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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

I got hooked on the feeling of power and control. When you're five years old (the age I was when I started programming "seriously"), it's an age when people start expecting things of you, making demands of you, but you are in no position to do likewise to others. The computer is a machine, not a person, but it's more like a person than other machines are (which is part of why it's so mystifying). It can follow instructions, answer questions, and remember things. It can be communicated with. It is like a rather stupid genie that can only accept meticulously formulated wishes, but will carry them out faithfully to the limit of its power. So a kid like me, finally confronted with something that will do whatever he wants, can spend hours formulating wishes for the genie to construct whatever his imagination can dream up.

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> When you're five years old (the age I was when I started programming "seriously")

I know this is HN, but I have a hard time believing this. Somehow feels like nostalgic self-congratulatory boasting.

Honestly curious, what does it mean for a 5-year-old to be programming seriously?

For myself, it was around that age that I stopped just writing games line by line from magazines, and started creating my own from scratch.

I also branched out from just making games, and started writing programs to solve things for me, for example, a budgeting program.

I think "seriousness" has to be interpreted in the context of the programmer. I discovered computer programming at the ago of seven, and I was about as serious about it as a seven year old can be.

It means to type basic programs found in a book or magazine. It meant learning a poke command to change your background color. Writing a for loop to print out a number.

At 6 maybe you type that huge program that creates a sprite ball that bounces across the screen. By 7 you are drawing out sprites on grid paper and making that bouncing ball different pictures.

It took me until later in highschool to understand things but typing and modifying is programming. My variables for loops were always lili,lolo,lala,lulu,p naming them there purpose seemed foreign.

That's why I put it in quotes. Compared to the stuff I would do later, it was utterly trivial, but yes, I was writing what one might consider real programs, with multiple statements, branching, loops, and conditionals, at 5. It's not intended to be self-congratulatory at all -- honest. Only to give you a picture of what's going through a kid's head at that age.

I was 7 when I started writing simple programs (to solve simple equations which came up in maths class) in QBasic. I was 8 when I learned about arrays, which led to writing a contacts app (storing name, address, and phone number in a file, then reading it and displaying the info). It took crazy amounts of time and incredible number of trial and error, but it was fun.

Not sure if I'd be able to pull off the same at 5, but it doesn't strike me as utterly impossible. Also, the GP didn't say what was the result of his "serious coding" - could be nothing (working) at all until much later.

Interesting you were coding at 5, I have 7 and 5 year olds who are pretty good with computers, can install and learn new games by themselves but I haven't considered introducing them to programming mainly because I don't feel they can manage and also it does not seem necessary...considering I personally started coding at the age of 20 when I joined university for my computer science degree and I have been fairly successful, currently working for a US company, remotely from Africa and making more than a US average developer salary which in my city puts me at top 0.1% salary range, and with a quite positive career outlook.

I think you are missing the point then of introducing them to programming.

It's not about career prospects. It's about joy and about learning a way to structured thoughts which few other activities can provide. A computer can't be argued with or tricked. It executes instructions. You can't beg it to be nice, you have to actually fix the bug. It won't betray you either. This very strict cause-and-effect property is a very important lesson that too few members of society have understood.

Well, for one thing, back when I learned, there wasn't a whole lot you could do with a microcomputer besides program it. The first computer I had was a VIC-20, and I didn't get any games with it so it was strictly a BASIC machine. Today, kids have endless options for games and other software to try, plus access to the whole online world (well hopefully, only as much of that world as their parents let them see!).

You may wish to show your kids something like Scratch or even just drawing pictures with Python's turtle library, just to get a feel for their interest level. If they figured out how to install games and stuff on their own, they are good candidates for programming, provided they are interested. Most importantly, you cannot rush it. They will become interested in programming (or anything else) if and when they are ready. Any age is a good age to get started. I have much respect for folks who discover programming during middle age or older.

Oh, and like the other commenter said... worry about their career prospects later. Right now, for them it's about having fun.

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