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Please Learn to Code

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Re: Please Learn to Code

#81

Post by nicholassmith »

T-zex wrote: post #35
nicholassmith wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please justify why you think it's a bad comparison? I think it's apt. Cooking shares many qualities with coding, you're under time deadlines to produce something for a end consumer (for the most part). There's lots of competing methods and you have to select which ones work best for the product you want to produce. Most importantly you can cook something amazing that everyone loves, or a charred lump that no one will…

Cooking is way more simple compared to programming. The recipes are easily understood - a complete opposite to software specs. Cooking does not evolve that fast compared to programming. Everybody loves their grandma's pie. And most important cooking is manufacturing and programming is designing. Regular cooking is trying to reproduce something that was done as close as possible, while programming involves dealing wit…

Really? I think the molecular gastronomy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_gastronomy) chefs would disagree with you about that.

The argument still holds, programming can be ridiculously simplistic and so can cooking.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#82

Post by k_kelly »

Programming is an adult way to treat a computer as opposed to the absolute infantilism most people approach their computers, or devices with. It's as much to say I understand that what happens on the hardware end is what is happening as the consumer, even though the processes seem completely different.

And none of it is easy or obvious. Dijkstra said teaching computer science was absolute cruelty because it does not truly reflect anything else in the world.

If you are going to work with computers don't think that an email server is an online mail room, don't go down the road of thinking that copyright law holds from one medium to the other because the idea behind the product is the same.

Don't think that skype is a telephone, don't think that facebook is the beatles of today, do know what something is, do know that the only intersection between life and computers is via maths and logic, do understand that these things matter now and will matter in the future.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#83

Post by scoot »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #73
VolatileVoid wrote: post #42

I'm actually kind of tired of hearing, "there's no other field that lets you create something from nothing" vis a vis programming. Look: I LOVE coding. I LOVE programming. I think it's fun and challenging, etc. etc. But it's not the only creative outlet that has ever existed. Have you considered a pencil and a paper? Crayons? Markers? Paints and a canvas? A hammer, some wood and some nails? "Ah, but that requires som…

> It requires a computer (or access to one). It requires programs to run your code - free or otherwise. I know what you're saying, but I'd like to point out that you don't need a computer to write programs. I started writing programs with pen and paper back in middle school (before my family owned a computer), and still often do that. Nowadays, most of them do end up being digitized and executed, though. Alonzo Churc…

And Ada Lovelace before electricity. :)

"The notes [...] include in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers [...] which would have run correctly had the Analytical Engine been built. Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer and her method is recognised as the world's first computer programme."[1]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

Re: Please Learn to Code

#84

Post by admg »

jwoah12 wrote: post #48

It seems to me like there are ulterior motives behind a lot of programmers' hostile attitudes toward non-programmers learning some of the craft. If I didn't know any better (and I don't), I'd say that people think, consciously or otherwise, that it will somehow cheapen their skills or experience if some newbies learn basic development. I disagree. I think that if anything, it will give others more of an understanding…

If only :)

The more likely thing (in my opinion) is that people who're passionate about coding will learn on their own and seek out material without the help of these sites. Most of this stuff will probably pass as a current net fad. There has never been a lack of available learning material & people keen to share their knowledge on the net!

Re: Please Learn to Code

#85

Post by docgnome »

__abc wrote: post #38

I can hear it now, "but hey, during code year I learned how to hello world, why is your estimate so hi, it's not that hard". We should REALLY do this with healthcare. Who needs doctors. All hail self diagnosis year 2013!

The people who would say that are the people who already do.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#86

Post by bcjordan »

ralfd wrote: post #78

I think everybody should visit Reddit, for one simple reason: knowing how to make a meme is hugely empowering. I can’t think of many other skills that enable you to create something from scratch and reach as many people as knowing how to set up a simple rage post. Just last week, I was able to come up with an idea and then photographed my cat in 2 ways. That photo was then seen by about 10,000 people in a couple hour…

Your point in the wider discussion aside (sure, population-wide imperatives are a dangerous rhetorical device), I actually think actively participating in the Reddit rage comic community can be a very valuable experience. It will teach you how to tell a story and communicate the humor of a situation using a simple image editor. You can watch the real failure-learning happen in [1]. Thinking your work is comedy gold and getting it downvoted into oblivion is a great, highly-concentrated learning experience.

English teachers in Japan are also using rage comics to supplement their English lessons and inspire their students to learn words so they can understand their classmates' jokes [2].

[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/new/

[2]: http://www.reddit.com/r/EFLcomics

Re: Please Learn to Code

#87

Post by jwoah12 »

cageface wrote: post #63
jwoah12 wrote: post #48

It seems to me like there are ulterior motives behind a lot of programmers' hostile attitudes toward non-programmers learning some of the craft. If I didn't know any better (and I don't), I'd say that people think, consciously or otherwise, that it will somehow cheapen their skills or experience if some newbies learn basic development. I disagree. I think that if anything, it will give others more of an understanding…

Not me. I'm just tired of once again seeing all the hoi polloi rushing in because some dumb photo sharing site just sold for a billion dollars and this is going to be a easier way to earn their boat and summer home than taking all those boring business, law and medicine classes.

I agree that people trying to learn in order to get rich quick is good for nobody (it's akin to the 100%+ increase in CS enrollment around 2000 that I remember some of my professors telling me about). That being said, Bloomberg's initiative to bring NYC up to speed with the technology through better education and a high-tech business environment certainly predates Instagram's sale.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#88

Post by islon »

Programmers thinking their specific skills are universally useful and should be taught at school... Yeah right. Most people don't even remember the basic math they learnt at school. I wont say programming skills aren't useful and rad but one could say the same about basically every skill and I don't see electrical engineers saying "please learn electrical engineering, it's very useful".

Re: Please Learn to Code

#89

Post by objclxt »

j_s wrote: post #71
trustfundbaby wrote: post #56

I think everybody should learn to do basic medical procedures, for one simple reason: knowing how to do it is hugely empowering. Quite a few people don't have the time or the inclination to sit down and learn how to code, and to keep making like its really simple is kind of silly. I took my first programming class in Java many years ago, and even on basic things like operators and variables, half of the class was com…

Drifting off on your carefully-tagged tangent: Basic medical procedures like CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, using an epipen, applying a tourniquet, etc. ?

It was tagged in sarcasm, but to expand upon the dodgy analogy couldn't you argue that's just the medical equivalent of basic computer literacy?

Re: Please Learn to Code

#90

Post by Splines »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #73
VolatileVoid wrote: post #42

I'm actually kind of tired of hearing, "there's no other field that lets you create something from nothing" vis a vis programming. Look: I LOVE coding. I LOVE programming. I think it's fun and challenging, etc. etc. But it's not the only creative outlet that has ever existed. Have you considered a pencil and a paper? Crayons? Markers? Paints and a canvas? A hammer, some wood and some nails? "Ah, but that requires som…

> It requires a computer (or access to one). It requires programs to run your code - free or otherwise. I know what you're saying, but I'd like to point out that you don't need a computer to write programs. I started writing programs with pen and paper back in middle school (before my family owned a computer), and still often do that. Nowadays, most of them do end up being digitized and executed, though. Alonzo Churc…

I know what you're saying too, but (at least for me) a program that is only written down and not run is typically a dry affair.

Seeing a thing come together as you fiddle with it is just satisfying.

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