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I wrote a book (free minimum price) to teach my son programming, starting in Terminal, and using Ruby.

https://leanpub.com/programmingforkids

It's currently Mac-only, because of the `say` command, and so that I could write instructions for just one platform. I have ideas about how I'm going to fix that, but that won't be in the near future.

My son was about the same age when I started writing it, but the book scales nicely for any 9-14 year old, I think. Please feel free to give your son a copy, and let me know if it's helpful.



> It's currently Mac-only, because of the `say` command, and so that I could write instructions for just one platform. I have ideas about how I'm going to fix that, but that won't be in the near future.

There's a package on Debian Linux based systems called "gnustep-gui-runtime" which (among a lot of other things) provides the "say" command.


On Linux, there's `espeak`, which is essentially equivalent to `say` on Mac.


Somehow I don't think he was too worried about 9-14 year olds using Linux. Probably was mostly thinking about Windows.


Your comment sound like you think Linux isn't appropriate for 9-14yos ... could you explain, all major OS are pretty much equivalent for simple uses AFAICT.


Espeak claims to also run on Windows (and other platforms): http://espeak.sourceforge.net/




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