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Python for a 10-14 years old?

El Pitonero pitonero at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 10:21:33 EST 2005 
Lucas Raab wrote:
> tnozh at yahoo.com wrote:
> > I am blessed with a *very* gifted nine-years old daughter...
> > Now, I would like to teach her programming basics using Python
>
> Let her mess around with it on her own. I'm 15 and have been using
> Python for 2-3 years and had nothing to really go on. Give her Dive
Into
> Python or How to Think Like a Computer Scientist and let her ask
> questions if she needs help.

In the chess world, people have long learnt to take young prodigies
seriously. Most of the grandmasters start to play chess at age 4 or
earlier. Bobby Fisher became the US chess champion at age 14, and a
grandmaster at 15. And that's considered old by modern standard: Sergei
Karjakin became grandmaster at age 12.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=310
http://members.lycos.co.uk/csarchive/gilbert.htm

Sure, programming's skill set is a bit broader than chess playing or
ice-skating, but young hackers have plenty of contacts and resources
through internet, and many of them live (will be living) in Brazil,
Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC countries.) So, a thorny
question for matured programmers is: what's your value in face of this
competition? :)
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