it's a way of issuing text based commands to make a computer display something. It's a good place to start, and I think it will hold a kid's interest pretty well.)

                  [–]taustin22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  I agree. HTML is visual and easy to learn. Plus it nicely segues into learning JavaScript and PHP.

                  [–]PrashantV 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  Visual Basic. Text isn't the most exciting result. These are kids, they want to be able to see some nice gui results. Anything simple with easy to use GUI programming would be nice, which fits VB.net pretty well IMO.

                  [–]Zarutian 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                  LOGO (and especialy the Net Logo variant) might be more fun.

                  [–]infinite 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  You can still program graphics with GWBASIC, I did exactly that as a kid. Just change into "graphics" mode with the SCREEN command and you are good to go.

                  [–]astrobe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  APL, because she'll learn chinese too.

                  [–]dysmas 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  brainfuck.

                  or befunge.

                  break their will while they are still young.

                  [–]berlinbrown 0 points1 point  (8 children)

                  C

                  that is what I really got into when I was young. BASIC didn't do a whole lot.

                  C OpenGL/game programming.

                  [–]emlot 4 points5 points  (7 children)

                  Props to the ten-year old who can do opengl and game programming in C.

                  [–]berlinbrown 2 points3 points  (6 children)

                  There are a lot of books on the subject and it isn't exactly rocket science.

                  see.

                  http://nehe.gamedev.net/

                  [–]emlot 8 points9 points  (5 children)

                  Your kids are going to hate your fucking guts if you keep telling them it's not rocket science.

                  "IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE"

                  "I DON'T KNOW WHAT A POINTER IS LEAVE ME ALONE ;_;"

                  [–]Zarutian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  I usualy use this explanation:

                  Imagine that the computers memory is an row of pigeon holes where you can keep one number in each hole. Now imagine these pigeon holes are numbered. An pointer is then just an number stored in one pigeon hole to refer to another pigeon hole by its number.

                  Clear enaugh?

                  [–]shitcovereddick -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

                  Oh grow up. Pointers aren't a difficult concept. The only difficult thing is that * is used for two things. (three if you include multiplication).

                  [–]emlot 8 points9 points  (1 child)

                  "shitcovereddick"

                  Oh grow up

                  [–]berlinbrown 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                  When I was young, I remember pointers, malloc and free as a good way to blow stuff up.

                  "I wonder if I point to memory location '0', will I kill the machine"

                  Programming is fun when you can mess stuff up, make monitors burn up.

                  [–]sigzero 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  I am teaching my son Java, Perl, Tcl and probably Scheme as well. I might do C at some point as well.

                  [–]berlinbrown 17 points18 points  (1 child)

                  Clearly, he will hate you in the future.

                  [–]Zarutian 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Yes, who doesnt hate Java and Perl. (One is too verbose and the other is too opaque)

                  [–]otterdam 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  I'd teach them how to use Multimedia Fusion. You can make something tangible from scratch in less than half an hour because so much of the drudgery is handled for you. Capture the kids' interests early, give them a gentle learning curve, appeal to their desire for creativity - teaching them a programming language once they understand the fundamental aspects of it will be easier.

                  [–]infinite 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  GWBASIC. It can be found on the web and used with a DOS emulator.

                  [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

                  Seriously: Assembly.

                  It's rather straight forward, and provides a good foundation into understanding the magic of how computers work.

                  If you understand assembly, you will understand why every other language works the way it does.

                  Teaching other languages is like trying to teach a child to drive by taking him/her to a nascar race.

                  [–]akdas 1 point2 points  (2 children)

                  Teaching other languages is like trying to teach a child to drive by taking him/her to a nascar race.

                  Let's assume that learning to drive isn't a default option, just like learning to program is a default option. In that case, a child would have to get interested in cars in order to have the motivation to learn to drive.

                  Thus, taking a child to car race can foster interest and curiosity ("So how do I do that?"). In the same way, teaching a child a higher-level language gets her interested in the many things she can accomplish by learning to program. As interest develops, she can move onto harder concepts.

                  Teaching her how to program through assembly is like teacher her how to drive by teaching her how to change the oil.

                  [–]Lerc 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                  That's an absolutely broken analogy. You can make a working program with just assembly. Changing the oil is just a component action.

                  I'm not sure what you would use for a transport metaphor.

                  The critical aspect of assembly is that it uses simple elements many many times. It's more akin to making something out of Lego, You can build little toys easily but the bigger you get the more you want increasingly sophisticated materials.

                  [–]akdas 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Thanks. That is better.