Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

blog.jonasoberg.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 98 posts

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#21

Post by gabesullice »

Perhaps I need a history lesson, but I don't think the kernel developers 25 years ago had any idea that some kid would be learning C through the code they wrote.

I also doubt the engineers at Texas Instruments thought that enabling programs on my TI-84 would spawn my or many others' passion for programming. It was simply coincidence paired with curiosity.

I think curious children of the right mindset will find the opportunity to learn whether we intentionally pursue it or not. In fact, by planning out learning environments for those kids we might be doing them a disservice by structuring their learning towards what WE think is important at a particular moment in time.

But sure, flying car software should be open source.

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#22

Post by rijoja »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #6

Meh. Summary - we need open-source licenses for flying cars, so our children can tinker with the kernel code, since the current Liunx kernel is too complex for children starting out. I've always wondered about teaching Linux "history" via hands-on with older hardware and OS (like 2.x kernel building on an older version of Slackware with a 486 or Pentium 90).

Well sure but nowadays you can do that with virtual boxes and whatnot. Much more convenient. Remember that build your own linux post from not to long ago? Following those instructions I not only built linux from scratch with custom compiled libc and busybox. Sure I did that when I was 16 or 17, but in those days the same work would have taken me days not hours. And if you want to teach people, you can easily record what is going on on the screen. So you definitely you should do that but with modern tooling. Both for your own sanity and for better outreach!

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#23

Post by Ar-Curunir »

gens wrote: post #18
qznc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortran, Ada, Rust, D, and more.

I feel that without the unreasonable hype behind rust nobody would even mention safety.

Why is the hype unreasonable? Memory safety without GC and at C/C++ speeds? That's half the security bugs of the world solved right there.

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#25

Post by blowski »

inetknght wrote: post #12
synack wrote: post #11

Games. The first computers kids will start to wonder about are the ones they're using to play games, be it a game console, tablet, or PC. Modding comes first, slightly tweaking the game to add a new item, map, or remove some annoying limitation. The truly curious and persistent kids will eventually want to learn how to make their own games. This is where you'll find the next generation of programmers.

This is exactly how I got into writing software. First, I got bored with playing the same scenarios in Command & Conquer over and over. So I learned to make my own. Then I got tired of some of those hacking utilities crashing (all the time!) and said I could do it better myself. So I taught myself to write software. 20 years later... I see people being hired who have no clue how things work under the hood and it make…

I hear this argument all the time and it makes no sense to me. If I hire somebody to put my Ikea furniture together, I'm not disappointed to learn they're not a skilled carpenter. When I hire a children's entertainer, I'd be surprised to learn they were an extremely talented musician.

There are people out there who know how everything works under the hood, and that's great. But they're typically expensive and unavailable.

If I can hire someone within my budget to build something that solves my problem, why is that a bad thing? And if I can build something for someone that gives them value, again, why is that a bad thing? It just sounds like snobbery to me.

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#27

Post by rijoja »

camtarn wrote: post #4

While I like the sentiment - hacking a flying car seems like a terrible example! Regulations on any flying passenger transport don't seem like they would, or should, ever allow this to happen. Hacking around on the flying car's infotainment systems, suitably isolated from the rest of the flying car's systems - sure.

People have been doing that to cars for years, and if you have an object weighing a ton or so moving at 50 km/h, we're dealing with 16 Mega Joule already so hacking cars should not be that different. If you are not able to do anything significantly bad, you will probably not be able to do anything remotely useful either.

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#29

Post by toast0 »

daxorid wrote: post #8

Children growing up today won't learn C programming by reading the Linux kernel source code. With any luck, children growing up today won't learn C at all, or at least ONLY for historical understanding. It is an absolute security nightmare. Do we not want the next generation to exclusively use safe languages?

> Do we not want the next generation to exclusively use safe languages?

Someone has to write (and maintain) the safe languages.

Re: My Kid Will Never Hack Linux

#30

Post by monksy »

synack wrote: post #11

Games. The first computers kids will start to wonder about are the ones they're using to play games, be it a game console, tablet, or PC. Modding comes first, slightly tweaking the game to add a new item, map, or remove some annoying limitation. The truly curious and persistent kids will eventually want to learn how to make their own games. This is where you'll find the next generation of programmers.

I think there is a concern in forcing kids to learn how to program vs gatekeeping and self-taught developers.

With gatekeeping/a tightly knit community: modding, building a PC, and developing a game becomes an achievement that the kids do. It encourages them to succeed to become apart of the community.

With having training/classes apart of the curriculum: It removes the reward of solving the problem and removes a sense of pride in accomplishment.

Post reply on HN