I believe VFP is OK. You can teach basic programming skills for a start, and then explain differences with some other languages, little by little (for instance, VFP requires runtime). If YOU want to teach some other language - say, Delphi - you would have to learn it first!

Hilmar.

>Hi
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>My son is 14, active across a wide range of stuff, achiever, types fast. He wants to learn to program, partly to empower him in some other domain he may enter later e.g. biosciences. For now he does maintain a personal website, like some of his friends do, which does goofy stuff in VBscript and Javascript. Now although old dad here knows VFP I don't feel I should necessarily teach him VFP as his first programming language. My whole computing-belief-system might be decrepit and dusty to him! Plus imagine if he had to comment on my code...
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>Best coding and data-analysis skills seem to arise in carefully thinking techniques out, reading, reflecting, without pressure, rather than copying or just imitating, so I favour a long gently supervised course of learning at variable teenager speeds over learning it all age 19.
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>He is a regular peer-driven kid. I think he'd specially enjoy being able to distribute .exes, which isn't always possible on day 1. VB has become a bit of a dead-end. In terms of ultimate utility for when he is older, we were thinking about C#... but perhaps a programmable gaming environment would be more fun... Anyway, of course, I want his efforts to bear fruit for him.
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>Comments, resources - other parents, anyone?
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>Thanks!
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>Dick