I would suggest starting with language such as MIT Media Labs Scratch.
Which is a great resource, it is also an active project with web based ide.
http://scratch.mit.edu/
He is complete ass when he talks bullshit about MIT Media Lab without knowing about their current efforts.
The OP is an complete idiot lost in nostalgia, is he nicholas carr??
In looking for a first programming language for a grade school kid, I'm not particularly sure that needing to learn how to write functional or object-oriented code is particularly high on the list of priorities.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Article written by a complete idiot, agreed. Just because your computer doesn't air-drop you in a hostile land of command lines and forces you to program or be left watching a blinking cursor slowly burn in your screen doesn't mean "Johnny" is unable to program.
In 2006 Johnny could download Visual Studio Express on his Dell. In 1976 Johnny would be typing in programs from magazines and hoping the power wouldn't glitch out before he could save to tape.
I am sorry but the author of this article hasnt even performed basic research. He is completely bullshitting about Media Lab. Media Lab has created Scratch programming language which is actively being used by many kids in large number of schools around world.
