I imagine this sentiment is going to be very unpopular here, but as a parent of a ten-year-old, I find this kind of fetishizing of the accomplishments of ten-year-olds to be disturbing. I think it's great that Carmack's son has taken an interest in programming at such a young age, but why need this be so public? Not only does this do his son a disservice (who, despite his precociousness, is not old enough to understand how cruel the internet can be -- or how long its memory), it also does other children a disservice by implicitly encouraging absurdly aspirational parenting. Witness this comment, found in this HN discussion:

I am so jealous when I hear these damn stories. Another 5 or more years to go. Does anyone have a book about the method they develop? I bet that, following it to the T or not, it would sell here with the HN crowd.

It's great to inspire your kids to program (computational thinking is literacy, after all), but it's deeply misguided to believe that normal ten-year-olds exhibit the kind of intense interest that Carmack's son seems to display here -- and indeed, believing that a "method" can yield this kind of interest in a child can result in the kind of paternal (or maternal) disappointment that does lasting emotional harm.

Good on Carmack's son for showing such interest and talent, but let's encourage that to be fostered relatively privately -- and thereby allow him to be what he is first and foremost: a ten-year-old kid.