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I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You

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Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly disagree with this. Programming, if taught correctly, teaches kids how to think, similarly as to how math does. In my opinion people in most professions would benefit tremendously from being able to reason correctly deductively and from knowing how to approach complex problems, which are skills that a good programming education will give you.

Does it really? I’ve worked with good programmers who will look thick as two short planks if you ask them to solve a maths problem, summarise a science article, rebut a philosophical argument, analyse a novel’s structure, figure out an unknown word’s meaning, etc etc. We all know STEM people who seem bafflingly stupid outside of their chosen specialties. Those who have well-rounded educations more often seem more sma…

That is very much an over-generalization and dramatization. While there certainly are people who fit your description, not all people with math or CS backgrounds fit into that category. Also the existence of such people says nothing about the potential benefits of programming for people with different backgrounds. I didn't day that everybody's only tool should be the rigid logic of programming/math, but merely that learning those skills would probably complement most people's skill set nicely.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You

#23

More to the point, if every child learns to code, when they all grow up, coding will not be such a useful skill to have. Just like reading and writing. Of course you need to know how to read and write, but reading and writing is such a common skill nowadays that it's not something that you can realy on for job security. That's not an argument against teaching kids to code- quite the contrary. You don't want your kid…

I can think of few skills that do more for your career than excellent writing.

Unfortunately, that's not an absolute. I've often been told to basically dumb down my writing in my papers because reviewers who are not native English speakers will not understand what I'm trying to say and will feel frustrated. And you don't want to frustrate reviewers...

For example, I once used the plural "lemmata" for "lemma". That is correct English, "lemma, lemmata", although it's much more common to use the Anglicised form "lemmas" (as, e.g. in formulae/formulas). I've also had colleagues "correct" my grammar when I've used expressions like "Absent X, Y occurs" or "X need not be Y", etc.

Sometimes, "excellent" writing is not the goal; writing that gets the point across, is. Much like code, indeed.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly disagree with this. Programming, if taught correctly, teaches kids how to think, similarly as to how math does. In my opinion people in most professions would benefit tremendously from being able to reason correctly deductively and from knowing how to approach complex problems, which are skills that a good programming education will give you.

Does it really? I’ve worked with good programmers who will look thick as two short planks if you ask them to solve a maths problem, summarise a science article, rebut a philosophical argument, analyse a novel’s structure, figure out an unknown word’s meaning, etc etc. We all know STEM people who seem bafflingly stupid outside of their chosen specialties. Those who have well-rounded educations more often seem more sma…

That is why I called coding / programming a trade. I openly admit that my interest in most CS topics beyond what is directly applicable to my work is about zero.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You

#25
The article is junk. Nebulous blather ... Something which software unlike math, physics, Chem, EE, Chem Eng I think tolerates too much.

We could restate title as: "I'm _x_ and won't teach my kids to _x_ and niether should you"

where x is anything more complicated that cleaning a room:

- gardening

- writing a paper

- interpersonal skills

- etc

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