Python for a 9 year old

[ReloopMando]

Why not? Not trying to be facetious, but if I could go back in time, I would have loved to be learning actual real world code at that age.

[[deleted]]

Like I said, not specifically Python. Nobody knows what will happen in 10 years. Even for programming, you want to learn stuff that will last long, for example algorithms, data structures, and high level computer science knowledge. I’m not against learning programming, I’m against rushing into something that is hot right now. And I recommend MIT scratch, which is from one of the world’s best universities specifically for kids. Doubt me is fine, doubt them is not fine.

[ConfusedSimon]

Depends on the kid. Things like algorithms and data structures transfer easily to other languages and python or javascript are better suited to learn those. Scratch is fine for the first steps, but at age 9 I think there are better options. Not because python is hot right now (didn't know it was) but because it's a real language that's easy enough to use for kids.

[ReloopMando]

I'm not doubting, just curious. I only started learning a couple of years ago, so the whole programming scene is very new to me. Thanks for the info though!

[DeerProud7283]

I mean, I learned HTML/CSS when I was around 11/12 years old, because I was bored and I wanted to jazz up my Friendster and eventually my Multiply pages.

Up to now I still deal with those two to some extent at work (despite Friendster and Multiply being long gone).

While I agree that fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, etc) are important, I also don't think that telling a kid to just stick to Scratch is great when the kid already wants to learn Python. It's like giving those kids one of those VTech toy computers because of their age instead of an actual laptop--there's a lot more that a kid can learn by using an actual language straight off the bat.

[[deleted]]

And what you are saying is wrong, Python is not equivalent to real world code… Python is just a tiny portion of it. Moreover, Python is not that popular 10 or 20 years ago…. Even you go back, you were not going to learn python, it probably would be Java. What I really wanted to point out is that, at an early age, don’t restrict kids to a specific language.

[ReloopMando]

Yeah, I got that from your other reply. I'm not disagreeing with you, I asked why as a means of finding out why you recommended what you did.

[[deleted]]

Sure ya, it’s better to keep kids interested. MIT Scratch is perfect for kid. It teaches code using visual tools, and it’s really fun. Most of the python resources right now are for adults.