Coding and shit like that ….

[mikeydoughnut]

Reyt. Got me laddo a few prezzies but he’s more difficult than the other. He’s got a laptop n that. Be nice to see it put to use … coding for kids. What’s the craic with it? Any book or programme(?) ideas or owt? Any hardware that goes with the whole coding shit. He’s 11 so I don’t want a ‘War Games’ scenario just steady away to begin with 

[GSZZ]

First thing that springs to mind is raspberry pi? There loads of resources for kids on their site! Wish there was stuff like that when I was a kid, it was all "hello world" and HTML tutorials for myspace

[mikeydoughnut]

 Myspace eh. Is that still around?! 
 

See I’m not a big computery type. Loved Champ Manager and Total War on PC but that’s about it. I do realise they’re here to stay so it’d be nice to gift him a life skill. I’ve heard of raspberry pi and seen those kits on’t tinter. Maybe a bit of that get up and a couple of age appropriate books should see him reyt eh? 

 

Whats python? 

[Hippie on hill]

There's loads of personal robot things, Arduino starter kits and STEM projects that look fun to learn to code n build stuff with now.

[BilgePump]

Yeah get him on the raspberry pi and arduino bits .... He'll be making you automated environment systems before you know it ...

 

[MrSlatersParrot]

58 minutes ago, mikeydoughnut said:

Whats python? 

 

Hi mate, some good ideas above but just thought I'd answer this, I'm doing a course atm that is partly about learning python.

 

Python is a programming language that's widely used by scientific and technical types. It's open source, free to download and very versatile as there are loads of libraries of clever stuff written by clever people that you can use.

 

Here's a bit that finds the largest root of a quadratic equation (remember them?!):

 

# using the standard formula to solve quadratics
def lroot(a,b,c):
# checking that the roots are real, and stopping if not
      if (b**2 - 4*a*c) < 0:
              print('There are no real roots')
              return
      else:
              r1 = (-b + np.sqrt(b**2 - 4*a*c))/(2*a)
              r2 = (-b - np.sqrt(b**2 - 4*a*c))/(2*a)
              if r1 == r2:
                    print('Both roots have the same value', r1, r2)
              elif r1 > r2:
                    print('The larger root is', r1)
              else:
                    print('The larger root is', r2)

 

Yeah get your lad started! (On something more fun than the above) - one of mine is now earning twice what I ever earned and he uses python every day.

Edited December 19, 2023 by MrSlatersParrot

[mikeydoughnut]

Cheers folks. Had a busy afternoon, Piggin hell. Thanks for all the input n that folks. I’ll get lookin about. Had a cheeky read of the raspberry pi website. I’ve not gotten confused yet. A lot of the stuff to get started seems to be free so might get that automated grow room sooner rather than later  

[MidgeSmith]

7 hours ago, Bulldogbill91 said:

Python you can get python coder or python game developer is quite good for kids and beginners to learn it's a free download with 100's of tutorials on YouTube too and there's also Javascript again with aload of YouTube tutorials. I think android software development which is written with Java is a little more technical but you can makes apps etc

Python and C# seem to be where the money is at currently, so if you're thinking it might be a future for him - as well as a bit of fun - I'd go with something that taps into that.

 

If he is totally new to coding, you can get versions for several languages that  you hookup like a pegboard on screen where each command block is a visual tile.  They can see the code behind it, so they can learn the real coding, but see the way it works programmatically...

[Military Grade]

PC Gaming, is a great place to learn, you have to deal with all types of different languages like XML, CPP, SQL, EXT, HPP, JSON, PAA and more

[j.o.i.n.t]

@mikeydoughnut

 

Full disclosure: I completely failed to get my kids into having any interest at all in coding n' shit, despite it being into the 'n shit stuff for a while now.

 

You don't mention an age range...That being said: Roblox. If kid likes the games, they might be motivated to start fiddling with it...*Really popular*, and users can make games. Some of them are completely insane, it's total choas man, and they tend to look like crap, but the kids seem to love it. It has a 'studio', which uses a lovely little scripting language called Lua.... thinking more long game, Lua is also used in the scripting of more dull stuff in the systems admin area, but there's web development, too, ('lapis'), and all sorts that use it. *a page that lists some*

 

Mebbe a web page?

 

Javascript is the coding language of the browser/web (and also used on servers, and underlies many development tools) but ignore it at first. You'll need a 'code editor', and they differ from word processors, Word wont cut it... Fucking VSCODE seems to have taken over the world, and like most dev tools, is free *link to open source version* (you may want microsoft's, do a search).

 

Make a file called index.html and put some words:

 

Hello world!

 

And save it. Then open it in a browser. Tada. He's done a basic web page.

 

There's almost endless online tutorials on this stuff. Gets a bit more involved, but that's still page. Just in it's most basic form.

 

 

Simple, instinct gratification - or really fun.... Non scary stuff, to start, I'd say

 

You can't force this shit, tho... Trust me. I know. Mebbe he'll be like me, hooked from first keyboard computer (speccy 48k), or my kids who are not arsed at all.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 5 by j.o.i.n.t