[tetraca]

If they aren't themselves drawn to and captivated by the medium, then they simply shouldn't be here. They should be somewhere they actually care about instead. You could maybe set something up that would pique their interest (modding a video game, a robotics project, automating some bit of rote math homework they hate), and if it does, take that lead and support them in any way you can. Otherwise, it's just proselytizing with a different bible, and people seldom appreciate that. You will not reach ears that don't care.

[gazby]

We can't all love what we do that makes us a living though. The HN audience probably skew very heavily toward loving tech and thus enjoying their work in that industry, but for those without the innate interest it's still better to have a job with good benefits, salary, working conditions etc than one without those things.

[agentwiggles]

+1, I say this all the time. Are plumbers "passionate" about their jobs? Did the garbage man end up in his role because of his childhood love of moving garbage? No. So in a world where you'll likely have to drudge through some form of employment, you might as well learn a well paid, _actually valuable_ trade that you get to do from an air conditioned office.

[catcontent]

school grades, as maria montessori put it, are "small minded blackmail attempts". kids don't learn because of good grades. primariy they seek justice. while a teacher can prefer a busy but unintelligent school girl, a computer won't do that. when coding, your result can basically only be a working prog or not.

no teacher required to tell you if your prog is working. you get your reward from the computer: joy of creating something.

psychologically seen, to learn that what you are doing creates impact is the very basis of learning.

if you give your child Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose * some tools and an environment to start with * freedom to try and fail without waiting for a teacher to answer questions and * a good reason to learn, after a very short time you will see someone who does not need "extrinsic motivation" and explanations. be prepared for more questions than you can answer.

maybe, the garbage man will still be the garbage man in the end. but possibly see ways to improve his work or at least look forward to his side projects after work.

[cruano]

Except as a tradesman you don't need to constantly learn new skills from a very fast moving industry, or frequently dedicate your free time to side-projects and the like just to be employable

[brtkdotse]

You don't need to do this as a dev either. You could easily be doing Cobol at a bank since the 70s until now.

[dangerface]

> Did the garbage man end up in his role because of his childhood love of moving garbage?

Probably I remember a kid from my primary school was obsessed with the garbage lorry he knew everything about how it works and now he is a bin man. He makes more than the national average salary finishes work at lunch time and has a state pension something we can only dream of.

Programming isn't the only good job, its easy to dedicated yourself to it and forget that.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Speak for yourself, when I was a kid I thought being a garbage man was the coolest thing ever, especially getting to ride on the back step.

[gitgud]

> it's still better to have a job with good benefits, salary, working conditions etc than one without those things.

I've seen people learn programming for the allure of money and job opportunities, but they just didn't enjoy the learning, debugging, engineering... And just end up quitting the endeavour due to frustration or boredom.

Basically, I wouldn't encourage someone to get into tech, unless they were interested... In the tech!