Advice needed, son wants to learn how to program
Hi all,
My 8 year old is asking if he can learn how to program. He has asked specifically if I could set him up with a ‘programming kit with lessons’ for a Christmas present. I’d like to support this, and it seems like it’s not a transient interest as he’s been all over scratch, and using things like minecraft commands for the last year. I have an old (pre 2017) MacBook Air I can set up for this. How do I / what would you advise I set up for him, to a) keep him safe online (he’s 8!) and b) give him the tools he needs in a structured way.
I am not a programmer. I know enough bash/shell and basic unix stuff to be dangerous and I was a front end dev a very long time ago, but I wouldn’t call myself a programmer and don’t know what concepts he needs to learn first.
Hugely appreciate any advice, thanks.
Edit: So I posted this then had a busy family day and came back to so many comments! I will methodically go through these all, thanks so much.
A couple of things on resources: he has expressed interest in 3D worlds and I noticed comments on engines, but wonder if that’s too advanced?
Totally agree with the short feedback loop rather than projects that take days.
He has an iPad 6 and I’m happy to pop a Linux distro on the Air, so certainly open to that.
So many links to research. Hugely grateful.
In terms of keeping him safe online look into some content filtering for the whole home network, either paid or self-hosted.
Projects that act upon physical stuff are the most rewarding. Something simple such as building a simple Python script that interacts with a smart home API and turns switches on/off or changes light colors around the house are relatively simple and require no hardware/mechanics if you're not into robotics, soldering or circuit boards.
You've got a great kid :)
I love this. https://www.youtube.com/c/beneater ben eater does a lot of hardware stuff that may be of interest in this area.
I know that there's some pretty advanced lego stuff which is a great entry point as well.
Writing a program in assembly for 6502 processor might be a little bit too far from scratch for an 8 year old
HAHA yes of course of course. But it's not out of the realm of possibility if they show an interest in it. Ben does some really simple projects that an 8 yr old could tackle to get some real fundamental understanding of what's going on under the hood.