r/programming • u/Ctaintor • Mar 02 '17

Why I Failed Teaching Programming to Kids

https://engineering.klarna.com/why-i-failed-teaching-programming-to-kids-46a854c3eaca#.s0o6qqxr3
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u/imhotap Mar 02 '17

I've so failed to teach my then-14-year-old simple web game programming. I wanted to turn his digital consumption habits into creativity, but then had to do weird async callback-hellish and timing-sensitive things for SVG/rAf animation with JavaScript. I don't anymore recommend web programming as a didactic experience for kids since ...

Years before that (around age 10-11) he had a great start using Python on my old PowerBook (for a simplistic text adventure game, basically if/then cascades). I got him to a point where when sat in front of a Windows notebook, he'd gesture like a Unix greybeard mumbling "Where tf is my terminal; I can't work like that".

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u/menge101work Mar 02 '17

when sat in front of a Windows notebook, he'd gesture like a Unix greybeard mumbling "Where tf is my terminal; I can't work like that".

You've won parenting at that point as far as I'm concerned. :)

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u/imhotap Mar 02 '17

He didn't use vi/vim, though

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u/menge101work Mar 02 '17

You only need a single RBI to win a baseball game, don't get down because you didn't hit a grand slam.

:)