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What Is Code?

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Re: What Is Code?

#201

Post by oldmanjay »

anigbrowl wrote: post #196
stormbrew wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's education system? Grade school teachers aren't expected to be specialists in the field they teach. They're expected to be specialists in teaching. Usually they have a bachelors (or masters) in education and maybe another degree, but it may or may not be the thing th…

This is incidentally a weakness in the US education system. You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'. In every European country I've lived in schools are generally split into primary and secondary. Primary school teachers are general educators whose primary skill is teaching but who do not need advanced knowledge in any particular subject. They usually…

> You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'.

As someone who went to school in the US, no, you're wrong.

Re: What Is Code?

#202

Post by anigbrowl »

yongelee wrote: post #164
michaelvkpdx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a pretty isolated world, my friend. I'd say 90% of my friends would be the audience for this. I've been coding 20 years, most of my friends are successful, grad-degree educated people in a variety of fields, and some of them are even my coworkers. Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's edu…

What do you mean? Theres tons, TONS of resources for learning the basics of programming.

Yes, but a lot of them go through the same hoops - Hello World, variables, conditionals, loops, arrays, functions, OK that's it take this pile of building materials and just turn it into a house mmkay.

There are two big problems for would-be programmers: there's a shortage of obvious standards on architecture/program sturcture (not least because it's hard to prove mathematically which structures are optimal), and endlessly proliferating options. For example, betweeen HTML 5, CSS, and JS, it's quite complex to put together a web page these days.

I mean look at this page on the DOM: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document_Ob... there are hundreds of subtopics, and it's not obvious which ones are most important. The Introductory page on the DOM is less-then-inviting to a non-programmer, not least because it presumes code as the optimal medium for production, when most people would rather work through a GUI and have the computer take care of the abstractions.

I wish sometimes that programmers were forced to decompose their latest and greatest algorithms into electronic circuit diagrams or diagrams or something, to remind them that translating functionality between different paradigms is a Hard Problem and that ,amy people do not like all the typing and syntactical overhead of text-based programming.

Re: What Is Code?

#203

Post by recursive »

Dewie3 wrote: post #98
markbnj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it will tell you that at the end, and mock you if you arrive there too quickly to have read it all :).

Does this brilliant webpage not know the concept of skimming and related approaches?

It knows and mocks accordingly.

Re: What Is Code?

#204

Post by cwt »

ht_th wrote: post #187
michaelvkpdx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a pretty isolated world, my friend. I'd say 90% of my friends would be the audience for this. I've been coding 20 years, most of my friends are successful, grad-degree educated people in a variety of fields, and some of them are even my coworkers. Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's edu…

I think that Parent made the observation that it is sad that in our information society people (in responsible positions (regarding ICT)) don't know about the fundamentals of the information society. At least, that's what I took from it and I concur. We, as a society, should have started integrating computational thinking (Wing, 2006) as a core competency in the k-12 curriculum from the late 1980s onwards. We didn't.…

anecdote: I graduated in 2008 from HS. When I graduated from there the most advanced computer class offered was essentially how to open up photoshop, word, and excel. A little bit of this is adobe flash go have fun. And make a pure html web page with inline styles - no css. Now that HS has a 3d printer. Once, the computer teacher sincerely asked me how to make a href open in a new window.

I graduated college in 2012 and I learned what css was and why it was better. I took an intro to java class. Learned some stuff volunteering for NPOs doing website work. When I graduated I knew I wanted to do something in IT but not program. Now I am a software dev.

Turns out its easy to get a job and teach yourself how to code when nobody understands what coding is.

Re: What Is Code?

#205

Post by Alupis »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #199
ht_th wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Parent made the observation that it is sad that in our information society people (in responsible positions (regarding ICT)) don't know about the fundamentals of the information society. At least, that's what I took from it and I concur. We, as a society, should have started integrating computational thinking (Wing, 2006) as a core competency in the k-12 curriculum from the late 1980s onwards. We didn't.…

Another anecdote. In 2015 my teenager will start High School in a small, rural , school district and each student has a Chromebook. No, I don't know what they will be used for besides googling information, but times are changing. I emphasized small and rural for a reason.

I know teachers at the local school district in my city. Chromebooks are used extensively in classes (elementary school, even down to 2nd grade) for researching (googling), typing practice, typing book reports, online testing, some educational games, reading, etc. They even have some educational websites they use to learn super basics of programming.

It's really amazing stuff. I wish these sort of programs existed in the US back when I was in elementary school... back then, we were lucky if we got 30 minutes a week to play with Claris Works in the school's only computer lab.

Re: What Is Code?

#206

Post by anigbrowl »

oldmanjay wrote: post #201
anigbrowl wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incidentally a weakness in the US education system. You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'. In every European country I've lived in schools are generally split into primary and secondary. Primary school teachers are general educators whose primary skill is teaching but who do not need advanced knowledge in any particular subject. They usually…

> You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'. As someone who went to school in the US, no, you're wrong.

Ironically, this sort of dogmatic assertion with no follow-through argument is exactly what I've come to associate with the US educational system.

While 'grade school' often refers to elementary school, surely you are aware of people's tendency to talk about 'k-12' education in a lump and the lax academic requirements for substitute teaching in many school districts even at high school level.

Re: What Is Code?

#207

Post by [deleted] »

spb wrote: post #166

> Smalltalk’s history is often described as slightly tragic, because many of its best ideas never permeated the culture of code. But it’s still around, still has users, and anyone can use Squeak or Pharo. Also— > > 1. Java is an object-oriented language, influenced by C++, that runs on a virtual machine (just like Smalltalk). > 2. Objective-C, per its name, jammed C and Smalltalk together with no apologies. > 3. C# (…

[deleted]

Re: What Is Code?

#208

Post by aidenn0 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #196
stormbrew wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is supposed to teach people what code is? Our schools? Who with a CS degree and programming experience would willfully choose to teach in the USA's education system? Grade school teachers aren't expected to be specialists in the field they teach. They're expected to be specialists in teaching. Usually they have a bachelors (or masters) in education and maybe another degree, but it may or may not be the thing th…

This is incidentally a weakness in the US education system. You split schools into elementary-middle-high (for no especial reason) then treat it all as 'grade school'. In every European country I've lived in schools are generally split into primary and secondary. Primary school teachers are general educators whose primary skill is teaching but who do not need advanced knowledge in any particular subject. They usually…

The US works pretty similar to how you indicate Europe works:

1-6 (or 7 in some places) is taught single teacher who probably majored in education with the whole class (with maybe a once a week art or muisc class taught by a specialist if the school is well funded).

7 or 8 through 12th is taught with 6-8 subjects a day (or in some places 3-4 subjects with alternating days having different subjects) with teachers who teach a smaller number of subjects. At HS level, in many places in the US it is expected that the teacher will have a Bachelors related to the subject they are teaching.

Re: What Is Code?

#209

Post by nickpsecurity »

greenyoda wrote: post #176
nickpsecurity wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, they do: many VP's in this position are promoted from parts of the company that have nothing to do with tech. I even wonder if this is the majority. Not sure. A huge chunk of VP's out there, though.

It's got to be the majority, since most non-tech companies (i.e., the vast majority of companies in the world) only use tech as a tool - it's not the focus of their business. The executives of banks, retail businesses, airlines, etc. are not likely to have been promoted from the IT Department.

Sounds right. Makes even more sense how you worded it.

Re: What Is Code?

#210

Post by ad-hominem »

munificent wrote: post #110
uptownJimmy wrote: post #64

Superb writing. I wish all professional writers could write this well.

Paul Ford really is in a class all by himself. Everything I've read by him is truly wonderful. As a writer, it's both inspiring ("look how amazing nerdy non-fiction can be!") and soul-crushing ("look how much better someone else is at writing!"). I try to focus on the former, but, man, he really makes the rest of us look like Celene Dion showing up at your dive bar's shitty karaoke night.

Celine Dion would be booed out of my local dive's karaoke night.
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