So my Dad bought me 5 books on programming (C++, Java, PHP, Javascript, Android) about a month ago. He's an architect and he knows NOTHING about programming. He bought me them because I told him programming was fun and I wanted to learn it. 

As you might know, being a kid (I'm 14) and being told to learn programming out of dull books isn't the easiest thing. I'm always getting distracted.. I told him before that I didn't need to buy books and I could just watch online tutorials.. but no, he's so old-fashioned. He's only letting me use the books.

Recently, he started asking me what I've done with it, and I showed him a C++ program I made that takes what you type in, then assigns values to each letter (A is the first letter in the alphabet so it gets the value of 1).. and so on. It then adds up all the values and tells you it. So the word "add" would have a value of 9.

^^ That wasn't very impressive to him. He yelled at me and told me all I've been doing is screwing around. That's not true. He is extremely traditional and stubborn and doesn't listen to anything I had to say. What should I tell him?

PS: If you have any tips on zoning in on a book, let me know

EDIT: Thank you so much everyone, you have no idea how much it means to know that there are some people that understand my situation. I've read every one and I'll consider everyone's opinion. ¡Gracias!


  I showed him a C++ program I made that takes what you type in, then assigns values to each letter (A is the first letter in the alphabet so it gets the value of 1).. and so on. It then adds up all the values and tells you it. So the word "add" would have a value of 9.


I don't know what you should do with your dad. But:

If you did this all by yourself, starting from scratch, learning from books, in a month, it's damn impressive. And you did it in C++, which is one of the scariest programming languages in existence.

There are quite a few people out there taking interviews, seriously trying to get programming jobs, who would struggle with that. See this story.

I can only suggest: keep doing what you enjoy. Ignore your dad in this context; he doesn't know what he's talking about. You have talent in programming and willingness to learn - the main ingredients in becoming a great programmer.
