7 ms·

No disagreement from me. Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm currently watching what look

by imesh 6y ago

No disagreement from me. Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm currently watching what looked like my nephews Roblox/Minecraft addiction turn into some real amazing content creation utilizing youtube as a very real learning source.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list. It's a preference for quality over quantity.
- imesh 6y ago
  Everybody has their parenting preferences based on their experiences. I believe educated parents making an effort have favorable results. I can't imagine anyone with your lists of rules not raising intellectually stimulated and curious individuals either.
- bradlys 6y ago
  > Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list. Yes - because every kid wants to program purely for the fun of it. There's never an end goal in mind - they just learn functional programming for the fun of it! They all enjoy finding ways to chain esoteric commands together in a terminal.
  - bitwize 6y ago
    There's a place for kids who aren't into that shit. It's called "Outside".
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    What's your point? The programming languages reference was due to comments above that tech folks wouldn't have become who they are without the ability to program.
bitwize 6y ago
> Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm just the opposite. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 -- with no games! As far as I was concerned, all it could do was BASIC. It did come with a helpful instruction guide to teach you the rudiments of programming. I got later systems and games for them later on, but my experience with the VIC-20 put this bias in my head that computers were meant for programming, like pencils were meant for writing with. If it is difficult or impossible to program a digital device, I have trouble considering it a computer at all (even though it technically may be).
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Me too. Here's a blast from the past I recently came across: https://archive.org/details/Personal_Computing_On_The_VIC-20_1982_Commodore/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Personal_Computing_On_The_VIC-20... Personally I had the most fun with the sentence generator, but I did find a game somewhere. Something like Missile Command. Had to type it in from a magazine I believe. It never worked quite right however. Had a few obvious bugs which I corrected, and a few I wasn't able to. The manual is amazing from today's perspective. On the first few pages it has cartoons and teaches you how to use the shift key and such rudimentary things. A dozen pages later you are learning how to PEEK and POKE memory locations. It assumed you were intelligent. I miss that. Recently I've read there was assembly language book and modem addon, that I never knew existed, a shame really. I think I'll submit it.

by imesh 6y ago

mixmastamyk 6y ago

Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list. It's a preference for quality over quantity.

imesh 6y ago
Everybody has their parenting preferences based on their experiences. I believe educated parents making an effort have favorable results. I can't imagine anyone with your lists of rules not raising intellectually stimulated and curious individuals either.
bradlys 6y ago
> Kid has Linux, every programming lang available, Minecraft, ebooks, wikipedia, educational websites, etc. We live a block from the library. No shortage of quality learning materials basically. Perhaps ya'll've misread the list. Yes - because every kid wants to program purely for the fun of it. There's never an end goal in mind - they just learn functional programming for the fun of it! They all enjoy finding ways to chain esoteric commands together in a terminal.
- bitwize 6y ago
  There's a place for kids who aren't into that shit. It's called "Outside".
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  What's your point? The programming languages reference was due to comments above that tech folks wouldn't have become who they are without the ability to program.

bitwize 6y ago

> Without gaming on Windows systems I would may never gotten involved in programming in the first place. I'm just the opposite. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 -- with no games! As far as I was concerned, all it could do was BASIC. It did come with a helpful instruction guide to teach you the rudiments of programming. I got later systems and games for them later on, but my experience with the VIC-20 put this bias in my head that computers were meant for programming, like pencils were meant for writing with. If it is difficult or impossible to program a digital device, I have trouble considering it a computer at all (even though it technically may be).

mixmastamyk 6y ago
Me too. Here's a blast from the past I recently came across: https://archive.org/details/Personal_Computing_On_The_VIC-20_1982_Commodore/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Personal_Computing_On_The_VIC-20... Personally I had the most fun with the sentence generator, but I did find a game somewhere. Something like Missile Command. Had to type it in from a magazine I believe. It never worked quite right however. Had a few obvious bugs which I corrected, and a few I wasn't able to. The manual is amazing from today's perspective. On the first few pages it has cartoons and teaches you how to use the shift key and such rudimentary things. A dozen pages later you are learning how to PEEK and POKE memory locations. It assumed you were intelligent. I miss that. Recently I've read there was assembly language book and modem addon, that I never knew existed, a shame really. I think I'll submit it.