What were you doing at age 5?

Elizabeth

Have you heard about this boy?

5 year old Indian boy becomes world's youngest web designer.

He got a 98 on the MOUS exam, the highest score ever achieved.

I think when I was 5, I was lucky if I got on the right school bus home from kindergarten. 😃

I was great at fingerpainting though.

-Elizabeth

clintonium

Wow...that is pretty impressive. If it weren't for the test score (which I assume was achieved under controlled conditions) I would be a bit skeptical about how much he was really doing himself, prodigy or not...

Here's his website, for you curious people: http://www.microsoftkid.com/

I think Microsoft should run with this actually. Start a little marketing campaign... "Microsoft FrontPage, the web design choice for 5 year olds..." 😃

planetsim

You'd expect a person using frontpage to do something better than that. Im kinda thinking what the hell was in that test he did. On my first attempt web designing a did a better job and that was before i knew a lot of html. And i have never used Frontpage nor will i ever.

BuzzLY

Um... he is FIVE. Although he might be able to create a web page, remember that most 5 year olds are not exactly the most artistic. I think it's an amazing accomplishment.

Besides, the article does not say he built HIS website with frontpage. It says he received it as a gift recently. If he is that talented, he probably simply used Notepad!

dalecosp

Originally posted by BuzzLY
Um... he is FIVE. Although he might be able to create a web page, remember that most 5 year olds are not exactly the most artistic. I think it's an amazing accomplishment.

Besides, the article does not say he built HIS website with frontpage. It says he received it as a gift recently. If he is that talented, he probably simply used Notepad!

Hmmm, a couple of things: One, is he Thai or Indian? Second, the source says that FP 4.0 built the site; however, you're at a logical quandary if he had the site up prior to receiving the SW package. Of course, if he met Mr. MicroGraf^H$oft, wouldn't he have FP 2002, or Office XP, or something 🙂 ?

It IS a fairly amazing accomplishment for a five year old. However, consider this: with a private, perhaps home-based education, and a concentration on such a subject, why couldn't it be accomplished? My nine-year-old son loves to SSH into my servers and ping around (he still likes cowsay, though<!>) with stuff...it's a different world now. Of course, I'm more interested in my kid learning faith, music, basketball, and the basics of his education, which so far has been computer based, but not computers per se.

It might make an interesting topic to do some prognostication about the future of the (computing) world based on where kids are today...to get back to the original subject, when I was 5, I was starting piano lessons, reading all kinds of books, climbing treehouses and fighting with the kids across the alley, snitching coal from the shop down the street to make 'bombs', and hiding in the tires on the playground with a little blonde girl named 'Christina*'. One year afterwards, a guy named Ray Tomlinson sent the string "QWERTYUIOP" from one big boxen to another.....

*name changed to protect the, uh, guilty?

jayant

Ah, you are talking about this kid. Hearing about him since last 2 years here. so nothing surprised me :p

Liquidice

When I was 5 years old, I was teaching my 1st grade teacher how to use and Apple IIe.

Weedpacket

Huh, when I was five there was no such thing as an "Apple IIe". Then again, we didn't have photocopiers either. All our handouts were purple and smelled of meths. Wheee.......

c4p0ne

Fsuckin Indians man... LOLLL

Anyway, isn't it a curious thing that almost 35% of the employees (coders) at Microcrap are INDIAN? ... Hmmmmmmmmm. Big coincidence Mr. Gates just gave a hundred-million dollars of his pocket-change to fight AIDS in India. Sounds pretty nice of him eh? Think again. The guys a business man thru and thru. Nothing wrong with that until your company monopolizes the industry and turns everyone into mindless ::robotic voice:: Microsft zombies, Microsoft zombies.. Microsoft zombiesss.. PHP==EVIL.. obey, obey!!

LMAO j/k I'm still not impressed with the kid cause if you were raised with that kind of strictness and supreme emphasis on being "better" then your peers you'd be doing shyt like that too! Alas, most of us are silly fat American brainwashed by CNN and speaches by 'dubbya' couch potatos.. =(

:: wth was that all about? :: oh well. hee hee.

Elizabeth

Originally posted by jayant
Ah, you are talking about this kid. Hearing about him since last 2 years here. so nothing surprised me :p

Ok, so this kid has been programming since he was 3?! Yes, I think that's enough to impress me. My daughter's 2 1/2 and although she's brilliant (as if you'd expect anything less being my spawn) - I can't really say she will be PROGRAMMING or even using StupidPage anytime soon. Heck, we're still working on the whole potty training thing!

And I know that you can teach kids just about anything when they're that young, but you still gotta give the kid credit for even having the ability (and desire) to do this.

Makes you kind of sad for him in a way, though - I hope he is still allowed time to just be a "kid". Being an "adult" sucks. 😃

-Elizabeth

c4p0ne

Remember when we thought being a kid sucked? heehehe. Boy were WE on the wrong track!! Anyway as if anyone hasn't noticed, Indians are notorious for like, being doctors n' shyt at the age of like 15/16 and blabla things of that nature.. So it wasn't really much of a shock to me when I heard a 5 year old Indian kid was did something "above average".. Hmm, I guess what I'm saying could probably be taken as a complement to Indians! heh. Thye're still kind of stinky though, they should work on that a little with those powerful brains.. JUSSST KIDDDDDDING!! LOL!

😉 😉

jayant

Originally posted by Elizabeth

Ok, so this kid has been programming since he was 3?!

Using any MS app. is not programming 🙂 I don't think he has done anything extraordinary. Only some thing above average.
Any kid can do that. My 3 year old nephew can work a bit on the comp. If she had been taught a little more by me, she could work only any MS app, play games. Boot the PC without any help.

Shadeless

if the things on the website are truth, then it is a realy amazing thing..

he spends 15-20 min on computer everyday, and mastering those packages in that time is realy something amazing (considering the crashing time included and stuff liek that)

and since he is an indian, it's another amazing thing, speaking 2 languages.. english and indian.

So it's an amazing thing.. But i guess there are always people who just refuse to say such thing because they only care bout there self, and any1 else doing something amazing is just not amazing because they aren't them.

Ow what i was doing at the age of 5.. :/ playing with lil cars and building things with those special build stuff (dunno english name 😛).

_SuperString

Not a chance a 3 year old can do anything whatsover like programming (even if it is a visual app). My daughter is 3 (nearly 4) and has been remaked as been one of the brightest kids in her nursery (she can do 100 piece jigsaws pretty fast, and draw nice pictures), she can even recognise some charachters a write her name (kinda). But I simply dont believe a 3 year old can do anything that involves keyboard input (like webdesign does). This is just a lot of rubbish. OK I may beleive a 5 year old can design a website, very cleaver and above average. But please dont start all this 3 year old nosense.... that what I hate about live.... these peolpe who start rumours.... soon peolpe will be saying a 2 year old wrote a game in .NET, marketed it in hundreds of PC mags throughout the world and is now Mr Gates right hand man. Please, please, please, keep it real man.

tomhath

Its possible. Mozart was composing symphonies and ad libbing entire concerts for the King of France when he was 5.

Bunkermaster

when I woz 5 computers were gymnasium size and I was the king of MY hill whe it came to playing marbles and tying my shoes but programing started at 9...

This kid (if real) is MENSA material I tell you

Weedpacket

Marbles? Nah... bottle top flicking (the larger ones, where you could curl your index finger under the lip); much the same objective as marbles I suppose, but in three dimensions.

crickettdt

I don't really find it surprising. Firstly, kids are surrounded by computers these days - probably get more exposure to the net etc, than they would to any maths or other subject taught in school, so its not surprising they can learn it quicly.

Also, most average five year olds aren't that inteligent, but every once in a while you get a really bright child who has a capacity to learn at a far faster rate than the average child. This five year old boy is probably got a mental age and inteligence more akin to the average 10 year - and lots of you proably know 10 year olds who can and have done this kind of thing.

I just feel sorry for the little blighter, as he should be out playing football or cricket with all the other five year olds. Theres no point wasting your youth learning adult crap, as ther's plenty of time for that when you're an adult!

c4p0ne

I disagree, time is so linear (for lack of a better term) in my opinion that it's not even funny. Time just blows by so friggin quick its just unfathomable. It seems like only a few days ago I was climbing trees and smoking cigarettes to "be in" (thank god i never good hooked) and doing all sorts of other useless (yet fun) things. Each day living for me amplifies my surreal and utterly consuming fear of the realization of my own mortality. I keep wondering that if I had studied a little harder, just done things a little better.. I could have had my place somewhere in history.. or at least digital history..

Alas I fear it is too late as after the age of 23 (i believe) the mind begins to drop in "RPMs" and one cannot and does not have that fiestiness and drive that young children do when they set their little minds to it. We become more "wize" more "seasoned" but less capable at absorbing and calculating information as a child mind is. Plus our nose and ears get bigger..

end rant (jeezus I think i'm losing it, hey maybe i need to get laid or something lmao)

PS Merry Christmas and happy and SAFE new year to ALL!!! - gawd yet ANOTHER new year soo fast =(

nightowl

great for the kid - it would better start learning decent programs instead of the Windows stuff though 🙂

Linux, PHP, ...

stop fucking around with that Frontpage program 🙂