On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 4:42 PM, Bill <bill_nos...@noway.net> wrote: > Chris Angelico wrote: >> >> On Sun, Dec 17, 2017 at 12:01 PM, Bill <bill_nos...@noway.net> wrote: >>> >>> >>> I think we are talking about the same people. >>> But in college, the prerequisite of "at least co-enrolled in pre-calc", >>> turned out to be the right one (based upon quite a lot of teaching >>> experience). >> >> Fortunately for the programming world, college isn't when everyone >> starts. I started coding at six years old. Should I have waited till I >> had some pre-calc before getting into programming? > > > It probably wouldn't have hurt if you had co-enrolled in it. ;) > And add an English course too to help you to write suitable documentation! > I would think a 6 year old would have priorities above coding--what's the > hurry? >
You mean priorities like "making sure my older brother isn't better than me"? Because that motive - jealousy - was exactly what got me started :) Sure, it may not be the most noble of goals, but it sure gave me a good incentive to work hard. (And not just in programming. That's what made me study hard in other areas, like spelling and mathematics.) And that was two decades ago. It's now the 21st century; computers are ubiquitous. Starting to toy around with coding - maybe with Scratch, or one of those online algorithm development sites - is an excellent thing for a single-digit-age person to get into. I don't know of anyone younger than 4 getting started, but plenty of pre-teens, and they're doing well at it. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
