When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was program games. If I had been made to program anything else, I probably would have lost interest. A twelve year old doesn't need to know OOP or best practices, a twelve year old needs to have fun
Ask HN: Coding assignments for kids
11–14 of 14 posts
Re: Ask HN: Coding assignments for kids
#12I like this book: http://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Programmer-Introduction-Cre...
Another book like this: "How to solve it by computer" see: http://www.amazon.com/Solve-Computer-Prentice-Hall-Internati...
Re: Ask HN: Coding assignments for kids
#13We're still trying to figure out coding assignments simple enough for adults who present themselves as career programmers.
Re: Ask HN: Coding assignments for kids
#14Let her write the programs SHE wants to write.
Now, of course, the difficulty here is that the young programmer may want to write programs that are beyond his knowledge and abilities. For example, I wanted to write a basic interpreter, and not having recursion, I had a very hard time with parenthesized expressions. I also wanted to do a 3D universe simulation, way beyond my and my computer capabilities at the time. :-)
But as an experienced programmer, you can find out what she wants to program, and direct her teaching to let her make progress toward this goal.