My daughter has been expressing interest in learning “how to
program” for a couple of weeks now. I’ve attempted to narrow
down a little bit what that means to her: Windows programs? Web
Programs? Web Pages? Flash games? The computer technology world
seems endless at this point–and that’s coming from someone who
earns his living in the industry. Perhaps that’s a little bit of
my problem–I see too much possibility in the request to learn
“how to program”. She really wasn’t able to narrow it down much
at all because she is at that age where she is interested in a
great many things. And she’s bright enough to grasp real
programming concepts, and as a result, the technology world
really is wide open to her. A couple of weeks ago, I went
looking for resources to help teach a kid about real
programming. I decided to start where I started–BASIC. I learned
to program in basica back in the early 80s. I figured
VisualBasic would be a good place for her to start. Fortunately,
Microsoft makes VisualBasic Express available