[HN Gopher] TurboWarp Desktop
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       TurboWarp Desktop
        
       Author : varun_ch
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2022-11-17 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (desktop.turbowarp.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (desktop.turbowarp.org)
        
       | bradgessler wrote:
       | How are HN parents teaching their kids to code? I've got a 6 yo
       | who I think might be ready to start learning and am curious how
       | you've done it. What age is a good age to start? How do kids age
       | out of languages/runtimes into other languages/runtimes?
        
         | sudobash1 wrote:
         | When I was that age in the early 00's, my father set me up with
         | an emulated Tandy Color Computer 2. He figured that he had
         | learned on it, so why not his son. Later on he bought me a real
         | one (and some cassette tapes that he had used with his. They
         | still worked).
         | 
         | There is a real magic, interacting with a computer like that.
         | It had almost no functionality outside of what I could program
         | on it. It had simple graphics, sound, and tons of hidden
         | functionality that was just a POKE away. (For instance POKE
         | 65495,0 would increase the clock speed).
         | 
         | Going from BASIC to my first "real" programing language was a
         | mind bend. It took a lot of experimentation for me to wrap my
         | mind around variable scoping.
        
         | rahimnathwani wrote:
         | My son turned 6 recently. You might find this doc helpful:
         | 
         | https://docs.google.com/document/d/18qNHqaZ9CdVwQsh4sEslf3GG...
         | 
         | The things my son has used or is using:
         | 
         | * Osmo Coding Awbie (requires Osmo hardware)
         | 
         | * Osmo Coding Jam (requires Osmo hardware)
         | 
         | * Scratch Jr. To use Scratch Jr effectively, it's good to have
         | a book or a guide. I chose this set of example exercises:
         | https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593278993
         | 
         | * Code.org (Course A or Course C)
        
         | otoburb wrote:
         | Depends on the child, but started with Scratch with mine for
         | the visuals. I've heard good things about Swift Playgrounds
         | recently too but it was rougher a few years ago. One thing that
         | I'm not doing is pushing this too heavily as there are so many
         | other potential interests they could develop and (I believe
         | that) the set of STEM options are wider these days -- excepting
         | chemistry kits which all seem to have been neutered.
        
         | jhot wrote:
         | My kids aren't old enough yet, but I started my nephew out with
         | a raspberry pi Kano kit (wouldn't recommend Kano anymore as
         | they went all in on crypto instead of education). But it had a
         | couple things that he somewhat understood. Some nice Scratch
         | tutorials to build games that he found fun. There's also
         | bashcrawl which turns basic unix commands into an adventure
         | game. At 9 his reading comprehension wasn't quite there to
         | grasp it without a lot of help from me.
         | 
         | I think I'll focus on talking through decision making logic
         | with my kids until they can read decently and then we can try
         | some Scratch and other simple programming concepts.
        
         | soferio wrote:
         | I set up a raspberry pi to auto boot into Commodore 64 mode
         | with a BASIC command line. It was a fantastic start, there is
         | something magical about that experience. The boy then shifted
         | to scratch and also uses REPLIT.
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-17 23:00 UTC)