Ask HN: Youngest possible age to start learning how to code?
In your opinion, what is the youngest possible age at which children can start learning how to code?
Also, what would your approach be to teaching a child at that age?
Also, what would your approach be to teaching a child at that age?
I don't think it's so much about a specific age, but to help stimulate a kid's imagination what's possible with a general purpose programming language.
You need to read your own code to get your bearings of where you are in the file. Anything more complex than 5 instructions is a no-go for non-readers.
The greatest opportunities has hardly anything todo with what you learn at school in the practical sense.
Before the printing press (and at least a century after), most people could not read. This excluded them from scientific discovery too, since it was the means that people could exchange information over distance.
If you aren't able to do basic programming in a generation or two, you will probably be excluded from science too.
We're not suggesting every child needs to become a CS doc, but computers will be such a fundamental part of nearly every aspect of life, that the ones who can't hack programming will be treated like the children who can't read or count change in today's world - effectively useless. (Even more so since their "manual labour" is no longer necessary)