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fubarobfusco comments on Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012 - Less Wrong
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My 7-year-old son likes computer programming and I suspect has a lot of innate aptitude for it. We have worked out a system that for every X minutes of learning he does with me he gets X minutes of computer gaming time. What kind of learning exercises could help him be a better programmer when he becomes an adult? Should I focus on him doing lots of coding or, for example, would he be better served by learning additional math?
For those of you who are adult computer programmers (and please identify yourself as such in your response) what, if anything, could you have done at a young age that you think would have caused you to now be a better programmer?
One thing I have observed about people who are better programmers than me is that many play musical instruments. (I don't.) I have no idea what sort of causal structure is involved here.
Learn off-sequence math: logic puzzles, geometric constructions, number theory (primes, modular arithmetic) that are not represented in the standard school math sequence.
Learn something of electronics, digital logic, etc.
Use different languages: maybe Python and Pygame for animations and games, and HTML and JavaScript for web pages. Don't allow the idea to develop that there is one "normal" way for code to look, e.g. "normal languages have curly braces; ones that don't are gratuitously weird."