[soulchild77]

This has been my experience as well. I introduced my son to Scratch when he was 8 and now, 2 years later, he's creating quite advanced games in it I wouldn't have thought possible.

But whenever I show him "real" programming languages, he's like: I can do all of that with Scratch as well - without having to type all that stuff.

We tried GameMaker and produced some cool results together, but as soon as I turn around, he's back at his Scratch projects.

Sometimes I wonder if it'd have been better had he started with code right away. Like I did back in the days. ;-)

[fn-mote]

> But whenever I show him "real" programming languages, he's like: I can do all of that with Scratch as well - without having to type all that stuff.

Dear Hacker:

Your son is already doing things kids four years older would be amazed by.

Let him come to "real" programming on his own.

Heck, show him Snap and let him write programs with call/cc in "Scratch". Maybe you can hook him on interesting visual programming projects that require passing around functions as data (like creating a calculator or a model of a computer).

The manual explains how to write an object-oriented system in Snap, so you're really not going to be holding the kid back if you can get him in that way.

The iterated function systems also look cool and can be approached that way. The Beauty and Joy of Computing curriculum has a decently broad and intellectually challenging selection of project that can be done in Snap.

EDIT: I believe Snap can make calls to REST interfaces; you could write the back end and he could do the front end calls and use the data.

[AmosLightnin]

I worked on Scratch for 6 years, in charge of the online community. We often encountered adult programmers who were surprised by what was possible in terms of complex projects with Scratch. There was usually a great deal of concern about how the transition to "real" (text based) programming languages would go. It always seemed strange to me, this attachment to text based programming as the only "true" "real" etc. programming. At any rate, I saw quite a few kids make that transition without any problems. I've still never seen any systematic evidence that moving from tiles to text presents significant difficulty, and yet so much energy is devoted to "solving" this problem.

[wruza]

I believe we're all deformed (sometimes disfigured) victims of our own struggle. I'd listen to the kid instead and asked what's wrong with me, looking at the imposed complexity I deal with, with no one among healthy people to understand the matter, dare I to complain.

[notzane]

This was my experience getting into programming as a kid. I just wanted to make things and the games I made in Scratch were cooler than printing to the console in C++ (especially as a slow typer).

I eventually learned html/css which let me build real websites and see them in my browser. At some point you hit a wall with what you can make and are forced to learn js/php/python/etc.

[pkdpic]

honestly I think a 3yo is capable of learning bash before python if you put it in between them and paw patrol (or whatever they're into, for mine its beastie boys music videos currently... sigh)