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Comment by HDMI_Cable | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, as someone who has grown up in the world of JS and interpreted languages, It's really important to teach them the fundamentals like filesystems, the command line, and especially harder, compiled languages, rather than JS or Python. I would recommend a good solid foundation like Java (especially if they like Minecraft).

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I think the initial language doesn't matter all that much as long as you can get interest in programming and have some structure to break you of any bad habits after you first start. I taught my self to program with GW Basic and goto statements in the early 2000's. At that point it was already a horribly antiquated technology but it ran on my braille notetaker so the learning curve to get started was super low. With in a year or two of getting started I was in a C++ class using normal computers which broke me of all the bad habits I had taught myself.

Yeah, I'm just using Java as an example because there's a clear goal (almost every 11 year old plays Minecraft, if they can program plugins for it, they will be the most popular kid in class), and because its hard enough so that they're forced to learn good practices.

Hard disagree.

They are 11. It has to be fun. Minecraft is the right idea, file system io is not.

Indeed. They can be fun and consider what your child’s interest is, his aptitude, as well as the language’s popularity so that it will benefit them in the future.

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