On 28/01/2015 22:37, John Rumm wrote:
On 28/01/2015 21:48, Ferretygubbins wrote:
I know this is OT but I rather suspect that some of you will be able to
help.

Boy1 (13) is interested in learning how to write code and so I would
like to set him up with a toolkit for his PC (Windows) unfortunately my
programming days are somewhat in the past and restricted to MUMPS which
was archaic even back then. Has anyone any suggestions for a suitable
platform? As ever the cheaper the better.

How good is the lad at maths? That strongly colours the best answer...

Have a look at Lazerus its an open source clone of Ebarcadero's[1]
Delphi development environment.

http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/

It gives you all the tools in one place, a proper integrated development
environment, code editor, object inspector, drag and drop interface
building, debugger etc. The language is based on a greatly extended
object Pascal with a very elegant class library based on the original
Borland VCL (designed by Anders Hejlsberg who was later poached by MS to
develop C#)

[1] they bought Borland's software tools business


I agree that for a beginner one of the Pascal based languages is a good
bet and that Delphi had a cute development environment.

Another now obscure related language with similar though more minimalist
tendencies are Wirths later Modula2 and Oberon languages. Several free
compilers are available of which XDS is probably the best and it comes
with a few code examples that show what it can do.

http://www.excelsior-usa.com/xdsx86.html

Toy programming projects he can easily do in the VBA project side of
Office applications like Excel or fxshudder/fx Word.

MS offer free versions of their compilers for download but I think the
learning curve is far too steep for most people to make any progress
without an experienced coach or teacher to hand.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown