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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

#431

Post by kamjam »

sonabinu wrote: post #427
kamjam wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you mention can be done by a non-programmer. - Copy and paste your list of charities into MS Word and print it - Not sure what that is about - Create a blog on one of the many readily available platforms like Wordpress or blogger. Plenty of non-coders already doing this - Getting a grasp on technology has nothing to do with coding

What if your list is 10,000 and they are links on a paginated search results page? Cut and paste does not work here -scrapping sure will. Now think about what happens if the page is supported by dynamic tools like AJAX ?

How often does this actually need to be done? I know beginner coders who struggle with this, esp when it comes to AJAX. I very much doubt that someone with no interest in coding who is forced to code because of some government initiative for one semester is going to fare any better at that task.

The point is, unless you have some self interest in the subject then there is no point in forcing you to learn it, it is going to be of no benefit to you in your future life.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#432

Post by captamerica »

Why does it look like President Obama look like he took a beating on the right side of his face? The right side of his face looks somewhat bruised, even (probably) with the application of make-up, and somewhat swollen. His right eye also does not look right.- It looks somewhat discolored -reddened and swollen.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#433

Post by satyap »

kamjam wrote: post #431
sonabinu wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your list is 10,000 and they are links on a paginated search results page? Cut and paste does not work here -scrapping sure will. Now think about what happens if the page is supported by dynamic tools like AJAX ?

How often does this actually need to be done? I know beginner coders who struggle with this, esp when it comes to AJAX. I very much doubt that someone with no interest in coding who is forced to code because of some government initiative for one semester is going to fare any better at that task. The point is, unless you have some self interest in the subject then there is no point in forcing you to learn it, it is go…

At work, I had a spreadsheet. Technical people, coders even, had a hard time finding the solution: convert to CSV, cut -f, awk print, in order to tack a hostname onto a column with relative HTTP paths. (No error checking required.)

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#434

Post by idoescompooters »

DigitalJack wrote: post #228
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 pretty much agree with everything you wrote. I'm not a professional coder, but I program as a hobby. I'm of the opinion that broad spectrum exposure to programming is a good thing, much like exposure to foreign languages in high school. I don't expecting everyone to take to programming, or German, but without some exposure, you may never know this wonderful world exists. And without knowing, your latent talents mig…

I picked up Neuromancer recently and for the first time in a while I stopped reading it a little less than half way because it was so bad. I just could not get into it. I like the topic and genre and all, but it was just not grabbing my attention.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#435

Post by kevando »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #254
kevando wrote: post #226

Am I crazy or does he look terrible. His eyes are all red like he was just crying.

What does this add?

It's an observation. Perhaps someone else who watched this video has some information about something that happened immediately prior. I could have been more explicit in my request, you're right.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#436

Post by eropple »

dsego wrote: post #387
eropple wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone's saying that non-coders need to become thousands-of-hours coders. But being aware that it's possible to automate these tasks makes (or so the thinking goes) people more likely to realize that specific tasks can be automated. I have a project rather similar to your "going around and helping automate" in my backlog at work, actually, but it'd be a lot more efficient if the people doing the work we…

Hmmm, if only there were people that know how to program and can build automation tools....

Your sarcasm conflates execution with problem identification.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#437

Post by dinkumthinkum »

bmelton wrote: post #348
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is worse, uneducated people voting, or libertarians? I'm not sure.

Unnecessary political trolling is unnecessary.

It's not unnecessary. It's an appropriate response. Why is it that uneducated voters are worse than libertarians?

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#438

Post by dinkumthinkum »

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…

The janitor could write a program for logistics ... I don't mean this in a mean way but ... just stop. We're going too far this point.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#439

Post by eru »

kamjam wrote: post #417
eru wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's mostly a failure to communicate in the prestige dialect of English.

You seem to have a big gripe about the English language. There is nothing prestige about it, some of the upper class may like to pretend there is but it's just a means of communication like every other language and I would make the same observations about those too.

There are different version of English. Please refer this most interesting paper "Grammatically Deviant Prestige Constructions" (http://fine.me.uk/Emonds/).

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#440

Post by collyw »

memset wrote: post #423
collyw wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter argument to that, many of the non-technical users in my organization like Excel. We have wasted countless hours by sticking to excel as a data input / manipulation tool, as it is incredibly error prone. Non technical users don't see the difference between a 2 and "2" and a " 2". It looks right to them, and much of the time they seem incapable of reading a sensible error message and fixing it the problem…

Doesn't this imply that, with stronger engineering education, the problems you describe (which arise from poor engineering) would be eliminated?

I suppose so. Experienced developers already have that education. An introduction to programming class is not likely to provide that. I look back at technical decisions I made ten years ago, when I started coding, and I see how much cleaner and more elegant my solutions current solutions are likely to be (when a clean solution is possible).
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