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Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

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Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#61

Post by corysama »

coderdd wrote: post #41
albertzeyer wrote: post #25

I usually recommend everyone who wants to learn programming: - to write some games, - or alternative to write some tools to be used for themselves to automate or simplify some of their tasks. Writing games can be so much fun, and is incredibly deep such that you can pretty much touch upon all topics of programming, networking, computer science, algorithms and data structures, artificial intelligence, 3D graphics, GPU…

Tic80.com - might overgrow it quickly, but excellent for start. Has Lua, Fennel.

Check out https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#62

Post by sacrosancty »

_fjb4 wrote: post #50

There's something the "old hackers" know that many CS students don't learn from the start (in the introductory classes), and that is actually how a computer operates. Don't spend a lot of time on this unless he's really interested, but it's a good idea to sit down with him for a few hours and teach him what really goes on inside a computer. I'm talking about the concept of instructions, registers, addressable memory,…

It depends if his motivation is to build something or to learn stuff. Personally, when I was that age, I couldn't care less about learning anything unless it directly helped me achieve my immediate goals of whatever I was building. Turned out that was quite a lot. I learned about registers because I had to to optimize part of a game I was making. I wouldn't have sat down and studied some dry theoretical crap just for the sake of it. Block diagrams were a strong turn-off because you knew there would be no actionable information in them. Why do I care how this unit is connected to that unit? I just want to use the units! I'd naturally infer the structure of things once I was using them.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#63

Post by redredrobot »

Python is a great option because it is high-level, easy to pick up, powerful and has a library for anything they are interested in pursuing. Something like streamlit is cool because you can write a small amount of code to build a useful web app that you can interact with. For data viz related things, Jupyter + Python (maybe Pandas, not SciPy or NumPy unless that sort of math is specifically interesting to them)

Javascript and webdev is also a decent option since you can build such interesting and shareable web apps quickly, but the frameworks and scaffolding can be intimidating and painful.

I would work backwards from a project/interest and pick a high-level language where it's easy to get a good enough solution and create something that feels like an accomplishment. I would want to teach both programming as well as the joy of programming.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#64

Post by AussieWog93 »

>point the kid to

>Tell him to learn

>online courses

You're their mum/dad, no? You know their interests, you know their abilities. This is an amazing opportunity to form a lifelong bond. Sit down with them and work it out together!

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#65

Post by dsowerby »

I’m 18 I’d go with game dev It’s fun and will teach you basic concepts with instant feedback

Unity is a decent start, and from there I got more into the fun stuff, OpenGL, assembly Lots of tutorials online.

From there you’ll have the background to quite easily transfer to whatever area is of interest.

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#67

Post by jay_kyburz »

Unity.

It's "cool" and relevant.

The coding part is C# so a nice language and environment.

You don't really need to understand all the low level stuff, you can write some scripts and just press play!

There are heaps of official and community tutorials. API Quite well documented too.

Its not just code. There is a big editor to learn and become good at. Your kids may decided they like other aspects. Modeling, Lighting, Effects, Audio, UI, VR even?

I think there is plenty of Unity employment around, not just in games but all kinds of "multi media" businesses.

Jay

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#69

Post by cellularmitosis »

corysama wrote: post #61
coderdd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tic80.com - might overgrow it quickly, but excellent for start. Has Lua, Fennel.

Check out https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

I’ll second the recommendation for PICO-8 to get started with making games. The built-in game browser, combined with being able to easily see the source for those games is fantastic.

https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/6e191bf6b6f062e5f558...

Re: Ask HN: It's 2022. Where should I direct the youths to learn about programming?

#70

Post by giantg2 »

I think I'll go against the advice of others here.

I would first start him on some guided C++ projects that illustrate basic syntax, data structures, explain libraries, pointer, how memory works, etc. I wouldn't spend a lot of time here. Some simple but neat console games that also showcase some math coolness (like guess a number between 1-100, then say you can guess it in 7 or fewer guesses).

This is how I learned, and was very helpful in understanding some of the why and how of programming. This gave me a deeper understanding of what was going on when I was introduced to easier languages. It also gave me enough understanding to ask how things worked in the easier languages.

After that brief learning period, then I would put him Python. There are lots of powerful libraries and it's easier to build more advance projects. There is also great support for physical stuff like Pi hats if he wants to so robotics, sensors, etc.

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