My son has expressed great interest in beginning programming games. I thought this would be a good step for him since he is expressing such interest. I am not sure what book(s) he should start with. I have heard that C++ is what he should be learning. Looking for something that will be easy for him to learn and keep his interest. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help.

I wouldn''t recommend C++ to any 10 year old.

Setup stages of learning for your son. Like any average 10 year old, I''m sure your son is full of game ideas that he''d rather express easily, rather than worrying about the complexities of a language like C++.

Start him off with simple Shockwave/Flash based games, where he can take use of ActionScripting (or whatever else it has to offer), which is easily understood and not very technical. It will teach him the fundamentals of computers in general, and integrating graphics and scripted events.

When he or you feel he has conquered that field, introduce him to something like DarkBasic (or other suggestions, people?). These are very high-level languages that are perfect for beginners. It will give him his first taste of actual programming.

When he gets to around 14, I would then buy him a copy of MSVC++ (or just find him a free compiler), and a good C++ book. By this age, he should be knowledgeable enough to work with and understand its complicated syntax.

If you expose him to something like C++ at an early age, he might get frustrated and not want to go back, pre-judging it as ''too complicated''. Ease him in, and good luck.

C++ might be a little too much for a 10 year old. We discussed this in another thread not too long ago. In that thread I remember suggesting java-script because all it takes is a web browser. Others suggestions included Python and Java. Try searching the forums to find that thread because it was quite lengthy and I don''t recall enough of it.

I would recommend VB... just as a starting point... it probably the easiest language to learn and it teaches the basics... then he could go on to learn c++ and allready know most of the basic stuff... I learnt c++ and oop in like 3-4 weeks it was just a matter of learning and remembering how c++ did what VB did.

although I was doing Basic on the ZX spectrum when I was 7... so I grew up knowing the basic''s of programming...

There was a similar thread to this one not too long ago, you might want to take a look at it:

re:looking for a language for a child

As for my recommendations, i agree with crakinshot Visual Basic is an easy language to learn and after using it for a while I managed to learn most of the basics of c++ in about a week

[edited by - Grambo on August 19, 2002 8:01:51 PM]

Turing is also a good language to start with - although a little old, it still is fairly easy to learn.

The key idea is to start off simple and work up to something more complex.

I''ve been programming in C since 9. It depends on the child. Some can handle it, some can''t. Flash is stupid and useless, don''t bother with it. Basic might be a good idea, but in my opinion, it just has a slightly simpler syntax; the concepts are all the same. A 10 year old can easily learn syntax, its the concepts of programming that he/she might have trouble with.

- Andy Oxfeld

Html is excellent to start with
flash is excellent next to help blossom creativity
then java is a great tool to start learning Object Orientated programming
Then C....

thats the direction I took.

A lot of programmers lack creativity, as in art.
that why I think flash helps.
Plus when I first started I wanted results quickly (HTML), now I have patience to spend a week designing a particle class in C++

I agree with the earlier post, ease them into it, so they enjoy it. Maybe show them the different languages then let them go into each one
my thoughts
VB sux heh


[edited by - fatherjohn666 on August 19, 2002 8:15:29 PM]

I agree with father john about flash and java being excellent for learning, but disagree about HTML.

HTML has very little in common with programming languages, such as C++. Flash ActionScript is much better to start with.

EDIT: And VB doesn't suck It's great for map editors.

[edited by - glassJAw on August 19, 2002 8:35:23 PM]

I''m a big fan of Delphi. It''s got all the cool Rapid Application Development stuff that Visual Basic has, but uses a language called Object Pascal instead of BASIC (BASIC is generally shunned among game development circles, just to let you know). From there its all a matter of how fast he''s learning things, and how much of an interest he has in continuing to develop his skills. Show him to this site and sites like this where he can see the whole world of game development and refine his programming skill through the community members of this and other websites and the articles posted on sites like this. I could go on but theres so much to tell and so little time Good luck to your son.