Suitable environment for a 7 year old [closed]

Answer 1

Personally, I think the basics of arithmetic operations and Boolean logic are more important to teach to a child first. After they have grasped these concepts then I think moving on to the basic constructs are appropriate. I just don't see how a child could understand conditionals and looping without Boolean logic, but then again, there are some pretty bright kids out there :)

Assuming the previous statement is met, I would have to cast my vote for python.

Answer 2

While it appears that it is being redesigned, you can still get the old version of Hackety Hack, which is a ruby programming kit designed by _why for teenagers and beginning programmers.

Answer 3

Try Small Basic, which has a mini-BASIC language and simplified for the younger crowd.

Answer 4

I learned how to program when I was 10 in exactly the way you taught your son. My dad used the GW-Basic interpreter that came with our AT&T PC6300, and we wrote a game where the computer asked you a question, and you had to answer A/B/C. The big advantage to syntax in GW-Basic was that you didn't have multi-line statements. You might want to try something similar. Java, with it's curly braces, might be a little tough.

Example code:

10 PRINT "What color is Big Bird?"
20 PRINT "A. Blue"
30 PRINT "B. Green"
40 PRINT "C. Yellow"
50 INPUT$ ANSWER$
60 IF ANSWER$ = "C" THEN PRINT "Good Job!" ELSE PRINT "Oops, wrong answer!"

I spent hours upon hours using various permutations of that syntax and writing my own "games". And it made me want to learn more... might help.

Answer 5

Squeak Smalltalk system is an implementation of Smalltalk that I have heard much good about when it comes to educating children in programming. The Etoys project supposedly contains lots of resources for keeping the learning experience fun and motivating.

Answer 6

Why not go back to the days of QBasic? That's the first language I learned (actually it was GW-BASIC, but that's beside the point).

The syntax is much easier to get one's head around (albeit fickle and sometimes downright frustrating). It doesn't teach anything OO, but that's probably above his head anyway, as it would have been mine.

This site may also be of interest.