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Comment by ajbetteridge | Hacker News Reader

This looks like something my kids would love. I've been trying to teach them Python over the last few weeks, with marginal success, sometimes to do with my time restrictions, but also their lack of motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results. This looks like it could remedy that.

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You might like this book: http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/2014/11/adventures-in-minecraf...

Currently working through this with a couple of 7yr olds. It's pretty good.

I agree it's really tough to motivate kids to make games and program when they have massive instant libraries of high quality stuff online. My supply of good software was so limited growing up that it was easy to stay focused and build things. Now it's really hard to motivate kids with starter graphics programs and little interactive things. Hopefully the Minecraft tie-in will help overcome this. I'll give this a try with my 9 year old.

>motivation at the length of time it takes for them to see results

This is why I think javascript should be a first language. Kids can see the results on a web page right away.

Why python? There are far more straightforward languages to learn with more beginner-friendly development environments. Seems like an unnecessarily frustrating place to begin.

What are some examples? I'd like to teach some people I know the basic concepts of programming, and I was thinking of starting with Python. I'd like to hear of some languages that have more beginner-friendly environments.

I'd go with C#.

Turtle/logo, squeak/smalltalk. This minecraft mod is learntomod/JavaScript. There's pippy for Python.

Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/

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