President Obama calls on every American to learn code • Hacker News Board

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#361

Post by code_duck » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #65

So much work could be saved if most people learned a tiny bit of scripting, or really even what code is capable of doing. My girlfriend was telling me how one of the people in her office spent a few days renaming a huge number of files, so they'd be consistently named. I cringed when I heard that - it was repetitive, followed a pattern, and could have been done in minutes with a python or perl or bash script written…

I agree with your point. As for the example, it's the type of thing that should be built into the OS. The absence of such features in Windows is the tip of the iceberg on how modern computer OSs have failed users and even society.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#362

Post by kamaal » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #177

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…

> But coding? Unless it's part of your job, the odds are vanishingly small that it will ever be of much use to you. It's silly to reduce this to "Programming is useless outside of STEM". I once saved an admin assistant _days_ of work because I happened to stop by her desk to chat and noticed the task she was doing (combining some spreadsheets) would be trivial to automate. She had estimated at the rate she was going,…

>>But a basic 'literacy' in programming would have at least let her know there was a better way...

That has very little to do with programming and much to do with skills like analysis, reasoning, problem identification and thinking in the direction of automation(Reduction of human effort).

Let me as you a simple question. If learning programming teaches you to naturally thing about automation. Why haven't programmers automated programming itself completely?

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#363

Post by memset » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:11 AM UTC

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…

Let's assume you're paying a developer $100k per year - not atypical in this day and age. As a business, I want that developer, who is likely making more than anyone else in the organization, to be working on "the most important thing" in our business at a given time. This might mean a new checkout flow, making sure the online shopping cart works, or scaling a website to accomodate 1000 users at once.

There are many tasks which engineers can easily do, and which most non-technically people are loathe to perform, but are not the most important thing that an engineer ought to be doing in a business. The easiest example is reporting.

A given marketing department will want sales information. They'll want charts and graphs describing conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, etc. There are far more ways that the marketing department will want to slice-and-dice data for analysis than a team of developers can possibly produce.

Engineers don't want to be relegated to creating reports. And anyway, the report you just asked your engineer to create may have just cost you $1000.

So if we were able to bring these marketing people to a level of proficiency where they could use SQL to generate reports, Excel to manipulate that data, and VBA to do analysis (which I believe could be accomplished with 80 hours of training - a drop in the bucket over the course of one's career), then we can let the engineers do the things they are good at ("make sure passwords are secure") and the marketing folks have the minimum proficiency they require to do their jobs.

This is common in companies like Amazon; "the engineers wouldn't help me run reports, so I had to learn myself."

Nowadays, business decisions are based on numerical analysis of behavior. (Click-through rates of advertisements. Conversion rates from campaigns. Number of lawns per high school student per summer.) This trend is unlikely to go away.

In practice, "numerical analysis" means "schlepping data into Excel and running the numbers." And that skill of "running the numbers" without having to ask an engineer (who is both expensive and uninterested) seems, to me, of great practical value.

Obviously I have cornered one specific example that I consistently deal with. But it is not too difficult to imagine that these tools of analysis can help automate any number of tasks, in many disciplines. It is not uncommon for linguistics (graduate) students to learn programming to better analyze the meter of poetry. Optimistically, I hope that "non-technical" will be able to use the tools of our trade in new and interesting ways that we never imagined - the same way a carpenter might use everyday materials in ways that are very innovative to laymen.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#364

Post by oxplot » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #360

chaz wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the value of learning to code is learning how to break down complex problems into simpler steps, determining the order in which those steps need to happen, and thinking carefully about your upfront needs to get some the desired, distant result. Coding isn't the only place to learn these skills. For example, working in a commercial kitchen, you might learn these skills quickly: what do I need to do make this d…

>>I think the value of learning to code is learning how to break down complex problems into simpler steps How is that any different than any other branch of engineering? Repairing a car engine requires thinking and application of effort that is the very same as that required in programming/debugging. Same with building a house. Or fixing tube lights.

For exactly his last point: it costs nothing to code. You only need time (which you would need to do any other activity). If you make mistakes, you can start over with press of a button. You can do it anywhere, any time and increasingly using any device. Summary: accessibility.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#365

Post by marincounty » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:16 AM UTC

I think it should be taught in school, but it shouldn't be forced on students; sorry, but some of your programming books are 600 pages of absolute boredom. I've wondered for years why computer programming books are so terribly written. It's not a crime to include diagrams, and highlight the really important concepts. I would like to see a Hacakathon for writers of programming books. The shortest book that got across the material would Win!

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#366

Post by kamaal » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:20 AM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #65

So much work could be saved if most people learned a tiny bit of scripting, or really even what code is capable of doing. My girlfriend was telling me how one of the people in her office spent a few days renaming a huge number of files, so they'd be consistently named. I cringed when I heard that - it was repetitive, followed a pattern, and could have been done in minutes with a python or perl or bash script written…

>>ould have been done in minutes with a python or perl or bash script written in an hour or two by someone with a basic knowledge of code.

The same would be a day worth work in Java.

See the problem there. Its not about learning 'programming'. The scripting guy just could do it because of the familiarity of tools.

Beyond all if the people have issues identifying problems. Merely teaching programming isn't going to help.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#367

Post by intellegacy » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:22 AM UTC

I learned to code. Listened to all the advice of hackers who said it was the most important thing ever, and they'd never work with you on startups unless you coded as well.

Well I learned. I worked as a software dev for 1 year as well. And you know what I've learned? I have no passion for coding and it makes no sense to force myself to do something I'm not interested in doing.

If anyone is interested in working with me on a startup let me know. I'm a founder who knows how to code but doesn't like to.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#368

Post by marincounty » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:22 AM UTC

Crito wrote: post #86

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.

Ever dude should know how to work on their automobile. Especially these days, when it so easy to look things up.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#369

Post by gwu78 » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:35 AM UTC

"Don't just play on your phone. Program it."

Easier said than done. Not because it's difficult to learn to code. But because the owner of the phone cannot have uid 0 without "jailbreaking". Nor can she write an iPhone app without getting "permission" from Apple.

The closed nature of today's "phones" (which are really crippled handheld computers running UNIX) is the biggest impediment to learning to code and, for those who already know how, to getting their own code to run.

Give me a phone that lets me use my own bootloader, my own kernel and my own utilities.

In turn, I'll add value to what the phones provide out of the box and help the American economy.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#370

Post by meeks » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 5:47 AM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #362

JshWright wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But coding? Unless it's part of your job, the odds are vanishingly small that it will ever be of much use to you. It's silly to reduce this to "Programming is useless outside of STEM". I once saved an admin assistant _days_ of work because I happened to stop by her desk to chat and noticed the task she was doing (combining some spreadsheets) would be trivial to automate. She had estimated at the rate she was going,…

>>But a basic 'literacy' in programming would have at least let her know there was a better way... That has very little to do with programming and much to do with skills like analysis, reasoning, problem identification and thinking in the direction of automation(Reduction of human effort). Let me as you a simple question. If learning programming teaches you to naturally thing about automation. Why haven't programmers…

Programmers have been automating "programming itself" through the creation of higher level languages (ASM->OOP) and through things like libraries. Programmers are always thinking about how to automate the automating. The entire notion of abstraction could be thought of as automation.

Literacy in programming does help people recognize ways of reducing human effort. I believe it fundamentally changes the way you think especially in areas of analysis, reasoning and problem identification.