What package to learn on?

[ABOzIT]

I struggled to find an appropriate forum for this question so apologies if I'm off the mark here.

I have an 8 year old son who is very interested in computers but in my opinion is wasting his talents playing games. I want to encourage him to learn programming but I'm just not sure how to start him off.

I do all my development in Lotus Domino and I'm not too familiar with what's out there right now in regards to other packages.

Does anyone know of any simple packages that would start him off on the right track?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[qbasicking]

Well BASIC is probably one of the simpleist languages to learn, but, if it is used correctly I can be very powerful. Qbasic would probably be the way to go. There is this book 'Qbasic by Example' that is a great book for beginners to learn the language. You should be able to find it at a place like Amazon, or Borders, or some place like that.

If you need a copy of qbasic you can download it at many websites, I don't know any off the top of my head, but I will post again later with good links

You might be a redneck if... you think a megabyte is a good day of fishing.

 

[edfair]

For the very beginning you might be well served by getting and installing DOS 5 or 6 on whatever machine he is using. Qbasic comes with either and starting under DOS will cut down on the I/O problems that might turn him off early.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[tsh73]

Personally I very fond of basic... but qbasic feels somewhat obsolete (no offence here).
I think you can look on the Python language.
There is a book - "How to think like a computer scientist" that introduce programming very from scratch; (available electronically as well); the python itself is freeware;
and there is a learning program that introduce programming by commanding robot ( Guido van Robot).
Here's the links:
the book

http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/

the software

http://www.python.org

the robot

http://gvr.sourceforge.net/overview.php

 

[ABOzIT]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I will investigate the links and ideas.

Cheers!