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Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#11

Post by IanCal »

* You often need to teach the basics to lots of people for the smaller number that will take it up as a career to be exposed to it.

* Lots of work is done on computers and programming is a way of automating that work

* If you don't code, you may well work with others that do and having some exposure to what on earth it is some people are/aren't doing is valuable. One of the most useful things I ever did was fail to run a business as it forced me to understand that sales/etc aren't easy, as many techies like to presume, and require skills I lack

* You can build things. Building things is fun, at least to me

Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#13

Post by JKCalhoun »

sai_c wrote: post #9

Simple. Not to fall for marketing slogans and false promises, and not to rely too much on the results of technology. If you know (at least basically) how the sausage is made, you will know it does not work without meat.

Yeah, I sort of liken it to lifting the curtain so that you can see the man [1] behind it. While part of me likes the idea of allowing for some "magic" to be left in the world, I also want my kids to be knowledgeable/informed on the more important technologies that affect your lives like this one.

[1] Not trying to come across as sexist — the reference is to The Wizard from The Wizard of Oz.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#14

Post by dschuessler »

Given they are not interested in a tech career, I'd say they should learn to program if they:

- want to do something with computers no currently existing program allows them to,

- want to create something with artistic value (games, websites, computer graphics),

- enjoy it for the sake of it.

I can't come up with any other reason why they should.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#17

Post by sunir »

christkv wrote: post #5

Modding Minecraft and other games.

In my experience, this is the most motivating reason. Take something they love and show them how they can get control over it and play around. Kids like to play. They will take literally anything they can play with and play with it.

These high minded ideas about economic utility are for later, when they start worrying about their adult lives. But in the meantime, playing around with the computer and the games and websites and phones and seeing what they can do with them is the best answer.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#18

Post by bitshiftfaced »

When I was a kid, we were flying somewhere for a family trip. I remember seeing a man with a laptop with a screen full of code. I had never seen this in person before, and I watched with genuine interest. Much later in life, I found out that I loved coding. I love problem-solving and find programming to be very engaging.

I don't think we need to force every kid to learn to code. We ought to expose them to it, though. Kids who show interest ought to have a way to learn more.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most compelling reason young people should learn to program?

#20

Post by littlevache »

Having a basic understanding of how computer work and think will be vital to navigate society, as more and more parts of it are digitized. I'm not saying that everything becomes crystal clear after programming 101, or that IT systems can be understood after learning "Hello World" and IF-THEN-ELSE, but it will become more and more useful to navigate the modern world.
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