I had never touched programming before. I read the whole book, and did the lessons, but C++ was just too hard for a beginner.
Then I found QBASIC sitting on my computer. QBASIC was easy, it was idiot proof. I learned all the basics (pun) of programming in 1 day. The problem is not that programming is hard, it is that these days there is no easy starting point. To an experienced developer, Javascript might seem easy, but after trying to teach it to my brother for the past few months, you can see how complex it really is for beginners. He took every course at Code Academy and is still struggling.
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When I was about 11, I bought this book: http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Game-Programming-Cd-Rom...
I had never touched programming before. I read the whole book, and did the lessons, but C++ was just too hard for a beginner.
Then I found QBASIC sitting on my computer. QBASIC was easy, it was idiot proof. I learned all the basics (pun) of programming in 1 day. The problem is not that programming is hard, it is that these days there is no easy starting point. To an experienced developer, Javascript might seem easy, but after trying to teach it to my brother for the past few months, you can see how complex it really is for beginners. He took every course at Code Academy and is still struggling.
Opening up your browser's JS console and typing alert("hello, world!")
is way easier than running GORILLAS.BAS