Learning how to program... but what's the best way?

[Peter Hansen]

Hans Nowak wrote:
> 
> I know a 14-year-old who wants to learn programming.  Of course I'd recommend
> Python, and I also know the way to all the tutorials, non-programmers
> introductions, etc.  But...
[...]
> Besides this, does anyone have ideas about what would be a good starting point
> here?

When I learned, I started with maintenance rather than by writing
new code.  I took various games written in BASIC on the early 
PET machines, like Star Trek, and modified them to fix bugs like 
the one where you can't shoot an infinite number of photon torpedoes, 
or the one where your ship actually takes damage when hit by the enemy.
(There were a lot of bugs in those games as I recall. ;-)

I found this a very effective way to learn an awful lot, while 
staying very motivated at a time when I was incapable of getting
excited by anything I could have constructed on my own.  It was
several years before I could write something that held my own
interest enough to bring it close to usability.

-Peter