Best ways to teach a beginner to program

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Original Question  I am currently engaged in teaching my brother to program   He is a total beginner  but very smart   And he actually wants to learn    I ve noticed that some of our sessions have gotten bogged down in minor details  and I don t feel I ve been very organized   But the answers to this post have helped a lot    What can I do better to teach him effectively   Is there a logical order that I can use to run through concept by concept   Are there complexities I should avoid till later   The language we are working with is Python  but advice in any language is welcome     How to Help  If you have good ones please add the following in your answer    Beginner Exercises and Project Ideas Resources for teaching beginners Screencasts   blog posts   free e-books Print books that are good for beginners   Please describe the resource with a link to it so I can take a look   I want everyone to know that I have definitely been using some of these ideas   Your submissions will be aggregated in this post     Online Resources for teaching beginners    A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Alice  a 3d program for beginners Scratch  A system to develop programming skills  How To Design Programs Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Learn To Program Robert Read s How To Be a Programmer Microsoft XNA Spawning the Next Generation of Hackers COMP1917 Higher Computing lectures by Richard Buckland  requires iTunes  Dive into Python Python Wikibook Project Euler - sample problems  mostly mathematical  pygame - an easy python library for creating games Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python Foundations of Programming for a next step beyond basics  Squeak by Example  Snake Wrangling For Kids  It s not just for kids       Recommended Print Books for teaching beginners   Accelerated C   Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner Code by Charles Petzold Python Programming  An Introduction to Computer Science 2nd Edition

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Just make it fun    Amazingly Scala might be the easiest if you try Kojo

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How about this  Spawning the next generation of hackers by Nat Torkington

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You could try using Alice   It s a 3D program designed for use in introductory programming classes   The two biggest obstacles for new programmers are often    syntax errors motivation  writing something meaningful and fun rather than contrived    Alice uses a drag and drop interface for constructing programs  avoiding the possibility of syntax errors   Alice lets you construct 3D worlds and have your code control  simple  3D characters and animation  which is usually a lot more interesting than implementing linked lists   Experienced programmers may look down at Alice as a toy and scoff at dragging and dropping lines of code  but research shows that this approach works   Disclaimer  I worked on Alice

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I would recommend in first teaching the very basics that are used in almost every language  but doing so without a language  Outline all the basic concepts If-Else If-Else  Loops  Classes  Variable Types  Structures  etc  Everything that is the foundation of most languages  Then move onto really understanding Boolean  comparisons and complex AND OR statements  to get the feeling on what the outcomes are for more complex statements    By doing it this way he will understand the concepts of programming and have a much easier time stepping into languages  from there its just learning the intricate details of the languages   its functions  and syntax

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http   tryruby hobix com   Try Ruby  In Your Browser

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I think that once he has the basics  variables  loops  etc  down you should try to help him find something specific that he is interested in and help him learn the necessities to make it happen   I know that I am much more inclined and motivated to do something if it s of interest to me   Also  make sure to let him struggle though some of the tougher problems  nothing is more satisfying than the moment you figure it out on your own

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First of all  start out like everyone else does  with a Hello World program   It s simple  and it gives them a basic feel for the layout of a program   Try and remember back to when you were first programming  and how difficult some of the concepts were - start simple     After Hello World  move on to creating some basic variables  arithmetic  then onto boolean logic and if else statements   If you ve got one of your old programming textbooks  check out some of the early examples and have him run through those   Just don t try to introduce too much all at once  or it will be overwhelming and confusing

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Whatever they write  have them step through it in a debugger line-by-line on the first run  Let them see for themselves what the computer is doing  This takes a lot of mystery out of things  reduces intimidation   oh  each line really is that simple     and helps them learn debugging skills and recognize why common errors are common  and why they re errors

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Begin by asking him this question   What kinds of things do you want to do with your computer    Then choose a set of activities that fit his answer  and choose a language that allows those things to be done  All the better if it s a simple  or simplifiable  scripting environment  e g  Applescript  Ruby  any shell  Ksh  Bash  or even  bat files    The reasons are    If he s interested in the results  he ll probably be more motivated than if you re having him count Fibonacci s rabbits  If he s getting results he likes  he ll probably think up variations on the activities you create  If you re teaching him  he s not pursuing a serious career  yet   there s always time to switch to  industrial strength  languages later

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At first I was interested in how different programs worked  so I started by looking at the source code  Then when I began to understand how the program worked  I would change certain parameters to see what would happen  So basically I learned how to read before I learned how to write  Which coincidently is how most people learn English   So if I was trying to teach someone how to program I would give them a small program to try to read and understand how it works  and have them just just play around with the source code   Only then would I give them  assignments  to try to accomplish   Now if they had a particular reason for wanting to learn how to program  it would certainly be a good idea to start with something along the lines of what they want to accomplish  For example if they wanted to be proficient in an application like blender  it would definably be a good idea to start with Alice   I would absolutely recommend sticking with a language that has garbage collection  like D  Perl  or some interpreted language like javascript  It might be a good idea to stay away from Perl until Perl 6 is closer to completion  because it fixes some of the difficulties of reading and understanding Perl

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Book  Java Programming for Kids  Parents and Grandparents  PDF   I don t have personal experience about learning using that book  but it appears to be nice because it quickly goes into producing something visible  and not spending too much time with the syntactic itty bitty details  Has someone here tried using that book

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For me  exploring and experimenting within the IDE itself helped me to learn Java and Visual Basic  but I learnt the basics of programming the hard way  Perl 5  There wasn t a free IDE back then  so it meant typing codes into Notepad  saving it  and then run the perl interpreter   I d say that IDEs make learning the basics of programming easier  Try playing around with control structures and variables first  Say in Java   int a   5   for  int i   0  i  lt  a  i           System out println  i is now     i       Basically  simply learning the control structures and variables would allow a beginner to start coding fun stuff already

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Copy some simple code line by line and get them to read and interpret it as they go along  They will soon work it out  I started programming on an Acorn Electron with snippets of code from Acorn magazines  I had no idea about programming when I was 6  I used to copy the text  but gradually I learnt what the different words meant

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A good python course is MIT s A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python   It s all free online  and you don t have to be an MIT uberstudent to understand it      Edit  Justin Standard       This course uses this free online book  How To Think Like a Computer Scientist   I m definitely finding it quite useful

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This thread is very useful to me as a beginner   100 lines of code  programmer   Based on what I have been through  once I finished with the  Hello World  and move to variables and  if else  statement  I got zapped with too much syntax  not knowing what to do with them   So with an interesting simple project  I might get my interest up again  There are quite alot of project suggestions here    Can I ask a questions here    Is it better to learn a scripting language like Autohotkey first      Edit   Justin Standard       I think learning something macro-based like Autohotkey will only help minimally   Try learning a  real  programming language first   The easiest to get started with  according to most people  are python and ruby   I favor python  but both are pretty simple    There is also a full stackoverflow post that answers the question of which language to start with

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I would recommend also watching some screencasts - they are generally created in context of a specific technology not a language  though if there s Python code displayed  that ll do     The point is - they re created by some good programmers and watching how good programmers program is a good thing  You and your brother could do some peer programming as well  that might be an even better idea  Just don t forget to explain WHY you do something this way and not that way  I think the best way to learn programming is from good examples and try not to even see the bad ones

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Whatever language and environment you choose  if the student wants to learn for professional reasons or to do  real  programming  whatever that is   have them start by writing their starter programs1 on paper and taking them away to run  Come back with the output and or error results and have them fix things on paper    This isn t especially harder at first than doing it on-screen and hitting run  but it will make things much easier when they start to discover the wonderful world of bugs   1  short   Hello  World  -type programs that still have some logic and or calculations  do this up to a few programs that can have bugs

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A good resource to teach young people is the free eBook  Invent your own games with Python    http   pythonbook coffeeghost net book1 IYOCGwP book1 pdf

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Something to consider     not everyone is capable of programming   Some people just cannot get past things like   A   1  B   2  A   B   these people will still think A   1   Jeff has talked about this too   In fact  my example is in the link  and explained  to boot

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Python Programming for the absolute beginner  Python Programming for the absolute beginner cover http   safari oreilly com images 1592000738 1592000738 xs jpg

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Who s Afraid of C    By Heller  Might be worth a shot

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How to Design Programs  Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs   Videos lectures at http   www swiss ai mit edu classes 6 001 abelson-sussman-lectures

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If he s interested  aren t the minor details the good parts   Using python  you ve already cut the GUI off of it so that confusion is gone   Why not pick a project  a game or something  and implement it   The classic hi-lo number guessing game can be simply implemented from the command line in 20-30 lines of code  depending on language of course   and gives you variables  conditions  loops  and user input

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Python package VPython -- 3D Programming for Ordinary Mortal  video tutorial     Code example   from visual import    floor   box  pos  0 0 0   length 4  height 0 5  width 4  color color blue  ball   sphere  pos  0 4 0   radius 1  color color red  ball velocity   vector 0 -1 0  dt   0 01  while 1      rate  100      ball pos   ball pos   ball velocity dt     if ball y  lt  ball radius          ball velocity y   -ball velocity y     else          ball velocity y   ball velocity y - 9 8 dt   VPython bouncing ball http   vpython org bounce gif

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If he is interested than I wouldn t worry about focusing on games or whatnot  I d just grab that beginners  teach yourself x  book you were about to throw and give it him and let him struggle through it  Maybe talk about it after and then do another and another  After then I d pair program with him so he could learn how shallow and lame those books he read were  Then I d start having him code something for himself  A website to track softball stats or whatever would engage him  For me it was a database for wine back in the day    After that I would start in on the real books  domain design  etc

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Your question quite depends on age and education of your brother  but if he is a child teenager  I would recommend to do some GUI programming or graphic programming first  with Canvas etc    It looks good  and you have immediate results  Algorithms are boring  and too abstract for young people  before say 15 years old    When I started programming on ZX Spectrum  I was like 12 years old   I liked to draw various things on the screen  and it was still interesting  I didn t learn about real algorithmic techniques until I was maybe 18  Don t be mislead that such  simple  programming is a wrong start  the interest of the person learning it is the most important part of it   So  I would look into PyKDE  PyGTK  PyQt or Python   OpenGL  there are certainly some tutorials on the net  I know of some Czech ones but that won t help you       Of course  if your brother is older and has education close to mathematics  you can head directly to algorithms and such

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Something you should be very mindful of while teaching your brother to program is for him not to rely too heavily on you  Often when I find myself helping others they will begin to think of me as answer book to all of their questions and instead of experimenting to find an answer they simply ask me  Often the best teacher is experimentation and every time your brother has a question like  What will happen if I add 2 to a string   you should tell him to try it out and see for himself  Also I have noticed that when I cannot get a concept through to someone  it helps to see some sample code where we can look at each segment individually and explain it piece by piece  As a side note people new to programming often have trouble with the idea of object oriented programming  they will say they understand it when you teach it to them but will not get a clear concept of it until actually implementing it

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If you want to teach the basics of programming  without being language specific  there is an application called Scratch that was created in MIT  It s designed to help people  develop programming skills  As users create Scratch projects  they learn to create conditions  loops  etc  There is a also a community of scratch projects  form which projects can be downloaded - that way you can explore other people s programs and see how they were built

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Try to find a copy of Why s  Poignant  Guide to Ruby online   The original site is offline but I m sure there are a few mirrors out there   It s not your typical programming guide  it puts a unique  and funny  spin on learning a new language that might suit your friend  Not to mention  Ruby is a great language to learn with

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Microsoft Small Basic is a free  NET based programming environment aimed to be a  fun  learning environment for beginners  The language is a subset of VB NET and even contains a  Turtle  object familiar from the Logo language  The website contains a step-by-step tutorial

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I don t know if anyone has mentioned this here  yet  but You might want to check out Zed Shaw s Learn Python the Hard Way  Hope this Helps

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I think Python is a really great Language to start with   -   I suggest you to try http   www pythonchallenge com    It is build like a small Adventure and every Solutions links you to a new nice Problem   After soluting the Problem you get access to a nice Forum to talk about your Code and get to see what other people created

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Begin with Turtle graphics in Python   I would use the turtle graphics which comes standard with Python   It is visual  simple and you could use this environment to introduce many programming concepts like iteration and procedure calls before getting too far into syntax   Consider the following interactive session in python    gt  gt  gt  from turtle import    gt  gt  gt  setup    gt  gt  gt  title  turtle test    gt  gt  gt  clear    gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   DRAW A SQUARE  gt  gt  gt  down           pen down  gt  gt  gt  forward 50     move forward 50 units  gt  gt  gt  right 90       turn right 90 degrees  gt  gt  gt  forward 50   gt  gt  gt  right 90   gt  gt  gt  forward 50   gt  gt  gt  right 90   gt  gt  gt  forward 50   gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   INTRODUCE ITERATION TO SIMPLIFY SQUARE CODE  gt  gt  gt  clear    gt  gt  gt  for i in range 4           forward 50          right 90   gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   INTRODUCE PROCEDURES     gt  gt  gt  def square length           down           for i in range 4               forward length              right 90   gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   HAVE STUDENTS PREDICT WHAT THIS WILL DRAW  gt  gt  gt  for i in range 50           up           left 90          forward 25          square i   gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   NOW HAVE THE STUDENTS WRITE CODE TO DRAW  gt  gt  gt   A SQUARE  TUNNEL   I E  CONCENTRIC SQUARES  gt  gt  gt   GETTING SMALLER AND SMALLER    gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt   AFTER THAT  MAKE THE TUNNEL ROTATE BY HAVING  gt  gt  gt   EACH SUCCESSIVE SQUARE TILTED   In trying to accomplish the last two assignments  they will have many failed attempts  but the failures will be visually interesting and they ll learn quickly as they try to figure out why it didn t draw what they expected

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I d recommend Think Python

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I can recommend my project  PythonTurtle    Summary   PythonTurtle strives to provide the lowest-threshold way to learn Python  Students command an interactive Python shell  similar to the IDLE development environment  and use Python functions to move a turtle displayed on the screen  An illustrated help screen introduces the student to the basics of Python programming while demonstrating how to move the turtle   It looks like this   alt text http   www pythonturtle com screenshot gif

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Once he has the basics  I suggest the Tower of Hanoi as a good exercise  I recommend beginning with the wooden toy if you have one  let him try to solve the problem by himself and describe his method in a systematic way  Show him where recursion comes into play  Explain him how the number of moves depends on the number of disks  Then let him write a program to print the sequence of moves  in your language of choice

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As a non-programmer myself  I found the book  How to Program  from Pragmatic Programmers very helpful from a rudimentary standpoint  It s approachable and easy to read for a beginner  It won t take you from beginner to expert  but it will prepare you for what to do once you pick a language and pick up your first  Learn to Program in  language here   book

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If your brother likes puzzles  I would recommend Python Challenge   I wouldn t use it as a formal teaching tool in a 1 on 1 tutorial  but it s something he can do when you re not together to challenge himself and have some fun

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First off  I think there has already been some great answers  so I will try not to dupe too much    Get them to write lots of code  keep them asking questions to keep the brain juices flowing  I would say dont get bogged down with the really detailed information until they either run in to the implications of them  or they ask    I think one of the biggest points I would ensure is that they understand the core concepts of a framework  I know you are working in Python  which I have no clue about  but for example  with ASP NET getting people to understand the page code behind model can be a real challenge  but its critical that they understand it  As an example  I recently had a question on a forum about  where do I put my data-access code  in the  cs  file or the  aspx  file    So I would say  for the most part  let them guide the way  just be there to support them where needed  and prompt more questions to maintain interest  Just ensure they have the fundamentals down  and dont let them run before they can walk   Good Luck

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I was taught by learning how to solve problems in a language agnostic way using flowcharts and PDL  Program Design Language    After a couple weeks of that  I learned to convert the PDL I had written to a language   I am glad I learned that way because I have spent the majority of my years programming  solving problems without being tied to a language   What language I use has always been an implementation detail and not part of the design    Having to solve the problem by breaking it down into it s basic steps is a key skill   I think it is one of the things that separates those that can program from those that can t   As far as how you tackle the order of concepts of a language I believe the easiest way is to decide that is to have a project in mind and tackle the concepts as they are needed   This lets you apply them as they are needed on something that you are interested in doing   When learning a language it is good to have several simple projects in mind and a few with progressive complexity   Deciding on those will help you map out the concepts that are needed and their order

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once you ve taught them how to program  they might want to learn how to develop software    for that I think Greg Wilson s Software Carpentry course is great   it also uses Python as the student s language

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One I used with my kids is CEEBot  It s not python  but it teaches C   Java style programming in a fun  robot-programming kind of game  It is aimed at 10-15 year olds  but it is a really good one

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If your brother has access to iTunes  he can download video lectures of an introductory computer science course given by Richard Buckland at the University of New South Wales  He s an engaging instructor and covers fundamentals of computing and the C language  If nothing else  tell your brother to play the vids in the background and some concepts might sink in through osmosis      COMP1917 Higher Computing - 2008 Session 1 http   deimos3 apple com WebObjects Core woa Browse unsw edu au 1504975442 01504975444  If the link doesn t work  here s a path   Home -  iTunes U --  Engineering --  COMP1917 Higher Computing - 2008 Session 1

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I would actually argue to pick a simpler language with fewer instructions   I personally learned on BASIC at home  as did Jeff   This way  you don t have to delve into more complicated issues like object oriented programming  or even procedures if you don t want to   Once he can handle simple control flow  then move on to something a little more complicated  but only simple features   Maybe start with very simple programs that just add 2 numbers  and then grow to something that might require a branch  then maybe reading input and responding to it  then some kind of loop  and start combining them all together   Just start little and work your way up   Don t do any big projects until he can grasp the fundamentals  otherwise it may very well be too daunting and he could give up midway    Once he s mastered BASIC or whatever you choose  move on to something more complicated   Just my  0 02

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I d suggest taking an approach similiar to that of the book  Accelerated C   in which they cover parts of C   that are generally useful for making simple programs  For anyone new to programming I think having something to show for a little amount of effort is a good way to keep them interested  Once you have covered the fundamentals of Python then you should sit back and let him experiement with the language   In one of my University subjects for this semester they have taken an approach called Problem Based Learning PBL  in which they use lectures to stimulate students about different approaches to problems  Since your brother is keen you should take a similiar approach  Set him small projects to work on and let him figure it out for himself  Then once he is finished you can go through his approach and compare and contrast with different methods   If you can give him just the right amount of help to steer him in the right direction then he should be fine  Providng him with some good websites and books would also be a good idea   I d also recommend sticking away from IDE s at the starting stages  Using the command line and a text editor will give him a greater understanding of the processes involved in compiling assembling code   I hope I ve been of some help

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Having small  obtainable goals is one of the greatest ways to learn any skill   Programming is no different   Python is a great language to start with because it is easy to learn  clean and can still do advanced things   Python is only limited by your imagination     One way to really get someone interested is to give them small projects that they can do in an hour or so   When I originally started learning python I playing Code Golf   They have many small challenges that will help teach the basics of programming   I would recommend just trying to solve one of the challenges a day and then playing with the concepts learned   You ve got to make learning to program fun or the interest will be lost very quickly

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I recommend Logo  aka the turtle  to get the basic concepts down  It provides a good sandbox with immediate graphical feedback  and you can demostrate loops  variables  functions  conditionals  etc  This page provides an excellent tutorial    After Logo  move to Python or Ruby  I recommend Python  as it s based on ABC  which was invented for the purpose of teaching programming    When teaching programming  I must second EHaskins s suggestion of simple projects and then complex projects  The best way to learn is to start with a definite outcome and a measurable milestone  It keeps the lessons focused  allows the student to build skills and then build on those skills  and gives the student something to show off to friends  Don t underestimate the power of having something to show for one s work   Theoretically  you can stick with Python  as Python can do almost anything  It s a good vehicle to teach object-oriented programming and  most  algorithms  You can run Python in interactive mode like a command line to get a feel for how it works  or run whole scripts at once  You can run your scripts interpreted on the fly  or compile them into binaries  There are thousands of modules to extend the functionality  You can make a graphical calculator like the one bundled with Windows  or you can make an IRC client  or anything else    XKCD describes Python s power a little better    You can move to C  or Java after that  though they don t offer much that Python doesn t already have  The benefit of these is that they use C-style syntax  which many  dare I say most   languages use  You don t need to worry about memory management yet  but you can get used to having a bit more freedom and less handholding from the language interpreter  Python enforces whitespace and indenting  which is nice most of the time but not always  C  and Java let you manage your own whitespace while remaining strongly-typed    From there  the standard is C or C    The freedom in these languages is almost existential  You are now in charge of your own memory management  There is no garbage collection to help you  This is where you teach the really advanced algorithms  like mergesort and quicksort   This is where you learn why  segmentation fault  is a curse word  This is where you download the source code of the Linux kernel and gaze into the Abyss  Start by writing a circular buffer and a stack for string manipulation  Then work your way up

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Robert Read wrote a useful guide  How to be a Programmer  which covers a wide area of programming issues that a beginner would find helpful

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There is a book called Code   I can t remember who wrote it  but it goes through the basics of a lot of stuff that we  programmers  know and take for granted that people we talk to know also   Everything from how do you count binary to how processors work   It doesn t have anything dealing with programming languages in it  well from what I remember   but it is a pretty good primer   I will admit that I am also of the school that believes you have to know how the computer works to be able to effectively program things for it

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There have already been a bunch of great answers  but for an absolute beginner  I would wholeheartedly recommend Hackety Hack  It was created by the unreasonably prolific why the lucky stiff specifically to provide a BASIC LOGO Pascal-like environment for new programmers to experiment in  It s essentially a slick Ruby IDE with some great libraries  flash video  IM  web server  and interactive lessons  It makes a good pitch for programming  as it chose lessons that do fun  useful things   Hello  world  may not impress right off the bat  but  creating a custom IM client in 20 minutes can inspire someone to keep learning  Have fun

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A couple of other starting platforms    A good programmable calculator  that s what I learnt on back in the 70s   and HP25 then HP41  now TI69  etc  Interactive Fiction platforms  like  Inform 7  provide another angle on the whole thing Flash ActionScript   All of these are different and engaging  and any one of these might spark the kind of interest that is required to get a beginner of and running   LBB

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Some additional information that someone could attach to Jason Pratt s earlier post on Alice     specifically  a Storytelling Alice variant   Although the study presented targets middle school girls  you may find the white paper written by Caitlin Kelleher interesting

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I think the  wisdom of crowds  work here  How did most people learn how to program  Many claim that they did so by copying programs of others  usually games they wanted to play in BASIC   Maybe that route will work with him too

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I highly recommend Python Programming  An Introduction to Computer Science 2nd Edition by John Zelle  It is geared towards beginners  and deals with the semantics of programming  After reading you will be able to pick up other languages much faster because of Zelle s semantic vs  syntactic approach  Check it out

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I agree with superjoe30 above  but I don t have enough reputation yet to leave a comment   I was a C S  professor for 4 years  The languages were Basic  and then Pascal  but it doesn t really matter what the language is   The biggest lesson I learned as a new prof was  no matter how simple I thought a concept was  it is not simple to a newbie  Never go any faster than your student can go  I can t emphasize that enough  Go really  really slow   I would start with very simple stuff  read and print  maybe a simple calculation  just to get the student used to putting something in and getting something out  Then IF statements  Then really simple FOR loops  always in terms of something the student could write and have some fun with   Then I would spend about 3 weeks teaching a very simple sort of machine language for a phony decimal machine called SIMPL  that you could single-step  The reason for doing this so the student could see where the  rubber meets the road   that computers do things step-by-step  and it makes a difference what order things happen in  Without that  students tend to think the computer can sort of read their mind and do everything all at once   Then back to Basic  A couple weeks on arrays  because that is a big speed bump  Then sequential files  which is another speed bump  What I mean by  speed bump  is the student can be sailing along feeling quite confident  and then you hit them with a concept like arrays  and they are totally lost again  until you ease them through it   Then  with those skills under their belts  I would have them pick a term project  because that is what makes programming interesting  Without a use for it  it s really boring  I would suggest a variety of projects  such as games  accounting programs  science programs  etc  It s really great to see them get turned on  Often they would ask me for help  and that s great  because you know they re learning   While they were doing their projects  we would continue to cover more advanced programming techniques - searching  sorting  merging  how to make a simple database  etc   Good luck  Teaching is hard work but satisfying when you see students grow

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there s a wikibook that is pretty good for learning python   I don t know how the wikibooks are for other languages  but I personally learned python from the wikibook as it was in Feb 2007  ps - if you re unfamiliar with wikibooks  it s basically the wikipedia version of book authoring  it s sort of hard to describe  but if you check out a few of the books on there you ll see how it works

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Ask your brother if there s something he d like to make a program do or invent a project for him that you think would interest him     Something where he can know what the output is supposed to be and point him to the materials on-line or in print  pertinent to the project    If he s coming into python or programming  cold  be patient as he works his way through understanding the basics such as syntax  errors  scoping and be prepared to step aside and let him run and make his own mistakes when you start to see the light bulb go on over his head

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I ve had to work with several beginner  never wrote a line of code  programmers  and I ll be doing an after school workshop with high school students this fall  This is the closest thing I ve got to documentation  It s still a work in progress  but I hope it helps   1  FizzBuzz  Start with command line programs  You can write some fun games  or tools  very quickly  and you learn all of the language features very quickly without having to learn the GUI tools first  These early apps should be simple enough that you won t need to use any real debugging tools to make them work   If nothing else things like FizzBuzz are good projects  Your first few apps should not have to deal with DBs  file system  configuration  ect  These are concepts which just confuse most people  and when you re just learning the syntax and basic framework features you really don t need more complexity   Some projects    Hello World  Take the year of my birth  and calculate my age  just  now - then  no month corrections    simple math  input  output  Ask for a direction Up  down  left  right   then tell the user their fate  fall in a hole  find a cake  ect    Boolean logic  FizzBuzz  but count once every second   Loops  timers  and more logic  Depending on their age some really like an app which calls the users a random insult at some interval   Loops  arrays  timers  and random if you make the interval random    2  Simple Project Once they have a good grasp of language features  you can start a project simple  fun games work good    You should try to have the first project be able to be completed within 6-12 hours  Don t spend time to architect it early  Let them design it even if it sucks  If it falls apart  talk about what happened and why it failed  then pick another topic and start again   This is where you start introducing the debugging capabilities of your tools  Even if you can see the problem by reading the code you should teach them how to use the tools  and then show them how you could see it  That serves the dual purpose of teaching the debugging tools and teaching how to ID errors without tools   Once  or if  the project gets functional you can use it to introduce refactoring tools  Its good if you can then expand the project with some simple features which you never planned for  This usually means refactoring and significant debugging  since very few people write even half decent code their first time   Some projects    Hangman game Experimenting with robotics Vex and Mindstorms are options     3  Real Project  Start a real project which may take some time  Use proper source control  and make a point to have a schedule  Run this project like a real project  if nothing else its good experience having to deal with the tools   Obviously you need to adjust this for each person  The most important thing I ve found is to make even the first simple apps apply to what the person is interested in    Some projects    Tetris Text file based blog engine More advanced robotics work

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Use real world analogy and imaginary characters to teach them programming  Like when I teach people about variables and control statements etc   Usually I start with calculator example  I say imagine u have a box for every variable and u have 10 card boards with numbers 0 - 9 printed on them  Say that the box can hold one cardboard at a time and similar ways to explain how programming elements work  And emphasis on how every operator works   like the simple     operator always computes the right hand side first into one value  and put that value into box named  num 1   which is variable name   This has been very very effective  as they are able to imagine the flow very quickly

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The best way to learn anything is to start with the basic   You can find any good text book to explain what programming is  memory  algorithms     The next step select the language which it just depends on what the teacher knows or why the student wants to learn     Then it is just code  code  code   Code every example right from the book   Then change it slightly to do another action   Learning to program is an active process not a passive one   You can t just read C   How to Program by Dietal and then expect to code C   without having actively done it while reading   Even if you are an experienced coder it helps to write the code in the book to learn something new

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After going through a few free e-books  I found the best book for learning to program was Head First Programming published by O Reily Press  It uses Python as the language and gives you programs to work on from the very start  They are all more interesting that  Hello World   It s well worth the money I spent on it  and since it s been out for a bit you may be able to find a cheaper used copy on Ebay or Amazon

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My favourite  start learning to code  project is the Game Snakes or Tron because it allows you to start slow  variables to store the current  worm position   arrays to store the worm positions if the worm is longer than one  piece   loops to make the worm move  if switch to allow the user to change the worm s direction        It also allows to include more and more stuff into the project in the long run  e g  object oriented programming  one worm is one object with the chance to have two worms at the same time  with inheritance  go from  Snakes  to  Tron  or the other way around  where the worm slightly changes behavior    I d suggest that you use Microsoft s XNA to start  In my experience starting to program is much more fun if you can see something on your screen  and XNA makes it really easy to get something moving on the screen  It s quite easy to do little changes and get another look  e g  by changing colors  so he can see that his actions have an effect -  Impression of success  Success is fun  which is a great motivation to keep on learning

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I don t know for sure what will be the best for your brother  but I know I started with python  I ve been playing various games from a very early age and wanted to make my own  so my uncle introduced me to python with the pygame library  It has many tutorials and makes it all easy  WAY easier than openGL in my opinion   It is limited to 2d  but you should be starting out simple anyway   My uncle recommended python because he was interested in it at the time  but I recommend it  now fairly knowledgeable  because it s easy to learn  intuitive  or as intuitive as a programming language can get   and simple  but certainly not simplistic    I personally found basic programming simply to learn programming obscenely boring at the time  but picked up considerable enthusiasm as I went  I really wanted to be learning in order to build something  not just to learn it

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In my biased opinion  C is the best point to start  The language is small  it s high level features are ubiquitous and the low level features let you learn the machine   I found the C Primer Plus  5th Edition very helpful as a beginning programmer with almost no programming experience  It assumes no prior programming experience  fun to read and covers C in depth  including the latest C99 standard

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I suggest  Computer Science Unplugged  as a complementary didactical material

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I think learning to program because you want to learn to program will never be as good as learning to program because you want to DO something  If you can find something that your brother is interested in making work because he wants to make it work  you can just leave him with Google and he ll do it  And he ll have you around to check he s going along the right path   I think one of the biggest problems with teaching programming in the abstract is that it s not got a real-world context that the learner can get emotionally invested in  Programming is hard  and there has to be some real payoff to make it worth the effort of doing it  In my case  I d done computer science at uni  learned Pascal and COBOL there  and learned BASIC at home before that  but I never really got anywhere with it until I became a self-employed web designer back in the 90s and my clients needed functionality on their web sites  and were willing to pay about 10x more for functionality than for design  Putting food on the table is a hell of a motivator   So I learned Perl  then ASP VBScript  then JavaScript  then Flash ActionScript then PHP - all in order to make the stuff I wanted to happen

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I agree with Leac   I actually play with Scratch sometimes if I m bored   It s a pretty fun visual way of looking at code   How it works is  they give you a bunch of  blocks   these look like legos  which you can stack   And by stacking these blocks  and interacting with the canvas  where you put your sprites  graphics   you can create games  movies  slideshows    it s really interesting   When it s complete you can upload it right to the Scratch websites  which is a youtube-ish portal for Scratch applications   Not only that  but you can download any submission on the website  and learn from or extend other Scratch applications

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Academic Earth offers links to free Computer Science courses from top universities  They have a section geared towards Beginning Computer Science  The languages taught in the beginning courses vary    MIT -   Introduction to Computer Science and Programming - Python Stanford - Computer Science I  Programming Methodology - Java Harvard - Introduction to Computer Science I - C  main focus   with a few others sprinkled in for good measure  e g   SQL  PHP  LISP  Assembler  etc   Berkeley - a dialect of the LISP language

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I d just let him write tons of code  Let him drive in everything you guys do  and just be available to answer questions   Believe it or not  after a few months of writings tons of crappy code  he ll start to get the idea and start writing better programs  At that point  you can get bogged down in details  memory  etc   and also talk about general design principles   I ve heard that what separates the great artists from the mediocre ones  is that every time they practice  they improve on something  no matter how small  Let your brother practice  and he ll improve every time he sits down at the keyboard      Edit   Justin Standard       Esteban  this reminds me of a recent coding horror post  and I do think you are right   But I think its still worthwhile to find methods to guide his practice   No question  I want him writing as much code as he knows how to do   Thats one reason I m asking for sample projects

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It really depends on your brother s learning style  Many people learn faster by getting their hands dirty  amp  just getting into it  crystallising the concepts and the big picture as they progress and build their knowledge   Me  I prefer to start with the big picture and drill down into the nitty-gritty  The first thing I wanted to know was how it all fits together then all that Object-oriented gobbledygook  then about classes  amp  instances and so-on  I like to know the underlying concepts and a bit of theory before I learn the syntax  I had a bit of an advantage because I wrote some games in BASIC 20 years ago but nothing much since   Perhaps it is useful to shadow a production process by starting with an overall mission statement  then a plan and or flowchart  then elaborate into some pseudo code  leaning towards the syntax you will ultimately use  before actually writing the code   The golden rule here is to suss out your student s leaning style

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Plenty of things tripped me up in the beginning  but none more than simple mechanics   Concepts  I took to immediately   But miss a closing brace   Easy to do  and often hard to debug  in a non-trivial program   So  my humble advice is  don t understimate the basics  like good typing   It sounds remedial  and even silly  but it saved me so much grief early in my learning process when I stumbled upon the simple technique of typing the complete  skeleton  of a code structure and then just filling it in   For an  if  statement in Python  start with   if      In C C   C  Java   if            In Pascal Delphi   If    Then Begin  End   Then  type between the opening and closing tokens   Once this becomes a solid habit  so you do it without thinking  more of the brain is freed up to do the fun stuff   Not a very flashy bit of advice to post  I admit  but one that I have personally seen do a lot of good      Edit   Justin Standard       Thanks for your contribution  Wing   Related to what you said  one of the things I ve tried to help my brother remember the syntax for python scoping  is that every time there s a colon  he needs to indent the next line  and any time he thinks he should indent  there better be a colon ending the previous line

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This may sound dumb  but why are YOU trying to teach your brother to program   Often the best learning environment consists of an goal that can be achieved by a keen beginner  a sample program   an ample supply of resources  google tutorials books   and a knowledgeable source of advice that can provide guidance when needed   You can definitely help with suggestions for the first two  but the last is your primary role

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It may seem weird  but I got started writing code by automating the tasks and data analysis at my former job   This was accomplished by recording then studying the code an Excel macro generated   Of course this approach assumes you can learn via VB

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I recommend starting them off with C C     I find that it is a good foundation for just about every other language   Also  the different versions of BASIC can be pretty dodgy  at best  and have no real correlation to actual programming

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The key thing is that the person in question needs to have some problem that they want solving  If you don t have a program that you want to write  and something sensible and well-defined  not  I want to write the next Quake    then you can t learn to program  because you have nothing to motivate you   I mean  you could read a book and have a rough understanding of a language s syntax and semantics  but until you have a program that you want written you ll never grasp the nettle   If that impetus exists then everything else is just minor details

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My personal experience started back in elementary using Logo Writer  which in a way has evolved into Scratch   granted I was a little kid and computers where not as awesome as they are nowadays  but for the time being it took me places I hadn t been before    I think that s how I got hooked in the business    I could say that it was these first impressions based on such simplicity and coolness that made the goods that stick into my head for life  That s how basics in teaching programming should be taught    a simple process that yearns magic   Back to my first CS 101  I started with notions of what an algorithm was by building a Tequila Sunrise  a step by step process that could be repeated at any time with the right ingredients  that will result in the same output   from there we move on to basic math functions using Scheme  like EHaskins was saying    start small and then build up   and from there to notions of loops  Boolean logic  structures and then building into concepts of objects and some simulation executions     One of the good things about this approach is that language was not a goal but just a tool in the process of learning the concepts and basics of programming  just like operators  functions and else are in mathematics    IMHO learning the basics of programming and creating a foundation is probably the best thing you could teach  your brother  once the goal is covered then u can move on into a more general use language like python and teach them higher concepts like architecture and design patterns  make them natural in the process so he will get use to good practices from early stages and will see them as part of the process     we are far from reinventing the warm water  but we always have to start by creating fire   From there on the sky is the limit

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I d recommend Charles Petzold s book Code - The Hidden Langauge of Computer Hardware and Software as an excellent general introduction to how computers work   There s a lot of information in the book  382 pages  and it may take an absolute beginner some time to read but it s well worth it  Petzold manages to explain many of the core concepts of computers and programming from simple codes  relays  memory  CPUs to operating systems  amp  GUIs in a very clear and enjoyable way  It will provide any reader with a good sense of what s actually happening behind the scenes when they write code   I certainly wish it was around when I was first learning to program

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This is a fantastic book which my little brothers used to learn   http   pine fm LearnToProgram   Of course  the most important thing is to start on a real  useful program of some kind IMMEDIATELY after finishing the book

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I think Python is a great idea   I would give him a few basic assignments to do on his own and tell him that any dead ends he hits can probably be resolved by a trip to google   For me  at least  solving a problem on my own always made it stick better than someone telling me the solution   Some possible projects  in no particular order     Coin flip simulator   Let the user input a desired number of trials for the coin flipping   Execute it and display the results along with the percentage for heads or tails  Make a temperature converter with a menu that takes user input to choose which kind of conversion the user wants to do   After choosing the conversion and doing it  it should return to the main menu   Here s an example of an extended converter with the same idea  http   pastebin org 6541 Make a program that takes a numeric input and displays the letter grade it would translate to   It ll end up evaluating the input against if and elif statements to find where it fits  Make a simple quiz that goes through several multiple choice or fill in the blank questions   At the end it will display how the user did   He can pick any questions he wants  Take an input of some  presumably large  number of pennies and convert it into bigger denominations   For example  149 pennies   1 dollar  1 quarter  2 dimes  and 4 pennies  Create a simple list manager   Be able to add delete lists and add delete entries in those lists   Here s an example of a christmas list manager  http   pastebin org 6543 Create a program that will build and then test whether entered numbers form a magic square  with a 2D array    Here s some sample code  but it should really print out the square at each step in order to show where the user is in terms of buliding the square  http   pastebin org 6544   I would also suggest doing some stuff with xTurtle or another graphics module to mix things up and keep him from getting boring   Of course  this is very much practice programming and not the scripting that a lot of people would really be using python for  but the examples I gave are pretty much directly taken from when I was learning via python and it worked out great for me   Good luck

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1 to Stanford university lectures  http   see stanford edu see courseinfo aspx coll 824a47e1-135f-4508-a5aa-866adcae1111  They re simple  of high quality and I can vouch for their ability to teach beginners me being one of them

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Project Euler has a number of interesting mathematics problems that could provide great material for a beginning programmer to cut her teeth on  The problems begin easy and increase in difficulty and the web is full of sample solutions in various programming languages

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I used to teach programming and your brother has one main advantage over most of my students he wants to learn     If you decide to go with C a friend has a site that has the sort of programs those of use from older generations remember as basic type-ins   The more complex of them use ncurses which sort of negates their use as a teaching aid somewhat but some of them are tiny little things and you can learn loads without being taught to   Personally I think Python and Ruby would make great first languages   EDIT  list of beginner programming assignments appeared overnight might be just what you are looking for

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Python is easy for new developers to learn  You don t get tangled up in the specifics of memory management and type definition  Dive Into Python is a good beginners guide to python programming  When my sister wanted to learn programing I pointed her to the  Head Start  line of books which she found very easy to read and understand  I find it s hard to just start teaching someone because you don t have a lexicon to use with them  First have him read a few books or tutorials and ask you for questions  From there you can assign projects and grade them  I find it hard to teach programming because I learned it over nearly 15 years of tinkering around

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I skimmed through the comments and looks like nobody mentioned Foundations of Programming from www CodeBetter com  Although it requires a bit of foundation  it can certainly be a next step in the learning process

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Python Challenge

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Very good video introduction course by Stanford university  no prior knowledge required    Programming Methodology  Will teach you good  methodologies  every programmer should know and some Java programming

[python] Best ways to teach a beginner to program?

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