I think another thing that takes a lot of the fun out of programming now is that everything is so complicated. There really aren't simple systems what you can know a lot about and play in that doesn't have a tonne of frameworks and documentation.
So finding a programming environment that minimizes up-front learning and lets you get to the fun parts sooner is a huge plus. One thing like that for game-like things is SDL[0], Box2D, or libGDX (if I recall correctly I used on Android a couple times). My info is a bit old, so maybe others have other good examples of desktop/mobile/web libraries that fit is ideal.
So finding a programming environment that minimizes up-front learning and lets you get to the fun parts sooner is a huge plus. One thing like that for game-like things is SDL[0], Box2D, or libGDX (if I recall correctly I used on Android a couple times). My info is a bit old, so maybe others have other good examples of desktop/mobile/web libraries that fit is ideal.
[0] https://www.libsdl.org/