http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=11147450

Dr. Subtilis has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Perl Monks,

I seek your advice with the following conundrum: My 9-year old got completely hooked into Perl, and I feel only slightly guilty about it. Now it would be desirable if he could go into graphics and user interfaces, which is not one of Perl's strongest suits. The only ways that I can find for the latter are the very dated Perl/TK and bindings for Qt4. Now I am wondering: should I really let him go deeper into outdated technology or do I finally have to tell him: "Yea, maybe you should go for Python after all. Or Rust."?

I was not too unhappy about him learning Perl, as he was learning concepts that are applicable in any programming language (+ Perl is just the loveliest language out there). But this seems to be another matter, but at the same time it is quite a road block for the ambitions of a 9-year-old. Would you have any advice? Is there any way of doing graphical things in perl that actually teaches stuff that can also be used in more up to date contexts?