[_skhan_]

That's kind of insane. The most I'd think a 14 year old would be interested in is learning some browser related tricks (inspecting requests, elements, etc). On the technical side of things, unix utilities like ping / nano would be a good bet.

For day to day related work, just show how you decide what to work on? Maybe go through an instance of investigating a task?

[jimsmart]

IDK, I think this says more about your expectations than it does a 14 y/o nerd.

At 14-15 I could fluently program various flavours of Basic on various home computers, had also learnt Forth on the Jupiter Ace, had played with Lisp and understood the basics — and was totally fluent in 6502 assembly language. I could disassemble other folks code, and worked out how to hack games to give extra lives / disable collision / etc., had also learnt how to rip the music players from various games, and was messing about with- and making my own- demos/intros.

Sure, things are different today, but that doesn't mean a 14 y/o can't be bright, nor have any existing tech knowledge.

Inspecting browser stuff, and simple network utilities, are interesting and all that. But even for a 14 year old with minimal (or zero) tech knowledge, they're probably not going to hold their attention for more than a few hours, perhaps half a day if I'm being generous. And if the kid already has some tech chops, the things you outline can likely be covered in just an hour.

It's not that insane that a 14 year old comes into the workplace to learn / gain some work experience. In my late teens, as a professional games coder, we had someone about that age come to our company office for a week or so of work experience.

— Your later suggestions are much closer to the mark. Show the kid what happens normally, day to day, and talk it all through, whilst providing a reasonably sufficient amount of higher-level background knowledge, so they understand the context. The kid wants work experience, they want to learn about the actual job you have, that's what they've come for, not to be treated like you're trying to give them mere distractions.

[_skhan_]

True, I'm thinking of the average 14 year old who is well, average. Do you really think the average kid spends their time writing code?

Anyways, the part I'm considering insane is the parents, should have clarified. Career opportunities for a 14 year old, sheesh.

If the kid wants to learn programming, there are much better avenues then going to sit in an office. For example, they can make a game mod / Roblox game, etc.

[jimsmart]

> If the kid wants to learn programming, there are much better avenues then going to sit in an office. For example, they can make a game mod / Roblox game, etc.

Sure. But it's clearly not about learning programming... it's about work experience, and therefore, in part, about possible future career choices.

Nobody thinks sending their kid on a week of work experience is going to teach them much about programming. That's not the motivation here at all.

> For example, they can make a game mod / Roblox game, etc.

— How do you know the kid isn't already tinkering with that kind of thing already?

> Do you really think the average kid spends their time writing code?

No, not at all. I never said the 'average kid' writes code at 14. But some kids of that age certainly do. I did.

And who says this is an 'average kid' anyhow — they might not be at all, clearly they're somewhat of a nerd/geek kid, particularly if they're interested in spending their work experience week with a software development team / a software developer / tech company.

And even if they are the 'average kid', anyone can learn to code — arguably one has somewhat of an advantage if one starts at an early age.

> Career opportunities for a 14 year old, sheesh.

Here in the UK, it's pretty normal for school-age kids to do a week of work experience whilst at secondary school. It's usually organised by the school. Not everyone does it, but the option is there.

After all, kids leave school — and, if they don't choose to go to college, can go into work — at 16.

It's not about the kid going into work at 14. Far from it.

> the part I'm considering insane is the parents

With respect: I think our conversation here says more about your own beliefs, than it does about the parents, or the kid, or the purpose of work experience.

— You can read more about what work experience is actually about (it's not about learning programming) and how it works, at least in the UK (where I am — but it'll be similar in other countries too), here:

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/work-experience-your-ch...

[_skhan_]

Great, yeah I'm all for that :)