Comment by ordinary
15 years ago
Guy's checkers table was no more a "project for boys" than a project for your daughter (or, better yet, by your daughter) would be a "project for girls". The thing I took away from the OP was to support your children in whatever they do, regardless of whether they want to have tea parties with their friends or climb trees or hack the NSA.
Well, OK, maybe not that last one.
>Well, OK, maybe not that last one.
You know a headline like "My weekend project: father/son NSA hacking" make for a great story to read on HN. ;)
My son keeps asking me about how to "hack computers" and I'm pretty sure that's what he's on about. I keep telling him about how to program. Eventually I hope it will click.
Even before programming, general IT knowledge seems to be very useful for hacking. Operating systems, hardware, and networking are great topics (and they are more concrete than most programming).
Great book he might want to read: http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Exposed-Network-Security-Solut...
Oh, man, that is just the best recommendation ever. I've ordered it. Thanks!
The 10-yr-old son of a friend of mine got into programming after asking me how to set up a game server. Introduced him to basic networking via the router config, explained how the internet worked and from there he got interested in how games are made. I think we all have our own stories about what compelled us to dig deeper.