[K12OSN] ISO: Good programming language to teach an 8yr old

Fri Mar 19 19:56:21 UTC 2004

For the eight-year-old, I actually would recommend REXX. Yes, REXX. It's 
easy as all heck, it scales from PCs to mainframes (on which it was 
first invented), it's interpreted, and it's easy to debug. You can get 
native REXX interpreters even for Windows very easily (Regina REXX comes 
w/ the Resource Kit and is GPL'd). There's exactly one variable type: 
string. Yes, I know that the C purists will complain, "Oh, it won't 
prepare him for typed languages! Calamity!" Hey, the kid's eight years 
old; he's got time.

As he gets older, I would suggest Pascal. Pascal is, in my experience, a 
very good language for teaching good, solid programming discipline; I 
think colleges were absolutely stupid to abandon it. I knew several C 
programmers, and those who'd learned Pascal first tended to have cleaner 
code than the ones who first learned w/ C. Yes, I know, "nobody uses it 
anymore," but they use Smalltalk in CompSci for OO concepts for a very 
good reason.

And no, I can't program anymore hardly to save my life; it's been too 
many years. :-(

--TP

Bill Kendrick wrote:

>Back when I was 8 years old (about 20 years ago now!), I programmed in
>BASIC on my Timex Sinclair 1000 and Atari 1200XL computers.
>
>Today, I've been asked to tutor a very smart (but currently far
>too Windows-saavy for his and his parents' own good) 8 year old kid.
>
>He's got a Pentium (which doesn't work, and it sounds like Windows is
>broken), and I'm thinking of installing Linux for him.  (He's used it before,
>and likes what he's seen.)  I think he's ready to start picking up 
>programming, as it will provide him with a creative outlet for all that
>computer geek energy he has.
>
>
>What's a good, kid-friendly language for today's kids to use (on Linux,
>of course!)?
>
>I've though about picking up some Python and passing my knowledge on to him,
>but of course I'd rather ask the educators and other experts on various
>mailing lists for suggestions, since many of you have already dealt with
>this problem before.
>
>:^)
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>-bill!
>bill at newbreedsoftware.com          Check out the new, improved Tux Paint site!
>http://newbreedsoftware.com/bill/        http://newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint/
>
>
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