The other day I was talking to a co-worker (non-programmer), and she mentioned that she just finds it unbelievable how programmers write their programs. I likened programs to recipes, and referred to Short Circuit, where Johnny 5 burns a frozen meal because the instructions didn’t specify that the meal should be taken out of the box…

While recipes are a good analogy, for people who like the analogy a bit more specific to programming (and still have fun), here are some good resources:

  • Lightbot, a neat little robot game that uses instructions to light squares.
  • Lightbot 2.0, the sequel to Lightbot.
  • Robot Battle, a game about building a robot and competing against others in an arena.
  • Logo, the original educational programming language
  • Alice, a 3D programming environment tutorial.
Learning to program should be fun, and I hope these resources help you out.