title: What's a good way to teach my son to program Java
body: <p>OK, so I've read through various posts about teaching beginner's to program, and there were some helpful things I will look at more closely.  But what I want to know is whether there are any effective tools out there to teach a kid <em>Java</em> specifically?  </p>
  
  <p>I want to teach him Java specifically because (a) with my strong background in C I feel that's too complex, (b) Java is the other language I know extremely well and therefore I can assist meaningfully without needing to teach myself a new but (to me) useless language, and (c) I feel that managed languages are the future, and lastly (d) Java is one of the simplest of all the languages I know well (aside from basic).</p>
  
  <p>I learned in basic, and I am open to teaching that first, but I am unaware of a decent free basic shell for Windows (though I haven't really searched, yet since it's not my first choice), and would anyway want to progress quickly to Java.</p>
  
  <p>My son is 8, so that's a couple of years earlier than I started - but he has expressed an 
  interest in learning to program (possibly because I work from home a lot and he sees me programming all the time).</p>
  
  <p>If no-one can suggest a tool designed for this purpose, I will probably start him off with text/console based apps to teach the basics, and then progress to GUI building.</p>
  
  <p>Oh, one last thing, I am not a fan of IDE's (old school text editor type), so I would not be put off at all by a system that has him typing real code, and would likely prefer that to a toy drag/drop system.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: Just to clarify; I really am specifically after ways to teach him Java; there are already a good many posts with good answers for other language alternatives - but that's not what I am looking for here.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: What about Java frameworks for 2D video games - can anyone recommend any of them from personal experience?  I like the idea of him starting with the mechanics in place (main game loop, scoring, etc) and adding the specifics for a game of his own imagining - that's what I did, though for me it was basic on a Commodore VIC-20 and a Sinclair ZX-81.</p>