My 5-year Old Son Wrote His First Program

My son is growing up fast. With all the technology around him, he may not be aware of the powerful shell/command line.

I remember how I got started into software development. It was the DOS command prompt - Starting apps, manipulating files, creating Batch Files. That's how I came across gwbasic then, and got hooked into programming.

I don't want my kids to forget about the power of the command line. And with all the new ways to interact with software these days - there's mouse, touch, gestures, head/hand tracking, voice, mixed reality; the keyboard is still the easiest way to communicate. After all the command prompt still exists for power users.

If you have a kid that you want to introduce into software development, I recommend letting them explore the command prompt. If you're using a Mac, open the Terminal app then let them type:

>say hello world!

Here's a short video, programming starts with something simple. Programming starts with something fun. Next time I'll teach him how to do command line options to change voice.

Female Voices

$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say

Male Voices

$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say

Novelty Voices

$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say
$ say