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My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

armaansahni.com

121–130 of 493 posts

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#121

> But there was one downside to AI. AI was like a human which is why you could talk to it like a human. But because it was like a human, it could also be wrong like a human. So I had to make sure that it wasn't getting the answer wrong. For which I would sometimes use Google Search. I really don't buy that this was written/created by an actual 9yr old. But this might just be my unhealthy pessimism/skepticism when it…

Kids dad here.

Both parents are programmers, and have also written blogs. While the motivation/drive is his own, he has helpful guidance to accomplish what he wants to do.

The blog is his own words. We helped with the outline, and also provided multiple rounds of feedback to ensure good clarity of what he's trying to express. We tried not to interfere too much with his thoughts. The quoted thought "because it was like a human, it could also be wrong like a human" is something he was telling us when he discovered it hallucinated. But he doesn't understand what an LLM hallucination is, that was his words. I asked him to share that in his blog post.

The code is written on his own. But when he gets stuck, he has us to give him hints. As programmers, we can speed up him significantly by steering him in the right direction.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#122
post #118

This is awesome. My son recently turned 8. All his coding so far has been with Scratch and other block-based programming environments (Octostudio, VEX Robotics, Apitor, Microsoft Makecode). His typing speed is better than most kids his age, but still slow (around 10wpm). I'm curious how you helped introduce your son to text-based programming. I've been considering either: A) Having him go through this free Python cou…

> His typing speed is better than most kids his age, but still slow (around 10wpm). Get him on gtypist for 20-30 min a day. It’ll pay dividends for life. You’ll be shocked how fast it gets up to 60+ wpm.

Thanks. Right now he's using Typing Club, a typing tutor for kids. I will probably have him finish the sequence on there (or at least get to 20wpm on the lower case keys) before moving on to gtypist, keybr or nitrotype.

He only does 2-3 mins per day of focused typing practice. Most of his daily non-school study time is spent on math (Math Academy), Chinese (writing) and memorizing essential root words (using Anki). I don't want to add anything, as he already has little free time to play and read on weekdays.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#123

ah, the nostalgia! my visual basic stuff was much less fun than this! feedback: Congrats on shipping! Many professional developers can't claim the same :)

Kids dad here.

I encouraged to ship early. You know, better done than perfect. Trying to show him the importance of feedback. We think of stuff, but we'll miss many things. Once it gets out in the real world, we'll get real user feedback and learn more.

eg: I test played it many times for him, yet I missed the fact that 'charging' is totally unclear

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#124

This is awesome. My son recently turned 8. All his coding so far has been with Scratch and other block-based programming environments (Octostudio, VEX Robotics, Apitor, Microsoft Makecode). His typing speed is better than most kids his age, but still slow (around 10wpm). I'm curious how you helped introduce your son to text-based programming. I've been considering either: A) Having him go through this free Python cou…

We've had a long journey. Main thing is that I realized that my son doesn't learn enough from open ended tools like Scratch. So we tried a bunch of other things. He started with Scratch JR & Scratch. Then we switched to Tynker Jr & Tynker. Which provide challenge oriented block based games. Teaches loops, functions, etc. Then we switched to CodeMonkey, which provides challenge oriented block & code based games (coffe…

I'm curious how much use he got out of Tynker? I noticed they have a cyber Monday sale right now, so I might sign up for a year.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#125

> But there was one downside to AI. AI was like a human which is why you could talk to it like a human. But because it was like a human, it could also be wrong like a human. So I had to make sure that it wasn't getting the answer wrong. For which I would sometimes use Google Search. I really don't buy that this was written/created by an actual 9yr old. But this might just be my unhealthy pessimism/skepticism when it…

"Everyone dies one day. Everyone. Even wolves. But not books. Not words. Words don't die"

-- My son, 3.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#126
post #95

That's amazing! My son is also 9 and while I haven't even attempted to teach him coding, he would probably enjoy playing this game more than writing one! My only comment is to join in with the rest of the comments here and say how wonderful it is to see this (genuinely fun!) game and to encourage him to do more!

My son sees me working every day and has been very curious about what we do and how to do it. We've talked about how software is everywhere, etc.

Appreciate the love

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#127

Delightful! Goodness this brings back memories of making games in PowerPoint. Where there's a will and patience, there's a way. Anyway, I have hopefully actionable feedback! 1. When an attack lands, we play an attack animation, but I notice the HP is deducted before it even starts to play. It would be better to wait until the animation is over to reduce the HP, in time with when the "hit" visually occurs. 2. It seems…

Appreciate the feedback, will share this with him!

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#128

This is awesome. My son recently turned 8. All his coding so far has been with Scratch and other block-based programming environments (Octostudio, VEX Robotics, Apitor, Microsoft Makecode). His typing speed is better than most kids his age, but still slow (around 10wpm). I'm curious how you helped introduce your son to text-based programming. I've been considering either: A) Having him go through this free Python cou…

We've had a long journey. Main thing is that I realized that my son doesn't learn enough from open ended tools like Scratch. So we tried a bunch of other things. He started with Scratch JR & Scratch. Then we switched to Tynker Jr & Tynker. Which provide challenge oriented block based games. Teaches loops, functions, etc. Then we switched to CodeMonkey, which provides challenge oriented block & code based games (coffe…

I really have to applaud how astute you've been with your observations of how your son is learning things. That's quite difficult.

Additionally, I'm glad you weren't afraid to hand your son the real tools and let him build and break stuff. For some reason with programming, so much of the curriculum (even for adults) spends a lot of effort to hide away the things that are perceived as too difficult (e.g., pointers, memory allocation, etc). For children in particular it seems to be the actual code itself, and so we have things like scratch. It's quite refreshing to see a parent go against the grain on this one.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#129
Enemy scaling system does not make sense. A black hole should have incomprehensionable hp. It broke my immersion; which, was a shame because I was really happy with nailing 3 math problems in row. 2nd does the enemy need to do math?? What the heck! Other than keep up the good work.

Re: My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback

#130
post #26

Amazing. Younger people (and people new in any field) often think of intersting approaches without the blessing/curse of "best practices." The process for creating the game was very good and very logical way to learn a new field. I would recommend a couple of small things for the code. Variable names are usually ALL_CAPS if they never change (for instance const PI =3.142) and camelCaseForOtherVariables. snake_case_va…

Agree 100%. Since dad helped, I was expecting to see sprites sheets, or some JS classes for some OOP, etc. Was pleasantly surprised to see how "simple" the approach was for such fun output with a decent amount of variety.
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