I'm sure you've gotten a lot of good feedback, but a personal message for your kid: I am well into my adulthood, but I started programming from a similar place way back when. I was probably 12-13 when I was self-studying HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Today the web tech stack is way more complicated than it was when I was a kid, but its also way more capable. You can do so much with it now that was a dream - I was into pokemon as a kid and wanted to make a "fan site", which is what got me learning (just to date how far back this was)!
Its great you have so many tools now to learn, and your parents to ask advice. Keep it up, programming is great fun. For me as a kid it was great way to learn and explore and create in a world where I didn't have much agency.
Regarding age, my buddy from college started learning to code when _he_ was 9, on BASIC, another old programming language.
If I can suggest some potential learning resources for when you really want to learn more about code, checkout https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b.... SICP was fantastic for me. If you're stuck, take it as a learning opportunity, ask for help, and keep at it. If learning a new language is too much for you, see https://sicp.sourceacademy.org/ or search google for other various attempts to port the stuff from SICP to JS world. (note to parents: if you happen to be doing this, my advice would be to set up DrRacket and install the SICP language (https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html), also feel me to email me any q's, email address in bio)
I haven’t read htdp, but I looked through it. It seemed more of a “teach to program” than a “teach you to think about programs at a whole new level”. But HTDP didn’t exist when I was working on sicp.
> I was into pokemon as a kid and wanted to make a "fan site", which is what got me learning
Oh wow, this reminded me... I was also ~12, maybe a bit younger, I don't know exactly.
I wanted to build my own Neopets, using Dreamweaver! I was making page after page, so I could link them together.
Stuff like: "home.html" -> "acara.html" -> "feed acara.html" -> "home after feed acara.html"... I didn't understand how people could make something like Neopets!?!
Luckly my older brother gave me some tips. But yeah, that started off my journey, as well as Game Maker!
Its great you have so many tools now to learn, and your parents to ask advice. Keep it up, programming is great fun. For me as a kid it was great way to learn and explore and create in a world where I didn't have much agency.
Regarding age, my buddy from college started learning to code when _he_ was 9, on BASIC, another old programming language.
If I can suggest some potential learning resources for when you really want to learn more about code, checkout https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b.... SICP was fantastic for me. If you're stuck, take it as a learning opportunity, ask for help, and keep at it. If learning a new language is too much for you, see https://sicp.sourceacademy.org/ or search google for other various attempts to port the stuff from SICP to JS world. (note to parents: if you happen to be doing this, my advice would be to set up DrRacket and install the SICP language (https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html), also feel me to email me any q's, email address in bio)