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Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

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Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#191

Post by dinkumthinkum »

dylan-m wrote: post #74
MojoJolo wrote: post #20

At first, I dislike teaching programming in schools. It is because the space might then be over populated and finding jobs will be harder. Then I realized math was taught in school, science was taught in school. But most of us students didn't end up as mathematicians or scientists. Programming is much like math and science. It is a technical topic, and not all of us will like it. It can be taught in school as an esse…

It would make software developers' lives a lot easier if so many people weren't scared out of their wits by computers. I think even basic programming knowledge can really help with that, because it makes it abundantly clear that a computer is, itself, a tool rather than a magic box (that happens to contain some tools in between all the scary and confusing stuff). It isn't so much that I think everyone should be writi…

But take any subject we learn in high school, whether it's math, science, history, etc. The general public is vastly uninformed about all of those subjects regardless of the fact that they are taught in high school. Why would programming make a bit of difference in that sense? It's not like programming is not taught at all in high school, anyway.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#192

Post by dinkumthinkum »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #155

I showed this to my high school programming class not two hours ago. They weren't impressed until Gaben showed up. What does this say about inspiring students to code? It syas that Minecraft has probably done more for the Java than Sun Microsystems ever did.

Well, shocker, kids are more into games than licensing collaboration software to other businesses ...

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#193

Post by dinkumthinkum »

Bootvis wrote: post #62
mich41 wrote: post #40

School courses will do nothing if people don't have access to programmable computers. And they don't have - Windows doesn't ship with Visual Studio, OSX and Linux are irrelevant, iOS and Android don't come with SDK CDs and demos. Now, of course, you know that these tools exist, and I know too. But most people don't and to them programming simply doesn't exist. Teaching these people quicksort in school won't be of muc…

But most have access to Excel. VBA has it warts but the step from Excel is small and creating something valuable is actually possible for beginners.

VBA ... gosh ... Why don't you just use a Web browser and Javascript.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#194

Post by saosebastiao »

crgt wrote: post #169
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure if I agree with the self serving push. I mean sure, these guys want great engineers--in fact, Zuckerberg explicitly states that. But also remember that Zuckerberg is now investing in young medical research and Gates has been a philanthropic investor for a long time--these guys are looking beyond their companies and show that they truly care about the world and solving the BIG problems that exist. They…

If there's no self interest involved at all how come Objective-C is not on the list of languages that they're pushing?

Because it isnt that great of a language and only a handful of people can actually make money with it?

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#195

Post by ditonal »

sskates wrote: post #159
ditonal wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me what actual evidence there is that there's a shortage of good programmers? Good programmers still make less money than a good doctor or lawyer, indicating that those are even shorter in supply. Surely addressing that shortage would be a higher priority? Lots of people could use more legal services if the price was lower, and yet if someone wanted to hire a Harvard lawyer for $60k a year, we woul…

Speaking as one, MIT programmers go for a lot more than 60k.

That's why it's a job 'opening'. My point was that it doesn't get filled but people classify it as an opening, but if someone wanted a Harvard lawyer for $60k it wouldn't even get listed.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#196

Post by zwegner »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #185
zwegner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gap between CS majors and software jobs is misleading. You don't need a CS degree to become a decent programmer. Conversely, you don't need to be a decent programmer to get a CS degree. It's a shame that in the age of the internet and self-directed learning, degrees are so heavily weighted in the job market.

One thing about people that make this argument that I don't understand is do you all know about libraries? You know they've been around for a long time. I'll grant you search engines make some parts marginally easier but to get the fundamental knowledge, you don't have to have that. So why is the Internet the great panacea for this ... Or is it that autodidactism is not really that common but it's much easier to call…

I guess I'm mostly going from my own experience. I have actually learned some cool stuff from library books (not in a while though), but it's mostly from the internet. The internet facilitates learning a wider variety of information without even leaving your house, allows you to download software/code, and also allows you to find communities where you can ask questions and get feedback on your progress.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#197

Post by nazgulnarsil »

jseliger wrote: post #165
michaelochurch wrote: post #4

The gap between CS majors and software jobs is misleading. You don't need a CS degree to become a decent programmer. Still, if there's such a shortage of good programmers (and I agree that there probably is) then why aren't we playing this to our advantage? A senior engineer can't afford a house in the Bay Area or New York, and our status is low-- we still work for managers; we're a defeated tribe in this way. Most o…

>A senior engineer can't afford a house in the Bay Area or New York This is an important and under-emphasized point, which is elaborated here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... . One problem with programming salaries is that so many programming jobs and opportunities are concentrated in areas with very expensive housing, such that salaries themselves have to go up to compensate. Before 1…

The legal framework is the hidden-in-plain-sight gearing of civilization. Nobody pays attention because it is boring and slow.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#198

Post by DeepDuh »

argonaut wrote: post #184
NickPollard wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying everyone needs to be a programmer , but everyone needs to be able to program . The number of times in all my jobs where I've seen people working on problems that could be done orders of magnitude faster with a bit of coding knowledge, is beyond count. Reformat that document? How about a Regex? Analyse this data? Automatic graph generation and statistical methods. Keep records updated? Database with au…

Uh no. He's saying everyone needs to be a programmer. > companies will benefit most from hiring great coders and teaching them how to be CEOs

The problem is that today 'being able to read/write code' and 'being a programmer' is as good as synonym. It shouldn't be, that's the issue. We won't call CEOs with programming skills 'programmer's just as we don't call them 'readers' today.

Re: Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code

#199

Post by crgt »

saosebastiao wrote: post #194
crgt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's no self interest involved at all how come Objective-C is not on the list of languages that they're pushing?

Because it isnt that great of a language and only a handful of people can actually make money with it?

291K "app economy" jobs is nothing to sneer at: http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/. One of 'em is mine. I support a family of five with it. Why isn't that on the list of things we'd want to teach kids to be able to do?

The code.org video opens with a Steve Jobs quote, and the language that powers much of his legacy isn't good enough to teach? Really?

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