I'm trying to buy a laptop for my 11-year-old who's expressed a lot of interest in programming. What recommendations do you have? What features should I be on the lookout for?
[random internet parenting advice]<p>To me, the important features of a laptop for an 11 year old (whether they are interested in programming or not) are:<p>1. That you won't be angry if it gets broken or lost.<p>2. It plays games.<p>The most important part of your child's laptop is that it is your child's and not yours. Between now and the time your child reaches your age, they will have periods of more interest in programming, periods of less interest in programming, and probably periods of no interest in programming.<p>I'd put it this way, my (bit older) child has had seven computers. Two were my old laptops. One was school issued. One was a cheap refurbished Dell. Another was a used Dell tower. One was one of my RPi's. Only the seventh and most recent was new -- my child needed something compact for Advanced Debate at the High School because competing is a academic requirement...<p>Good luck.
Just make sure it runs linux, because it makes installing toolchains for any programming language much easier.<p>A MacBook is also a possibility, but it is a matter of taste.<p>Unfortunately, I still find it hard to develop on Windows, because bash has become the de facto standard (for better or worse). Development, however has gotten much better lately with WSL.
I don't have any particular model to recommend. What I have is a suggestion to not buy a powerful configuration but instead buy an average or even underpowered one. I learnt a lot about OS, programming, optimization and hardware internals trying to run programs on underpowered hardware. Not to mention the sense of achievement whenever I succeeded.