I know a child who is very interested in learning how to program computers. He very bright, but is only 10 years old and thus I hesitate to recommend a language such as C++ to him especially since he has no experience with programming. However, he is very interested and I would like to recommend something for him. Do you guys have a suggestion as to what language/resources/books I should reccomend to him?

QBasic/VisualBasic perhaps? If you want him to learn good programming but don''t want to expose him to C++ try Delphi, you can get the personal edition free from Borland (140MB Download).

Turbo Pascal is a great beginner language. It doesn''t get you into the bad codeing habbits that Basic/Visual basic do. It''s alot like C which is good should he want to move on, but it doesn''t let you step on your feet. The compiler tells you exactly what needs to be changed. And I''m certian you can find a copy of turbo pascal on the net fairly cheap. 7.0 was the last revision I remember so keep an eye out for that.

10 years old????????? tell him to outside and play!

I started learning C when I was age 10. Sure, it wasn''t easy, but for some reason I stuck with it .

Html and java-script. Built into standard browsers so no special downloads, java-script syntax is much closer to C than Turbo Pascal - for loops, while loops, functions. Variable declarations are easy, it''s semi-object oriented and has garbage collection built in. And there are lots of tuts on the web.

I started learning programming when I was 8. People are never too young to learn how to program. My personal recommendation on a beginner language would be C. As long as you get him a good book, he can learn many of the basics without having to delve into the advanced features of the language.

I''d go for Visual Basic, he can use the standard controls and not have to worry about anything other than the program logic.
I say this thinking about all that windows rubbish we have to initialize to process messages in C++, not to mention the array bounds checking, garbage collection etc present as standard in VB.

My first ''proper'' language was Turbo Pascal, but that was before Windows, I don''t know how the later versions compare.

I wonder if you could get a educational edition, I take it he''s in school .

,Jay

I would recomend a language like java-script/java that kind of stuff but if he/she must, they could learn qbasic/visbasic. I dont recommend a lang like c/c++ though. I tried learning C/C++ when i was around 11/12 and didnt like it all because i couldnt make graphics and stuff very easily... with qbasic/visbasic, graphics are very easy... For a person at the age of 10 they will have alot more fun if the can have a smily face move around the screen through the arrow buttons than make a linked list.... and im guessing fun is the key right?

just my few sence...

dwiel ~ tazzel3d

quote: Original post by yves032784
10 years old????????? tell him to outside and play!

I guess I''m the only one here who shares your opinion. How sad .