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Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

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Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#71

Post by freefrog334433 »

I started a coding class at school because my 8yo preferred learning with friends.

I made a website for parents to see, at http://rustycc.com.au/whyrust for more details of why I chose Rust.

I used Rust, partially because like you, I started with C at an early age, courtesy of my Academic father, who placed me in front of a Unix mainframe at the Uni "babysitting", and older children taught me.

To make it fun, I developed multiplayer games, and children program the actions of a robot avatar, so they have their character, and robot in the games. I also used it to teach mathematics.

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#72

Post by neilv »

margalabargala wrote: post #67
neilv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this thread, I'm responding to the question of whether you teach a child the things, vs. OP's "Knowing fundamentals is always useful, but learning to collaborate with an AI is probably the more important long-term skill." I agree that our field is already full of poo. But, at least with one child, we have a chance to nurture them to be much better than that. I'll make that argument with enthusiasm and determinatio…

I completely disagree. We're trying to teach a child. That requires things like maintaining interest. Results beat out rigor and fundamentals every time. Teaching primitives is how they lose interest, showing them "this is how you make a game with an LLM, here's the game!" followed by, if they're interested, showing how to change certain things in code, is how they want to learn more. In a similar vein, MythBusters g…

Some of what you're arguing agrees with what I said in previous comments in this thread.

What I disagree about is pushbutton generative "AI" popping out the end product.

I want kids to learn by figuring out things as they're building something that they want to build.

And when they can't independently invent a concept or technique that they need for something they're building, you can nudge them. (Example: Their 2D video game screen refreshes are too slow, and now they would be excited to be introduced to double-buffering. And now they'll know exactly why they need it and how it works. So, the next time they need a related graphics improvement, they've had that prior learning experience, and might be able to figure it out on their own.)

Imagine if young Carmack had been plopped down in front of a vibe coding session for Unity or Unreal, stated what he wanted, and it emitted yet another generic 3D first-person shooter. Would he have ever been motivated to innovate anything, and if he was, would he have the cognitive strength and learning skill to do so?

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#73

Post by hobsonlane »

There's a 3rd option. Teach programming like you self-taught leave CS for High School. Just teach a beginner programming language like you would teach a second natural language in a bilingual family. An AI assistant is useless to someone who does not know what "if" does, or order of operations or basic vocabulary, syntax, grammar, and symantics.

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#74

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

margalabargala wrote: post #40
neilv wrote: post #24

> Knowing fundamentals is always useful, but learning to collaborate with an AI is probably the more important long-term skill. How difficult a skill is "collaborate with an AI" that it can't be picked up quickly at any time (and will be changing rapidly)? And how permanently stunted is a person who always "collaborated" and never had to think. > I’ve been focusing on fundamentals like logic, structure, and problem-s…

> And how permanently stunted is a person who always "collaborated" and never had to think. How permanently stunted are today's programmers which have always collaborated with a compiler or interpreter, and never once written or even looked at assembly?

> How permanently stunted are today's programmers which have always collaborated with a compiler or interpreter, and never once written or even looked at assembly?

Not fatally, but the answer to that is not zero

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#75

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

primitivesuave wrote: post #18

I taught kids how to code for several years, both in person and through a website that taught Python to ~500k kids. My eternal advice with teaching CS is to delay abstractions as long as possible . Teach them how to draw a circle on a canvas, then get them to move the circle to different parts of the canvas, then get them to draw multiple overlapping circles/rectangles/etc. Once you've got that down, make a bouncing…

Yeah, I'm an adult and half the time I find that abstractions just muddy the water. The correct amount of abstraction is not zero (possibility excepting the poor engineers who have to actually design microchips), but IMHO it's usually lower than people think it is.

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#76

Post by senectus1 »

showed my son how to write batch files, noticed he was getting interested so i showed him how powershell works. he got even more interested so I have ever since bought a family premium lic for youtube and let him teach himself.

he's teaching himself c, c#, openGL, c++ etc etc. kids these days learn at their own rate via youtube in my experiance.

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#78

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

primitivesuave wrote: post #18

I taught kids how to code for several years, both in person and through a website that taught Python to ~500k kids. My eternal advice with teaching CS is to delay abstractions as long as possible . Teach them how to draw a circle on a canvas, then get them to move the circle to different parts of the canvas, then get them to draw multiple overlapping circles/rectangles/etc. Once you've got that down, make a bouncing…

As a heads up, I fell in love with abstractions as soon as I could understand them (at some point in age 12 or 13 I "invented" function calls in rpg maker events)

Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?

#79

Post by bhu1st »

I setup an old Kano OS on Raspberry Pi 3 for my 8 yo boy. He managed to finish challenges upto Level 8 by himself mostly. The OS has block based programming challenges and games. The Pi PC is his and he is hacking it whenever he feels like. No pressure, not forcing him to learn coding or anything. I'm curious how it will unfold in later years.
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