Baby Gamers

June 26th, 2006, By Duncan Gough

Or, more specifically, baby game programmers. Where are they going to come from? Not just games programmers, web developers too, where are the next generation coming from?

Why the concern? Because, when I first picked up Actionscript, I remembered where my first experience of programming came from – typing in code from printed computer magazines.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a printed gaming magazine out there that came with a couple of pages of code that kids could type in offline, to get a simple asteroids game working, as a way of introduction the next generation of games and webapp programmers to some of the basic concepts of coding and open source. What better way to show kids how a few simple, logical optimsations in your game code can lead to visible results – how a choppy spaceship scrolls smoothly when you apply an ‘area of focus’ style frame-rate hack? What better way to introduce kids to OO (object oriented) concepts than by demonstrating encapsulation with a collision-detection class, for example?

As Slashdot once asked, Do Kids Still Program?. Thinking about it, why can’t this apply to PHP/Perl/Rails/Django too? It’ll take about two page to explain how to build your own MySpace clone and host it somewhere like UK Linux for free. For any kid at school at the moment, building a custom MySpace on the back of a magazine tutorial would definitely quailfy as sexy software.

Interestingly, there’s already a Kids Programming Langauage, called KPL, which is going to be open-sourced. Tellingly, the focus of KPL really seems to be based around building simple, casual games quickly and easily.

Update: Seems I’m not the only person asking this question. Judging by the number of ActionScript recommendations, it would make a good language for kids to learn. Although I’d completely forgotten about the idea of programmeable Lego, that’s possibly an even better place to start. I used to have a Bigtrak when I was a kid, maybe that’s where it all started…

And here’s a enchanting story about teaching kids to program:

For a six-year-old, the idea of writing a computer game was just like arts and crafts, costumes, and pretend. “Sam’s sister wants to make a pet show game,” Anthony explained to me, “the person who makes their pet do the best tricks wins.” At six, you see no limits in the world. You can create anything you can imagine.

I had to explain to him that he would have to pick a simple game with rules. Making, for example, a “pet show” where you could tell your pet to do anything would be hard, because there were too many things you would have to teach the computer about pets.

Update: Via Tom, comes MSWLogo, logo programming for kids. And if they’re naughty, let them eat COBOL.

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