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President Obama calls on every American to learn code

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Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#81

Post by badman_ting »

jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

> I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer."

Sure, except we talk all the time about how bad hiring practices are in our industry, how bad we all are at discerning talent. So I don't really see this being a positive thing for existing developers (increasing supply and pushing wages down), though who's to say we deserve the situation we're in presently?

Large employers in this company would like to have labor costs reduced, especially for costly positions like software development. I'm not saying that is necessarily a sinister thing, but things like this should be thought of in the context of reducing labor costs. That's all it is, I think --as opposed to fancy notions about democratizing technology and so forth.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#82

Post by johngalt »

In other fields we recognize that there is a bifurcation between the knowledge required by practitioners of that field and the base level of understanding from non-practitioners. A 'good driver' isn't expected to know about ignition timing or the stoichiometric ratios of various fuels. For first aid we ask people to learn CPR, not to do '1 hour of surgery'. We expect people to know countries and capitals but not GIS maps. I feel like we haven't drawn the line between user vs creator as clearly in technology.

It is accurate to say that more computing knowledge is needed in the general populace. The power of computers/technology is limited by the human operators in most scenarios. But how do we focus on building better operators? Where is our line drawn?

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#83

Post by Crito »

gfodor wrote: post #64
Crito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well presumably because we already are telling people to learn how to write and communicate. Public schools spend more time on those topics than probably any other. Furthermore, advocating mastery of one skill is different from advocating basic literacy in another skill. This said, I agree that "learn to code" is tiresome. Why aren't cries of "learn basic electrical engineering" as popular? Or, if we want clear socie…

In the long run the ability to understand and manipulate information via automated instructions (ie, coding) will almost surely end up being as important being able to capture down and consume ideas (reading and writing) or manipulate abstract quantities through symbology (mathematics.) It's a fundamental skill that is plain to see unless you are so entrenched in the contemporary details of things like programming la…

The joy I find in programming is no more a reason to encourage people to learn to code than the joy of plumbing is a reason to encourage people to learn to plumb. People can find joy in nearly anything, that isn't something special that coding brings to the table.

Power and leverage? Yes, coding gives you those things, in certain domains, but I do not buy the argument that teaching coding is the most efficient way of teaching these things. Trying to use coding to teach critical thinking, logical reasoning, and basic troubleshooting would surely work, but we have these things built into language and fields that is already designed to handle it first and foremost, without the material distraction.

Very few universities start their CS programs off with something other than vocational drudgery that would be pointless for anybody who just wants those nice side effects of learning to code.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#84

Post by humanrebar »

nickff wrote: post #50
humanrebar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if everyone completed a few software projects, we would have better social appreciation for the difficulty and scale of large software tasks.

Or people might under-appreciate the complexity of software. "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring".

Fair point. But computers are basically magic to a lot of people. Even having a common vocabulary would be an improvement in my opinion.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#85

Post by xname »

If he really meant it, if he really cares about education of young Americans, he should try to fight with the sh*t teacher unions. Oh no, that's politics, don't go there. So just let politicians say nice things. Don't let them talk about their dirty politics! Yes, just say nice things! No politics!

Nice things like what? When so many US students cannot even do basic math, when third graders are still struggling with addition and subtraction, encourage all of them to learn code. Yes. encouraging is nice! all (meaning equality and justice) is nice! Always!

Fight teacher union is dirty politics (how about take donation from teacher union? shut up!).

Lets just talk about nice things, bro! Forget dirty politics!

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#86

Post by Crito »

jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

> Every American should probably be able to change a tire. That doesn't mean every American should be a car mechanic.

I agree with that entirely, and a similar "fix a flat" knowledge of computers should also be expected. What perplexes me is that "learn computers" is a popular thing to advocate, but I have never heard of the president asking Americans to learn their way around their car.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#87

Post by badman_ting »

gfodor wrote: post #24

Obama says a few nice things about Computer Science and encourages people to learn more about the world, and HN still manages to find every possible negative angle to trash it. Impressive!

You're supposed to get suspicious when a politician tells you nice things! I think it's sad that viewing this as being in the interest of reducing labor costs is cynical and "negative".

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#88

Post by theseoafs »

badman_ting wrote: post #81
jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

> I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Sure, except we talk all the time about how bad hiring practices are in our industry, how bad we all are at discerning talent. So I don't really see this being a positive thing for existing developers (increasing supply and pushing wages down), though who's to say we deserve the situation we're in presently? Large…

> Sure, except we talk all the time about how bad hiring practices are in our industry, how bad we all are at discerning talent. So I don't really see this being a positive thing for existing developers (increasing supply and pushing wages down), though who's to say we deserve the situation we're in presently?

In what way does high school kids learning to write simple Python scripts affect your career as a software developer? We're talking about giving students a baseline knowledge of programming here.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#90

Post by badman_ting »

theseoafs wrote: post #88
badman_ting wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Sure, except we talk all the time about how bad hiring practices are in our industry, how bad we all are at discerning talent. So I don't really see this being a positive thing for existing developers (increasing supply and pushing wages down), though who's to say we deserve the situation we're in presently? Large…

> Sure, except we talk all the time about how bad hiring practices are in our industry, how bad we all are at discerning talent. So I don't really see this being a positive thing for existing developers (increasing supply and pushing wages down), though who's to say we deserve the situation we're in presently? In what way does high school kids learning to write simple Python scripts affect your career as a software d…

If you agree that teaching people to code will result in more professional software developers, which seems reasonable to me, we'll have more of them and the cost of any one of them will be reduced. And again, the skill thing is diminished because we all suck at figuring out who the talented developers are.

I'm not saying we should hoard the coding knowledge or whatever -- that cat is already out of the bag. But if the president is saying nice things about coders, maybe think about what reasons he could have for that besides the goodness of his heart.

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