Author is spot on. My son and daughter have about 2 and 4 years to go before I probably intro them to programming. When I do, it's going to be a C64 all the way. And a real one. With a real old school monitor and a luxury a didn't have for about a year or two: a floppy drive.

I've get a lot of the start with JS comments. But that would be the last thing I do. As a child learning, you need to remove the complexities and distractions of a modern system. Windows, browsers, edit js in one app, run it in another, use a mouse, open the js debug console, etc. Just wayyy to much stuff for a young mind to try to focus on.

Don't get me wrong, they probably _can_ learn js, but after decades of programming in all kinds of different languages, just because js is the latest fashion, doesn't mean I'd every try to teach it to a kid. No way.

BASIC, on the other hand, was created _for beginners_. I learned A LOT over the years when I was using BASIC. I also had magazines (COMPUTE! & Gazette) and books that helped immensely. I was just thinking yesterday actually, that it was awesome having the C64 Programmers Ref Guide that had the machine schematics and port pin outs in it!! You'll never get that for a Mac or iPhone nowadays (and these sorts of things usually only show up on 'hacker' sites). This was a book put you closer to the hardware so you could more easily understand what PEEK and POKE really did. :D

I'm _really_ looking forward to the instruction days. The C64 was so popular for a reason: it was powerful & simple. This is how I want to introduce my kids to programming. They'll figure out Ruby, JS, C and things (maybe 8-bit assembly too!) later.

I loved my C64 (still do) and I hope that will rub off on them. Can't wait.