seeking help making young geeks geekier

[rmd]

one of my cousins has a kid (i think middle-school age) who wants to be a big computer geek. she's apparently pretty clever and likes messing around with her family's computer and stuff. i'd love to set her loose on my linux server and let her mess around with programming and stuff. suggestions for good online resources for learning unix starting from a position of beginner's mind? i may have a copy of the o'reilly "learning the unix operating system" kicking around somewhere, but can anyone suggest a good online tutorial they're fond of?

i'd prefer something that's not specifically written for students of some particular school, so there's not a lot of "well, as the office of money affairs if you need access to the banana server. they're in bigtree hall." sort of stuff.

Comments

Geeky books

[chrisber.livejournal.com]

The first book I read on unix was Evi Nemeth's UNIX System Administration Handbook. I see on Amazon that there's a linux specific version, too. As the title says, it's for system administration, not simply using unix, but it's very well written, as I recall, and a good introduction.

[ceo]

For learning programming, I'd recommend Java. It's a real programming langage (as opposed to toy languages like Pascal or Visual Basic) that's more accessible than C or C++, and it works on any platform. Because it's widely used in introductory programming courses, there's a lot of good introductory programming books based on it..

[rmd.livejournal.com]

that's cool to know. i keep thinking i should learn a bit of java just to be mildly conversant in it. i'll suggest she learn java when she wants to start programming.

Re: Geeky books

[rmd.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

It may not be the best method if she wants get seriously 'leet, but the Unix book I still turn to most is "Unix Shell Programming" by Stephen Kochan and Patrick Wood. Once I grokked that, it was an easy transition to teaching myself Perl and being able to diagnose in some other languages. Plus, it makes working on a command line a much more pleasant experience.

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

"The UNIX Programming Environment" by Kernighan & Pike. Closest thing to a manifesto of UNIX philosophy anywhere.

"The C Programming Language" by Kernighan & Ritchie. This is best learned after some assembly language.