Re^2: How do I get my teenager interested in software development?

Have you actually asked him what he is interested in doing?

Yes, and the response we usually get is that he wants to program video games.

You may laugh and say that's like every kid's dream of being an astronaut or a fireman, but that's his answer, and his mental abilities seem to match what I assume or understand to be required of a game developer. He knows games very well and thinks very logically.

Why do you need to

him into anything? Why can't you just let him decide for himself? Maybe I'm misreading, but it really sounds to me like you are pushing the kid to do what you want him to do, rather than let him choose his own way in life.

Well, left to his own devices, he'd sit in his room watching TV, playing video games, chatting on IRC and letting the dirty dishes pile up. My responsibility as a parent is, if necessary, guide him into training for some kind of career. If that's pushing, OK, yeah, then I'm pushing.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

I'm also in my forties, and think I know what I do when I'm grown up .. but in the meantime, software development is a fun gig.

Comment on Re^2: How do I get my teenager interested in software development?

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Re^3: How do I get my teenager interested in software development? by Fletch (Bishop) on Aug 23, 2006 at 16:13 UTC
He might want to do some research on the game industry first. From most of what I've heard game development tends to chew up talent quickly. Schedules are usually extremely tight ("WE MUST SHIP BY NOVEMBER TO MAKE IT TO THE STORES FOR HOLIDAY SHOPPERS! CODE FASTER, PEON!"), and the pay for rank-and-file programmers isn't that great compared to other industries (I'm fuzzy on this, but I seem to recall seeing a salary survey to this effect). Just remember for every Sid Meyer or Peter Molyneux there's lots of people you'll never hear of (or see work from again). And just to clarify: I'm not saying "OMGWTFBBQ DON'T DO IT!" and trying to scare him off, just that he should be aware that the image he has in his head may not line up with reality. He should put aside any preconceived notions and make an informed decision. Game Developer Magazine occasionally has articles about the industry as a whole that may be of interest; in fact the May 06 issue has an article on breaking into the industry (I unfortunately let my free subscription I'd wheedled lapse so I can't comment on that article :).	[reply]
Re^3: How do I get my teenager interested in software development? by ForgotPasswordAgain (Vicar) on Aug 24, 2006 at 08:19 UTC
He might be interested in this book which I liked on game AI programming (I copy/pasted what's below from my journal at use.perl.org). Since you said he maybe needed reinforcement in math, he might be interested in the basic trigonometry used in the early parts of the book as they're applied to the AI algorithms (pursuit, fleeing, etc.). I'm reading Programming Game AI by Example. I think that if you're an intermediate programmer who knows C++, and have an interest in computer games (even if you just play them, like me), you'd probably like it. It's really practically oriented, like a tutorial, but at the same time his explanations are based on sensible designs (in the sense of "ok, maybe you wouldn't do exactly this in a real game, but this is the basic idea"). It's not for you if you're looking for an academic, theoretical book. I've only read the first three chapters, but so far so good. I really liked chapters 2 (finite state machines, where he uses an example of Miner Bob who goes from the mine to the saloon ("ah's mighty thusty!") and the bank and home to the li'l lady) and chapter 3 (steering behaviors: seek, flee, pursuit, evade, object avoidance, wall avoidance, etc. If you want to know more, he mentions an article called Steering Behaviors For Autonomous Characters a few times in the book, which also contains a lot of links in its references section.).	[reply]