[endgame]

My son has decided to pursue his interest in coding, specifically beginning with small game designs on the PC. I'm almost useless addressing this area other than providing resources to help make decisions, e.g. the intro book he was perusing assumed he would be using CodeWarrior (the compiler?), but in researching the net for this product I concluded two things: it does not seem to be readily available, and where product lists were delineated I had no clue (by descriptions given) which one actually applied to Windows XP.

Any suggestions or advice on what tools or avenues for first steps in coding and a user-friendly compiler for an extremely bright, but often overly ambitious 17yr old who easily finds the hardest way to the simplest roads? (The acorn didn't fall far from the tree)

I'm really not sure where to start or whether this needs to become a holiday budgeted item instead of a fall hobby-intro. Thanks in advance.