I am 14 right now, and can tell you that you should probably hold off on introducing your kids/nephews to programming until they reach 13-15 years or so. The reason being I was introduced at age 9 and had to learn and relearn many different aspects of programming because my mind was not yet ready to comprehend such abstract ideas as Classes. However, most of the problems I had could have been prevented by someone who was active in helping me in understanding the concepts, so if you feel you are up to explaining advanced mathematical concepts to a 10 year old, feel free to introduce them. I would recommend C Programming for Dummies to you for your kids, as C++ has too many advanced concepts to introduce to your kid right away. Also, reading all those technical texts early on really helped my reading level as I was 13+ reading level at age 11, so thats a perk... Hope I helped

Brent Robinson
"Ich bin deinem Vatter!"

I think I''d have to lean towards VB as well...

If they do well with that, get ''em C book in a year or two.

C may be rather difficult to deal with if they have never written a program before.

My first programming book was "Fun with Basic"! I think I was 10.

Another good way to learn is through games, but there aren''t any good games any more for that age group. Mind Rover was mentioned, which I own & love dearly, but it is far too difficult for the age group you''re talking about. Hell, it''s difficult for college-educated people.

"Rocky''s Boots" was a great programming game (boolean logic, really). "Robot Oddyssey" was also excellent, but far more difficult than Mind Rover. These were both Apple games, and I think the only way you could get them now would be through emulators.

There was some game called "Toy Town" or something, which was a programming game with a lego-like setting. But the interface was so awkward I found it completely unworkable.

Basic, Visual Basic, or even Delphi, would be a good start. Something where the compiler doesn''t get in the way.

Armed with the thick manual, I taught myself a lot of things in GW-BASIC when I was like 11. I think QBasic is a good place to start (no line numbers, hehe ) and you can get it for free off the net or I think its on yer Win95 (98 too?) CD.

Take a look at TIM (The incredible machine).
Demo download: http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/pc/incmachinep2.html

This is great fun and is good for starting to "program".

Other software for kids:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/down/pc/_age8andup-index.html

I would highly reccommend against using the for dummies books. I have found that while they may teach things such as syntax well enough, the do not teach how to apply concepts very well.

TIM is a great game!! It defenitley teaches cause/effect, and may get youngsters in the programming mindset(while it has nothing to do with actual programming within itself). I reamember six or seven years ago, when I was 9, I spent an entire two weeks playing that game with my buds.

Lol it remember me when I learned Basic throught the REFERENCE manual. Basicly, when I wanted a function for something, I just searched the reference manual for a function with a name that looked like what I wanted ^_^. Oh yeah and Qbasic help files and exemples ruled ^_^.

It''s true as many ppl said that starting out with a language where you get results is much more rewarding and interesting for your ppl. I started out wiht C when I was younger. I actualy went all the way to pointer but then I got bored because all I could do was display text after so much work *grins*. Then I switched to qbasic for a long time (with the reference manual). You have no idea the funny thing I did with it (ie bad programming). I made a sim city that was only one screen wide in mode 13 and I used NO table at all. (I didnt know about them). After I switched to Java which is rewarding pretty fast, since their graphics are really easy to use. I learnt double buffering with Java ^_^. Then I did some C++ and college started and I started, I got a job etc ^_^

Why not get them to try a language that was designed to teach programming like Smalltalk or Pascal.

I know that Pascal was designed to teach structured programming, and its not so hard to pick up.

Smalltalk was also designed to teach 6-7 yr olds how to program. Its has a graphical interface much like Mindrover (or at least how Anon described it).

Another language they could pick up is Prolog. There was a study done with kids and Prolog that showed that it was easy as a first language, but much harder for programmers with programming experience in other languages. It also taught the kids logic and various other analytical skills. You could also make games with it. Strawberry Prolog had a game programming contest, so check it out.