HackerNews Readings: Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python

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Software Design for Flexibility: How to Avoid Programming Yourself into a Corner

Chris Hanson and Gerald Jay Sussman

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Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python

Al Sweigart

4.7 on Amazon

7 HN comments

Implementing Domain-Driven Design

Vaughn Vernon

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jokermatt999onMay 3, 2009

I'd recommend Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python (http://pythonbook.coffeeghost.net/book1/index.html). It's free online, and it geared towards exactly that kind of age and setting. It's written for a beginner at programming, and most kids would probably love writing their own games.

AlSweigartonDec 24, 2009

Author here. I also wrote a free book on Python programming for beginners called Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, and you can download it from http://inventwithpython.com if you're interested.

octopusonJan 23, 2011

Port a Pyhton 2.x library to Python 3.x. Take PIL (Python image library) for example, this is a great image processing library that seems to stagnate in the 2.x world for a few years.

It will be fun and you will learn a lot.

If this seems too difficult, then take a good introductory book like "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" and implement by yourself all the include projects.

MithrandironOct 9, 2011

I highly recommend 'Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python' http://inventwithpython.com and How to Think Like a Computer Scientist http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/thinkCSpy/ Both are great books that walk you through the basics up, without talking down to you.

I assume that the kid is on Windows. Using a UNIX-like system (Linux, BSD) is definitely a good way to understand computers better, especially because of the large amount of programming libraries available often by simply running one command. It's not required of course, but it might help him/her. Yet again, it might not. :-)

Once they've learned the dynamics of Python (or other) setting up a GitHub account might not be a bad idea.

geomarkonJan 3, 2019

Thanks for that recommendation. My kid started with Scratch and then did several of the Code.org courses and Hour of Code activities. Been wanting to move him on to learning "real" programming. Was trying to find an easy, online, self-paced Python course but have not found what I want. We've been working through "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" book. The programming concepts are not too advanced for him but there is a lot of reading between each step so I have to sit with him and read through it together or boredom and attention span become an issue.

mindcrashonFeb 2, 2018

Like said earlier if she's into coding (it might not be her forte, and as she has ASD you can forget all about it if she doesn't -- speaking out of personal experience) No Starch [1] has some great books on teaching kids how to code.

If you want something game centric you might like "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, 4th Edition" by Al Sweigart [2]

[1] https://nostarch.com/catalog/kids

[2] https://nostarch.com/inventwithpython

AlSweigartonNov 9, 2009

I don't agree that programming has gotten harder, I think it has become easier. What is harder now is finding material to learn programming that is simple for kids but also still "real" programming (not just game creation kits).

I wrote a freely available book called "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" and released it under a Creative Commons license. It's available at http://inventwithpython.com

I think Python makes a great (even superior) replacement for BASIC. Adding in Pygame, and it is much easier and fun to learn programming.