[plikan13]

I'm not sure history can be repeated so easily. Back in the eighties you were impressed when a program managed to change the screen from blue to green. With today's kids playing Counter Strike on high end computers, it's not likely they're gonne be very impressed with what they see, much less motivated.

[afarrell]

But kids also play minecraft. In fact, it seems to be broadly popular

[flurpitude]

For my kids, Scratch from MIT was the thing that finally got them programming. It gives immediate rewards and every program can be shared on the site and modified ("remixed") by other users. So all the kids are building on each other's code and learning from what they see. The language features are limited, but it's more than just the language, since you can see what everyone else is creating and directly play with code you find neat.

The games they create are not slick but they're sophisticated enough that the kids are learning how to work through real programming problems on their own resources. And the kids evidently find this very rewarding and addictive.

Compared to that they find even Lego Mindstorms kind of dull. The social aspect of Scratch is a brilliant touch.

[TickleSteve]

that is a concern... tho I'm hoping the 'Look! I made it do that!' effect will win over and lead to the next Elite & Counter Strike in the decades to come.