codecaptureI’ve really been enjoying helping my oldest with her high school computer programming course. I’ve been teaching her some of helpful tricks like tracing variables and talking about how computers actually work (it all comes down to peeks and pokes). I am rediscovering that there is something quite enjoyable about putting together a piece of code, something beautiful about well written elegant code. I’m a bit out of practice, but it is like riding a bicycle. I love the thinking aspect of trying to find a simple, yet compact way of doing a task. Of course her the project is super simple, she’s making a program that lets you play hearts. Tonight we will work together on a few of the next functions she needs to code – I’m going to code a different card game, something similar but different enough that we can work out the ideas and she can implement them in her own way after.

EDIT: This morning I was looking through my code and it struck me that this would be so much simpler with more advanced programming concepts, but the challenge of restricting myself to what Elyssa has already been taught is quite fun. I went with a game of Crazy 8s