13 replies to this topic

[spikeadelika]

My son is 8 years old and would like to start programming. He has been begging me since he was 6 years old. The last time I did any programming was last century back in 1992 when I studied Pascal

I need some advice on where to start as I will need to teach my son and of course in the process I will have to learn in order to do this.

SO where do I begin??

Spike
aka -->Janine

[Alexander]

There's of course BASIC which is a classic as it is a beginners all purpose language. I think this is a good program to interpret it, there are other free ones online:
FreeBASIC compiler (a free BASIC compiler) - official page - News [en]

The syntax would look like:

num = 7
PRINT "I'm thinking of a number between 0 and 15. Try to guess it in 3 tries"
FOR a = 1 TO 3
INPUT guess
IF guess = num THEN
    PRINT "You got it!"
EXIT FOR
ELSE
    PRINT "No, sorry"
END IF
NEXT a

There are of course other options, like KPL (kids programming language) which I cannot vouch for, it's not free. There is also Python although I'm not sure if that is an easy choice, but it does seem simpler in the end:
Download Python

The syntax is like so:

import random

number = random.randint( 1, 100 )
answer = ''
print 'I\'m thinking of a number between 1 and 100'
print 'What is the number I\'m thinking of?'
attempts = 0
while answer != number:
  attempts = attempts + 1
  answer = raw_input( '?' )
  answer = int( answer )
  if( answer > number ):
    print 'Lower'
  elif( answer < number ):
    print 'Higher'
  elif( answer == number ):
    print 'You got it in %i tries!' % (attempts)

There's an interactve shell that comes with Python so you can mess around with it (directly without compiling etc.), but the only thing is the language requires the need to space your code correctly, I'm sure tutorials would explain it better.

I need my coffee..

[Irfan_A]

.:: Welcome to CodeCall ::.

I agree with Nullw0rm, BASIC is a good idea to begin programming. You can also try Just BASIC, a free version from commercial product from Shoptalk Systems, Liberty BASIC. Just BASIC was designed for any programmers, especially for hobbyist programmer. The syntax is easy enough, you can look at my signature. Learn more : Just BASIC - Free programming language

Pascal was designed for educational purpose and this is also good start for programming.

[Excited]

Python, don't use BASIC. Ever

[opwuaioc]

If you're using Windows, Microsoft offers a number of tools to help kids program more easily like Kodu and Coding4Fun. I've never used any of it, but I'm sure it can't be all bad.

[WingedPanther]

Lazarus is based on ObjectPascal, so it could be fun for both of you.

[X_Programmer]

If he wants to make games you can try YoYo Game's Game Maker. You can use drag and drop functions to start to learn the fundementals of programming, and then you can start using code if you want. You can only make 2D games with the free version, but the functions are very powerful.
The code you can use in the software is basically a combination of many languages, but it resembles C++ a little.

It's really easy to learn basic programming functions, you can make games at the same time, and it's free(Upgrade is about 20 bucks if you want to use 3D functions).

Here's the download link:
YoYo Games


I used it for a while and it became easy to make the jump from that to real programming languages like C#, C++ and such.

[spikeadelika]

:) Thanks you all for the advice. I am going to make a start at it today.

[DarkLordofthePenguins]

There's an educational program called KTurtle that teaches basic programming concepts to kids. It comes with most Linux distros and I think it's available for Windows and Mac as well, provided you have KDE.

[Groogy]

I would recommend Ruby as it has the goal to be easy for humans to read and use but it does have some complicated parts which your son can build up to at a later stage or age.

Here's a simple syntax example:

5.times do

  puts "Hello World!"

end

which will print out "Hello World!" five times.

You can get a version for Windows here.
And here's some documentation to get started:
Documentation
[Ruby-Doc.org: Documenting the Ruby Language]

[bbqroast]

I know a great language Processing!!
Its really easy to get the grips of, its a lot like JAVA.
It resides here:
Processing.org
Happy programing 8-)

EDIT: Be careful with those microsoft languages they have minor pitholes as do many other languages... DONT TAKE UP A LANGUAGE WITHOUT SEMICOLONS You'll get into a habit.

[wim DC]

bbqroast said:

EDIT: Be careful with those microsoft languages they have minor pitholes as do many other languages... DONT TAKE UP A LANGUAGE WITHOUT SEMICOLONS You'll get into a habit.

Works in both ways..

When i, for school, had to do VB i was putting semicolons all over the place out of habit. error, error, error, error :glare: