What's a good way to teach my son to program Java [closed]

Question

OK, so I've read through various posts about teaching beginner's to program, and there were some helpful things I will look at more closely. But what I want to know is whether there are any effective tools out there to teach a kid Java specifically?

I want to teach him Java specifically because (a) with my strong background in C I feel that's too complex, (b) Java is the other language I know extremely well and therefore I can assist meaningfully without needing to teach myself a new but (to me) useless language, and (c) I feel that managed languages are the future, and lastly (d) Java is one of the simplest of all the languages I know well (aside from basic).

I learned in basic, and I am open to teaching that first, but I am unaware of a decent free basic shell for Windows (though I haven't really searched, yet since it's not my first choice), and would anyway want to progress quickly to Java.

My son is 8, so that's a couple of years earlier than I started - but he has expressed an interest in learning to program (possibly because I work from home a lot and he sees me programming all the time).

If no-one can suggest a tool designed for this purpose, I will probably start him off with text/console based apps to teach the basics, and then progress to GUI building.

Oh, one last thing, I am not a fan of IDE's (old school text editor type), so I would not be put off at all by a system that has him typing real code, and would likely prefer that to a toy drag/drop system.

EDIT: Just to clarify; I really am specifically after ways to teach him Java; there are already a good many posts with good answers for other language alternatives - but that's not what I am looking for here.

EDIT: What about Java frameworks for 2D video games - can anyone recommend any of them from personal experience? I like the idea of him starting with the mechanics in place (main game loop, scoring, etc) and adding the specifics for a game of his own imagining - that's what I did, though for me it was basic on a Commodore VIC-20 and a Sinclair ZX-81.

Answer 1

You may find some inspiration in this project:

Teaching Kids Programming: Even Younger Kids Can Learn Java

Java Programming for Kids, Parents and Grandparents.

You can find here at the faratasystems web site (direct link here)

Amongst the lessons learned during such a project, the author mentions:

• Most of the programming tasks require minimal knowledge of arithmetic and algebra skills. To start programming, a kid needs to understand what x = y+2 means. Another important concept to understand is an if statement.

• Kids develop the abstract reasoning abilities by the fourth-fifth grade, and they also easily perform such tasks as browsing the Web, downloading and installing software. Dave have learned how to type, compile and run Java programs in Eclipse IDE in no time.

• Kids learn much faster than adults, but they do not have "previous programming experience", which may actually be a good thing, because they do not have to switch from a procedural to object-oriented way of thinking. After learning about inheritance, Dave called my wife a superclass.

• Adults are responsible creatures, and they can keep doing boring operations much longer that kids. Programming lessons with kids have to be short. One or two 45-minute lessons per week is enough. High school kids should be able to study more, but I do not have such experience yet.

• Illustrations help. In my book I've included lots of color cartoon-like characters that are like a Java-fabric softener.
  

• Kids like to see immediate results and enjoy playing with shorter programs, for example a class Fish has a method dive(int howDeep). Let me try to call this method several times with different arguments...
  

• Graphical programming is the most fun, and even a fairly large program like Calculator, Tic-Tac-Toe or Ping Pong can be explained to children.