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Ask HN: What gift to teach a 7 year-old programming?

2 points by lylejohnson ↗ HN
When I was a kid I learned programming (in BASIC) by copying programs out of Creative Computing, or their books with collections of programs, and running them on whatever computer I could get my hands on.

My nephew is 7, and sharp as a tack, and I'd like to get him something for Christmas that he could use to at least find out if programming is something he'd be into. I don't think he's too young to get it, but I'm not sure what toys/gifts might be appropriate. He lives too far away, unfortunately, for one-on-one lessons or anything like that. Any suggestions from the HN community on good "gateway" toys or gifts to look into?

8 comments

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rman
Lego Mindstorm.
lylejohnson
Thanks for the reminder, that's a good idea. Actually, I want someone to get me some LEGO Mindstorms for Christmas. ;)
bluesmoon
At that age, he can teach himself just like you did (same with me). I was 9 when I learnt BASIC out of the ZX Spectrum+ user manual. It all started when I typed in the first example program in the book and realised that I could change the example text to my name. Ego programming does wonders to boost interest.
lylejohnson
Yes, but...

When you turned on your ZX (if I recall correctly) it popped up in a BASIC interpreter. As did the Commodore PET, VIC-20, C64, TRS-80 CoCo, ... and you get the idea.

My nephew does not yet have his own computer, but if he did, it would boot up into Windows/Mac/Linux. So then I suppose the question is what sort of "encapsulated" (?) programming environment we could install for him to work with. Maybe Hackety Hack would be an appropriate choice in this circumstance.

sky87
+1 for Lego Mindstorm, maybe a book about Processing when he is a bit older and if he likes the stuff
squidbot
Assuming he has a computer and an internet connection, send him this link: http://inventwithpython.com/chapters/

The author has done a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of the Basic Computer Games book where you can just type in the code and fun stuff happens. I've got my 7 year old daughter started on it and she's having a ball.

lylejohnson
I might be able to coax his parents into installing Python on one of their MacBooks for that purpose. Of course that may lead to him wanting his own MacBook next Christmas. ;)

So does your daughter work out the programs in IDLE? That's very cool, and encouraging to hear. (This is one of the reasons why I wish we lived closer to my brother and his family, so that it's something the nephew and I could work on together).