@ramin_hal9001 yeah, I never learned BASIC unfortunately. C++ was the first language I started "fucking around with" when I was in middle school, upon discovering that you can download the source code to lots of software and change what its called, and the fonts and stuff, and rebuild it as "Blakiez Audacity++", and the only programming book I read before college was HACKING: The art of exploitation, which introduced me to Linux and some assembly concepts. but the first language I really got into was #Pd, because I wanted to be the next autechre at the time, and then went on to double major in new media art & philosophy at Bennington College. and basically anything you want to do for production-scale new media installation requires openFrameworks, a C++ framework.

but BASIC seems like a pretty good language for young people to learn. easy while reasonably low-level, facilitating the creation of interactive applications quick. I think these days, the best thing #parents can do for a kid interested in programming is to buy them HTDP with #racket, because its both gentle enough to not scare them away, while still going deep.

I also think I would have really fallen in love with programming as a kid had I been given a copy of "Starting #Forth". Forth would have really hit all the right buttons for me when I was young, when I loved just exploring low level stuff with no idea whats going on, just because it seemed so mysterious and weird.