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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

#311

Post by parm289 »

grellas wrote: post #217

Speaking as a non-coder, but as one who did minimal things with programming-like higher-level stuff ranging from the old DOS batch files to VBA and some dabbling with SQL, I am curious whether real engineers believe the idea of broad literacy in coding truly would be valuable and, if so, how exactly. I am not speaking as a skeptic, just as one who does not readily see the point and wants to know. Of course, we are in…

At the high school level, I think your analysis is generally correct. Most students who aren't already interested in computer science will have the same attitude toward a programming course as they have toward foreign language courses.

However, in college, the paradigm is different. At my university, programming is taught from two distinct perspectives: theoretical (as in the computer science major) and practical. I'm in the business school, and we have courses that teach VBA, SQL, Python, and Matlab. These courses focus on using these languages as tools to solve problems and gain competitive advantages through optimization, efficiency, and data analysis (think of Steve Jobs' bicycle analogy). For example, one course teaches Python and Matlab in the context of text analytics -- students use Python's text handling capabilities to parse text and collect data, then use Matlab to visualize the data and detect trends. VBA and SQL are taught together as tools which increase productivity in business, where scripting Excel can save countless man-hours and being familiar with databases can make interfacing with data analysts and IT people easier. These courses are taught with a distinct "hacker" or "scripter" mindset.

Students inevitably have difficulty with syntax, logic, etc but get past that with practice over the course of the semester. Programming is perceived by students as a problem-solving tool, like a TI-84 calculator helps them solve math problems and graph functions. They will not be creating enterprise applications or studying theory, but learning to script measurably enhances productivity -- and that's where the value is.

(Anecdotally, I'm not a programmer but am familiar with Ruby as well as the languages listed above. While doing an academic research project this semester, knowing Ruby made it trivial to quickly organize and manage a trove of 10,259 text documents. Without programming knowledge, that task could have taken quite a few hours.)

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#312

Post by tarellel »

Yes exactly what we need, an over saturated job market where the potential to make a living with be under cut. Because company X would rather pay 20k less a year on your cousins high schools son, rather than someone who has spent their life making an art out of studying computer science.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#314

Post by bluthru »

MaggieL wrote: post #186
bluthru wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're driving at, but the analogy doesn't quite work. We want software to perform functions and we don't care about the amount of lines of code to achieve this. We also want our government to perform functions, and law is how they achieve this. Your stance would make sense if we were in a state that didn't need improvement.

We don't want government to simply "perform functions". The best government is the least government. Like code, we want no more government than is absolutely necessary, and I say we have way too much government already. Your stance would make sense only if adding more laws would improve things.

>The best government is the least government.

Nope. Least is not the same as efficient or effective. You're just stating a libertarian principle.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#315

Post by sciguy77 »

11001 wrote: post #23
sciguy77 wrote: post #12

I have to say, coding is definitely not for everyone. A rather specific kind of person (such as myself) is drawn to program computers. While I enjoy it most people I know would not. Certainly having the option to take Intro and AP CS courses (both of these are available at most public high schools) is great, but "calling on all Americans," to code seems a little excessive.

HN has this funny attitude: whenever someone is "bad at math", it's the fault of our education system and the way math is taught in schools, because everyone is clearly born with good sense of logic, however coding is for some reason such a different skill, and only a selected few (aka HN readers) can truly master it.

I didn't mean to sound elitist, its not about "mastering" coding, the question is more about whether someone actually wants to code in the first place.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#317

Post by jacalata »

spoiler wrote: post #243
toomuchtodo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compu…

I've assumed the quote was sarcastic. My sibling-comments made me question that, now. Note: I never bothered to research the context.

Nope. It represents an 'ideal man' that Heinlein pretty consistently praises across his books.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#318

Post by eropple »

rhizome wrote: post #301
rolux wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the "prescribed foreign language course in middle school", a bit of programming practice may widen your horizon, and help demystify these seemingly opaque machines and networks. It's about practice, not "knowledge" per se. Basic tasks, like: I have a folder full of files, how do I get the filenames into a text file or e-mail? Five-liners in high-level languages, the equivalent of asking for directions in a…

The irony about your very valid benefits of having basic programming knowledge is that music programs, which have been proven to provide benefits in math and language and just general smartyhood, are the first to get their budgets cut in any given budget battle. That said, how many working people have ever had to face the problem of getting a list of filenames into an email? http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music…

> That said, how many working people have ever had to face the problem of getting a list of filenames into an email?

A lot of my coworkers.

They take a screenshot, thus offloading the hard part onto everyone who needs to get data out of their email.

It's about as awesome as it sounds.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#319

Post by jonmrodriguez »

wdewind wrote: post #230
grellas wrote: post #217

Speaking as a non-coder, but as one who did minimal things with programming-like higher-level stuff ranging from the old DOS batch files to VBA and some dabbling with SQL, I am curious whether real engineers believe the idea of broad literacy in coding truly would be valuable and, if so, how exactly. I am not speaking as a skeptic, just as one who does not readily see the point and wants to know. Of course, we are in…

Do you think, as a lawyer, it would be helpful for everyone to know a little bit of law? To be able to more effectively navigate day to day things like contracts, leases, understanding of rights etc.?

I'm not a lawyer but I do think that knowing the basics of day-to-day law like you said would actually be really nice. Maybe it would have helped people who were signing up for extremely risky mortgages around 2007 to better understand their real contractual obligations for re-payment, at a time when the banker they were dealing with was probably failing to highlight the fact that the payments would dramatically increase beyond the introductory period? I'm just speculating.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#320

Post by jbcurtin2 »

grellas wrote: post #217

Speaking as a non-coder, but as one who did minimal things with programming-like higher-level stuff ranging from the old DOS batch files to VBA and some dabbling with SQL, I am curious whether real engineers believe the idea of broad literacy in coding truly would be valuable and, if so, how exactly. I am not speaking as a skeptic, just as one who does not readily see the point and wants to know. Of course, we are in…

I wonder how much, if at all your viewpoint would change if you learned to code somewhat proficiently. - http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ - https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/

Cheers

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