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Post by tomaan on Dec 15, 2014 14:51:19 GMT
My 9-year-old has been using Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) for a few years now and just discovered Blockly (https://developers.google.com/blockly/).
Now he's asking me about "real" languages -- any suggestions?
I was thinking about Python, because I have an older game with an active modding community that can help him.
I was also thinking about Javascript, because he already knows HTML/CSS.
Thanks in advance
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Post by Yojimbo on Dec 15, 2014 15:25:43 GMT
I got into modding using a game that had scripts based on C/C++ and I believe the game is now freeware it is called Tribes. I can provide one of my biggest contributions to that modding community that might help it is the base game but split into more organized scripts with some added scripts to automate some of the more tedious aspects of the modding. There are lots of websites with online tutorials for various coding though I am not sure what is out there that would suit a child I believe most of it is geared toward High School and up learning levels.
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Post by Restos on Dec 15, 2014 18:47:40 GMT
I find VB6 to be the easiest language to get used to, besides Python. That aside, NWScript is fairly easy, and as you know the modding community is quite big.
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Post by Vichya on Dec 15, 2014 21:01:18 GMT
I think Python is a good choice. Its syntax is easier to understand than the curly-brace-style languages. There are quite a few tutorials designed for children, although I'm not sure how good they are. You could also take a look at pythonturtle.org/. While Javascript is a common language nowadays, I think it's a bad choice for a beginner. To get something useful done with Javascript you have to use a framework like jQuery, AngularJS or other frameworks. When using Javascript as a non-web language it's most often in the context of Node.js, and the asynchronous programming model is quite complex.
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Post by tomaan on Dec 16, 2014 4:26:21 GMT
I think Python is a good choice. Its syntax is easier to understand than the curly-brace-style languages. There are quite a few tutorials designed for children, although I'm not sure how good they are. You could also take a look at pythonturtle.org/. Cool, thanks. We'll check out python turtle together!
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Post by Farang162 on Dec 18, 2014 18:58:09 GMT
Hey Tomaan, Glad to hear the little fella has such cool interests. You could check out the Hour of Code folks at learn.code.org. The week long drive has just finished but the site and all the tutorials stays up. Also the Khan Academy offer some stuff that is aimed more at middle school kids in Javascript and Python but it sounds as though the bairn might be up to it. Another Python course aimed at upper primary/middle school kids can be found here: www.pythoncode.co.uk/ it also has links to download portable python which is handy because well... its portable The guy that hosts that site also has some other stuff aimed at Keystage 2 or upper primary here: code-it.co.uk/ although if Scratch and Blockly are becoming a bit old then he may not get much out of it. Anyhow, nurture it. It sounds as though you do and enjoy your time together in code... Regards, Trubs
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