[evolve2k]

For a few years now I’ve been teching my son to code. This feels like a good project to do together. Grab one of these games understand it in basic and then reimplement it using my fav language.

Any other parents out there teaching their kids/teens/young adults to code?

[raegis]

I bought a programming magazine in the 1980s and copied a game to my Commodore 128. It didn't work, and I failed to debug it, so I set the magazine aside and starting writing my own games. In retrospect I think it was a great educational lesson. My first attempt to copy/paste code was a complete failure, so I was forced to think up stuff on my own. Man, youngsters nowadays can copy/paste in milliseconds, whereas back in the day it took us hours!

[TedDoesntTalk]

Most the haves I typed from magazines never worked. It was pretty discouraging to spend so much time typing and then the disappointment. Glad to hear I was not alone because most people in this thread seem to have been successful. Maybe it was because the size of the games in this book were small. The programs I typed from magazines were pages and pages.

[TedDoesntTalk]

I tried but quickly realized that teaching is a different skill than coding itself. i also got overwhelmed with the choices and did not know how to start. Scratch did not really grab his interest. And "dad, teach me how to make a minecraft mod" was not possible. I also did not see the patience necessary to learn it.

[simonh]

I think the key is not to go too fast. Simply writing simple statements and seeing it work and do stuff is enough. So I found it best to start simple and work your way up. These little games look like great examples to work from.

[bellyfullofbac]

I remember typing up a paint/simple sprite animation program from a book in BASIC when I was 12 or so. I had no idea what anything meant, but I managed to add color support to it. Geez, this brings up memories of me sitting there on the computer debugging things. It was before the age of popular Internet connectivity as well, so no stupid social media (there wasn't even social media!) to distract me every 30 seconds.