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Discussion on: What are the most important things to teach a complete novice dev (and how)?

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Henry 👨‍💻

Starting with Java? Birth by fire, ey? Hahaha, Java ain't so bad really, my first language was VB.net 😬.

I'd definitely make sure to teach him basic naming conventions, camel-case, etc early on. It's a lot easier if you start by doing the right thing instead of trying to break bad habits later. If he wants to start moving away from Minecraft and onto bigger projects later, I'd also recommend teaching him Git fairly early on to avoid the mess of manual version control.

Also, also, if you find that he's finding Java too confusing or difficult (but he's still interested in learning to program), consider steering him towards the basic concepts using Python, I'd bet it's a lot easier for a beginner to get a grasp of.