bits and pieces

The Newbie Programmer

Posted by admin on Mar 21 2007

Read quite a heated debate on SDF forums today, re a member’s 13 year-old niece, who is now expressing an interest in learning how to program. Of course, the argument came to which language was best lead-in to both good programming practices/habits, practicality and most importantly, “fun factor” (remember, we’re talking about a teenager here).

I personally put in a vote for LOGO or Turtle-LOGO. These two programming languages are simple, give visual and immediate results and can be fun. The last thing (I think, IMHO) you want to do is scare or turn-off a budding interest by throwing in something with a very steep learning curve.

My early years programming was through LOGO and later BASIC. My most favorite book of all time: More Basic Games. They were all text-based games, but they kept me entertained for hours - both in typing in the source code and in learning how the program works. These days, I see very few intro to programming books focus on games… which is sad. The most important part about the newbie programming experience is having fun… and the awe of discovery when one figures out how certain aspects of the programming language works. (Eureka factor) Well, that’s my 2 bits.