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7 points AsifMushtaq | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.202s | source

I’m an experienced developer, but recently my 13-year-old daughter told me she wants to learn programming—and surprisingly, I find myself unsure about how to get her started.

There’s an overwhelming amount of advice out there. Some suggest beginning with Scratch or other no-code platforms, while others recommend jumping straight into the command line or a “real” programming language.

I’m torn between a bottom-up approach (teaching the fundamentals first and building up) and a top-down approach (starting with something more visual and practical, then filling in the gaps later). If we go top-down, should we start with Scratch or dive directly into a language? If it’s a language, should it be Python, JavaScript, or something else?

Even on the hardware side, I’m debating whether it’s better to get her started on Windows, macOS, or something else entirely.

I’d love to hear from those of you who have introduced programming to kids (or started young yourselves). What worked, what didn’t, and what path would you recommend?

1. Herobrine2084 ◴[] No.45073369[source]
I'm recommending some video games like Human Resource Machine: https://store.steampowered.com/app/375820/Human_Resource_Mac... It's always fun to "see" the logic being executed and have fun challenges.

On the next step, I believe things like Scratch are pretty good to introduce to programming.

On the web development part, I built a little "game" as a tutorial of my tool: https://luna-park.app/challenge . It's JS with visual nodes, this is used to learn algorithmic for students.