Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

pycon.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 24 posts

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#11

Post by Dewie »

sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age,

As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#12

Post by gizmo686 »

Dewie wrote: post #11
sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

Don't worry. I suspect the reason that people percieve that most good coders started young is that people who start young have already demonstrated that they have a lot of interest and passion in the subject. So it follows that they would be good disprortionantly often.

If you have the same passion, then starting late shouldn't hold you back that much.

Having said that, I am one of the lucky ones who started young.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#13

Post by thauck »

Dewie wrote: post #11
sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

I know how you feel... I didn't start until I was 21 and I'm 25 now. If you try to compete with somebody who has been coding since they were 10 on pure coding talent you'll lose.

But that's fine. Use your cross-functional skills to your advantage... whatever you did from ages 8-21 when combined with the coding you did from 21-present is likely just as (if not more) valuable than the skills a person who's been coding since childhood.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#14

Post by proksoup »

Dewie wrote: post #11
sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

10,000 hours, can be put in from ages 21 to to 28 too.

I enjoyed the lax pace of doing it over ages 5 to 28 though.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#15

Post by rachelbythebay »

sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

As someone who was a lab TA for a little while and a district-level sysadmin for a while longer, the thing which comes to mind when I think of school machines is "fragile". They could in fact be "broken" in the sense that it would take a nontrivial investment in time to get it back to a state where anyone could find it useful again. Even firing up "ghost" (or whatever the equivalent is these days) takes a while to happen.

I guess this probably isn't as bad now with actual privilege separation (non-admin accounts) in Windows and Macs these days, but some memories are hard to forget.

There's something to be said for a box which is going to be just fine if you power-cycle it.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#16

Post by spamizbad »

Dewie wrote: post #11
sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

Early coding gives you a head start, but in my experience, things start to even out when everyone reaches their late 20s. I see a lot of developers who started young basically lose interest in learning new technologies by the time they reach 30; after 15-19 years of 'coding'.

I'd argue if you're willing to embrace a complex new skill in adulthood, you're probably going to be more willing to learn new stuff as your career progresses. This will give you an edge when your peers start getting set in their ways.

Another thing: I learned to code when I was 13, and was fortunate enough to have some friends in grades 7-12 who did the same, but ultimately the stuff we did was simplistic and hacky. It was totally undisciplined, and wasn't exactly production quality stuff. We were juvenile, and our code was juvenile. In a good way.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#17

Post by simeonf »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #5
enemtin wrote: post #4

The ways in which kids are going to change the world will be mind blowing. We teach young girls how to code with www.ladieslearningcode.com and the talent that these girls have is incredible. I can't wait for that generation to be the future CEOs and CTOs of the world.

As long as I don't see any posts that say "I'm 12 and I haven't done anything important, should I give up?" here on HN

Heh. Louis (awesome kid - 12 years old maybe? at PyCon) told me "I can code but I have no original ideas!"

I told him to give it time...

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#18

Post by derleth »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #15
sophacles wrote: post #8

“I don't think you'd ever see that kind of experimentation in a classroom full of adults, who would more likely do everything in their power not to break their computers,”... I really think, more than anything, this is why we should be teaching kids to code and so on in school. Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, and I think a lot of it comes from the fearlessness of youth. Personally,…

As someone who was a lab TA for a little while and a district-level sysadmin for a while longer, the thing which comes to mind when I think of school machines is "fragile". They could in fact be "broken" in the sense that it would take a nontrivial investment in time to get it back to a state where anyone could find it useful again. Even firing up "ghost" (or whatever the equivalent is these days) takes a while to ha…

One more reason to love Xen and friends.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#19

Post by dchichkov »

spamizbad wrote: post #16
Dewie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the good coders I know have been doing it from a young age, As someone who started programming when I was 21, I sometimes feel like I don't stand a chance.

Early coding gives you a head start, but in my experience, things start to even out when everyone reaches their late 20s. I see a lot of developers who started young basically lose interest in learning new technologies by the time they reach 30; after 15-19 years of 'coding'. I'd argue if you're willing to embrace a complex new skill in adulthood, you're probably going to be more willing to learn new stuff as your ca…

Fifteen years of coding? He he. These are just babies. Just started learning how not to over-design things.

And in reality years of coding doesn't matter. Learning to code early doesn't matter. What matters is with how many people you've collaborated. And how many releases of different products you've shipped.

You can code you whole life, but if it is the same damn piece of code, you wouldn't learn a thing. And if you don't actually release stuff, you also wouldn't learn a thing.

Last point (releasing stuff) is very important. If a kid 'learns' to code, but doesn't release his stuff - it is not real. Most of that learning is far from reality and wasted.

Re: How the kids stole the show: Young Coders tutorial at PyCon

#20

Post by incongruity »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #10

This is the generation that can extinguish gender issues, and this is the kind of news that should be coming out of these conferences.

And, honestly, when you look at the number of people involved/directly impacted, this is a much bigger story for PyCon, IMHO.
Post reply on HN