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

President Obama calls on every American to learn code

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 441 posts

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#161

Post by [deleted] »

pmichaud wrote: post #151
Steko wrote: post #132

Kevin Drum (spoilers: knows how to code) had the best take on this: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/no-everyone-do... But wait. The link leads me to a fairly routine presidential video in honor of Computer Science Education Week, in which President Obama encourages kids to take computer science classes. "It's important for our country's future," he says. But I imagine he's cut dozen of videos for every…

I don't agree with Kevin. It's true that you can function without programming, but it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job. Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him. And more broadly, I really do think programming improves the quality of my thoughts. I remember when I was 10 o…

[deleted]

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#163

Post by mikeleeorg »

wes-exp wrote: post #150

It's easy to point to the feel-good topic of education and cry foul when anyone is against it. But here is the reality. America already overproduces scientists and engineers. The whole notion of talent shortages is generally hot air from special interests (in this case, tech companies) who want a cheaper supply of labor and cannot bear the idea that skilled engineers actually cost a lot. A lot of effort is put into t…

America already overproduces scientists and engineers.

Out of curiosity, do you have a link to any evidence or supporting materials to this claim? It's the first I've heard of it.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#164

Post by [deleted] »

pmichaud wrote: post #151
Steko wrote: post #132

Kevin Drum (spoilers: knows how to code) had the best take on this: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/no-everyone-do... But wait. The link leads me to a fairly routine presidential video in honor of Computer Science Education Week, in which President Obama encourages kids to take computer science classes. "It's important for our country's future," he says. But I imagine he's cut dozen of videos for every…

I don't agree with Kevin. It's true that you can function without programming, but it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job. Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him. And more broadly, I really do think programming improves the quality of my thoughts. I remember when I was 10 o…

[deleted]

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#165

Post by mhurron »

gknoy wrote: post #136
mhurron wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how is learning to code going to help with basic computer use skills? One does not imply the other.

Understanding that the computer is a stupid, un-magical machine which obeys only (and exactly!) the instructions you give it is somewhat of a prerequisite for successfully writing computer programs. (Not exactly true, but it's very helpful.) Understanding that the computer is non-magical also means that your computer users may be more likely to understand how to troubleshoot errors ("Was it something I did, or someth…

Coding doesn't teach you that. I have programmers that write commercial software opening tickets to change their shell prompt, or to enable VNC on a Linux build server because they 'can't be expected to learn how these systems work, they're programmers.'

What you want people to learn is basic system maintenance and troubleshooting.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#166

Post by tejay »

badman_ting wrote: post #90
theseoafs wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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.

If I may disagree - you're assuming that the 'demand' for software developers is fixed. But, we know that it isn't. In fact, more software developers working on software may actually increase the demand for software talent, particularly if these developers go on to start companies themselves =).

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#167

Post by toomuchtodo »

United857 wrote: post #159
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…

We teach writing as a required subject in schools, without the expectation that everyone is going to be a professional writer. We teach science without the expectation that everyone is going to be a scientist. We teach physical education without the expectation that everyone is going to be a professional athlete. These are all good life skills to have even if you don't learn enough to make it your career. So it shoul…

We should also be teaching how to change a tire, how to cook basic nutritious meals, personal finance, etc..

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#168

Post by wes-exp »

mikeleeorg wrote: post #163
wes-exp wrote: post #150

It's easy to point to the feel-good topic of education and cry foul when anyone is against it. But here is the reality. America already overproduces scientists and engineers. The whole notion of talent shortages is generally hot air from special interests (in this case, tech companies) who want a cheaper supply of labor and cannot bear the idea that skilled engineers actually cost a lot. A lot of effort is put into t…

America already overproduces scientists and engineers. Out of curiosity, do you have a link to any evidence or supporting materials to this claim? It's the first I've heard of it.

I don't have any links off-hand, but I've seen some very convincing, scholarly analyses in the past. The research tends to come up during discussions about H1-B quotas and so on. IIRC, one of the features of a real shortage is supposed to be that prices go up, but in our IT "shortage", wages are approximately flat.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#170

Post by ericboggs »

JonFish85 wrote: post #59

While I agree that it's a great mental exercise to learn how to code (and to learn the mindset that goes along with it), isn't it much more important for every American to learn how to budget? To learn how to save money? To me, those are things that are far more important to the country as a whole than understanding even basic scripting. As a quick example, the meaning of "afford" has changed in the last 2 generation…

Forget coding and budgeting, I'd rather every American get 30 minutes of exercise 3 to 4 days per week. That would solve an awful lot of problems...
Post reply on HN