In reality my sons do not learn C++ alone. They visit every Saturday 2hr. courses at Varna college of Mathematics (Jordan, me, Zlatin and others from my team study at it a long time ago. From September Nedko - my older son (13yr.) will study at it too, he passed the entrance exams.). Their teachers lead course by Bulgarian edition of Herbert Schildts book "Teach Yourself C++". It appears that children learn Pascal or C++ syntax with the same difficulties. Nedko began with Pascal 4 year ago, before a year and half teachers decide to switch to C++(my mother in got and other teachers from college made an experiment with student groups and after that they got that decision), Emil (my younger son) began with learning C++ directly. I gave to Nedko some of my books with algorithms, which we discuss, but I think that for Emil it is still early.
Part of the first year they were making graphics with C++. May be teachers try to involve in the course some fun. I remember how happy was Emil when programmatically force the jack face to move and to smile. At the college they use a GNU C++, because it is free of charge. It works well on my old 486 notebook and I have not problems with hardware.
BTW Where is your photo and e-mail?

>Well, given your experience, I'll bow to your knowledge. My daughter is learning Pascal (on her own) and she just turned 11 Saturday. I have a good C++ book and I'm going to go back and look at it and see which she feels better about. I want her to learn the correct programming structures as well as modularity but I am not worried about which syntax she goes with. Afterall, she may burn herself out on programming before she is 15! To me, the C++ language syntax was much more difficult than pascal. The semicolons drive me crazy in pascal as well as using units, but the syntax in C++ was more confusing I thought for a beginner. Your boys didn't have any problem starting out with C++? I may want to rethink this... :o)
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>Tracy