> My father tried to interest me in programming somewhat before high school; it didn't work, and I didn't continue then. I suspect, that it almost never works that way. Learning programming or hacking as a child is all about figuring it out on your own, doing something, what your parents or your teachers can not understand, defining your own identity. That is why I doubt that all the programs in the US, which try to…
My mom taught me programming as a 6 year old almost 25 years ago. I went on to study it at college night school from 10 to 14 and held a job before graduating high school programming ASP, JS, and MS SQL.
Sometimes parents can teach their children things and have it stick.
If you don't mind offering up the information, where do you work? Or at the very least, what field do you work in? That sounds extremely fun.
Small stealth mode startup in Vancouver, Canada that does custom DSLs for the oil & gas industry. I found the job on my local CL, they were advertising looking for anybody who had read SICP, or had experience doing functional programming. It doesn't pay a lot but enough to live comfortably while single plus I get to hack around in Scheme all day, though now they want me to learn Haskell too. I work 6hrs a day usually…
A job for the oil & gas industry which requires SICP level coders which doesn't pay well? I'm not sure what to think - that that industry really doesn't pay well, or that you need to read patio11's guide to salary negotiations.
> My father tried to interest me in programming somewhat before high school; it didn't work, and I didn't continue then. I suspect, that it almost never works that way. Learning programming or hacking as a child is all about figuring it out on your own, doing something, what your parents or your teachers can not understand, defining your own identity. That is why I doubt that all the programs in the US, which try to…
My mom taught me programming as a 6 year old almost 25 years ago. I went on to study it at college night school from 10 to 14 and held a job before graduating high school programming ASP, JS, and MS SQL. Sometimes parents can teach their children things and have it stick.
If I understand you correctly, I think you have it backwards -- as I read it, Bell Labs saw math as having "lasting value," while computer science was just a practical application. Morris didn't want to look foolish, so he persisted with math long after he realized that he really wanted to be a programmer; unfortunately, after he gave up on mathematics as a vocation, he didn't have the fortitude to keep in touch with…
I'm fairly certain it's this, given the history of CS and programming. It started as a branch of mathematics. As an academic field, even in the 1980s/1990s and in some places today, it was/is taught as a branch of math. And comparatively, programming/operating computers was not high prestige and was seen more as grunt work. Interestingly, in some ways the people in Bell Labs were right: the mathematics is what object…
I think there's more nuance to thinking about 'what lasts'.
Yes, it might not be the same code in use, but the work from the 1950s in CS lives on by being built upon in the code nowadays. The form of the output changes with time but the lessons persist.
> My father tried to interest me in programming somewhat before high school; it didn't work, and I didn't continue then. I suspect, that it almost never works that way. Learning programming or hacking as a child is all about figuring it out on your own, doing something, what your parents or your teachers can not understand, defining your own identity. That is why I doubt that all the programs in the US, which try to…
I share a similar thought. My wife's younger brother watches me write various things on occasion. He asks questions about how things work and I'll answer those. I've thought about buying him introductory books on a language, for example Python and showing him small programs to build. I'm hesitant to do that because I'm afraid it will cause him to lose interest since it will feel too much like mandatory school work and might take the fun and curiosity out of learning to program and tinkering with ideas.
I remember when I was younger, thinking to myself if a certain idea could be done and trying it out. The joy of getting the idea to work was a great feeling.
If I understand you correctly, I think you have it backwards -- as I read it, Bell Labs saw math as having "lasting value," while computer science was just a practical application. Morris didn't want to look foolish, so he persisted with math long after he realized that he really wanted to be a programmer; unfortunately, after he gave up on mathematics as a vocation, he didn't have the fortitude to keep in touch with…
I'm fairly certain it's this, given the history of CS and programming. It started as a branch of mathematics. As an academic field, even in the 1980s/1990s and in some places today, it was/is taught as a branch of math. And comparatively, programming/operating computers was not high prestige and was seen more as grunt work. Interestingly, in some ways the people in Bell Labs were right: the mathematics is what object…
> Consider: how much mathematics from the 1950s is still in use and relevant, versus how much written code is still in use and relevant?
This is the wrong question. CS isn't hardly about code. Most of our CS today is from before the 1950s.
> The idea that one should ask questions about one's own life (e.g. your "What seems like work...?") and act on the answers was completely alien to me in those days, and I doubt I could have absorbed any wisdom in this department. That resonates deeply with me. Until my early 20s, I was terrible at absorbing any form of wisdom from anyone. I just went ahead forward into whatever interested me, with no regard for what…
I advice you to stay away from the psychedelics. Trust me, this is an advice you can't afford not to believe until it is too late.
Might be some good wisdom in there but that is the most convoluted, badly written several paragraphs I've seen in a while. Maybe they're taken out of context or something or assume some knowledge that is missing?
> My father tried to interest me in programming somewhat before high school; it didn't work, and I didn't continue then. I suspect, that it almost never works that way. Learning programming or hacking as a child is all about figuring it out on your own, doing something, what your parents or your teachers can not understand, defining your own identity. That is why I doubt that all the programs in the US, which try to…
My mom taught me programming as a 6 year old almost 25 years ago. I went on to study it at college night school from 10 to 14 and held a job before graduating high school programming ASP, JS, and MS SQL. Sometimes parents can teach their children things and have it stick.
Yeah, not everything involving generations is so myopic. My kids, 7 and 4, are absolutely entranced by computers and love to sit down at our old-school 8-bit battlestation and bash things out. The elder has figured out how to do his maths homework on it, and the younger has become an expert at loading files and running them. None of this would be possible if I hadn't encouraged them to investigate computers by setting up the battlestation in the first place .. I think the key to getting kids interested in programming is to understanding cyclomatic complexity in the first place, and not introducing them to things that will overwhelm their interest. In the case of our 8-bit machines, which are still fully functional programming devices, we seem to have met the sweet spot .. lets see if in a couple of years we upgrade them to a Linux box and compilers and so on. I'm fairly confident this will happen .. at least in the case of the 4 year old, whose affinity for the subject seems to be being amplified by observing daily his elder brothers' competence and confidence as they discover - together - new things.
Took me a couple of minutes to figure who Robert Morris was so to save others the effort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris
I just finished reading The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll this morning (And I highly recommend it!). In the Epilogue, Stoll writes about the Morris worm and briefly mentions: (Harvard student Paul Graham sent him mail asking for "Any news on the brilliant project") When I read that, I wondered if that was THE Paul Graham.
I also second this recommendation. I read this book 5 or 6 years ago and it has not left from my recommendation list [1] since then!