Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by randomdata » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 3:28 PM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #121

aashaykumar92 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying that a degree is not important! I'm just saying that just being a CS major does not make one a great programmer and likewise, a great programmer need not be a CS major. I believe a history major can become a great programmer...as said in the video, learning how to program just takes determination. I was an econ major and learned html/css in a few short weeks pretty darn well. At least enough to land m…

> I'm just saying that just being a CS major does not make one a great programmer and likewise, a great programmer need not be a CS major. I'm emphatically not saying this, I'm saying that a degree is good for employment. Many places will outright refuse to hire people without at least a BA in computer science (or computer engineering, I guess? I am not aware of the related fields). Thankfully, investors care more ab…

This is changing though. Even in just the last decade, people's attitudes towards the job/degree relationship has changed dramatically. If the trend continues, I expect in another decade or two more it probably won't even be a consideration, except perhaps where the law still requires.

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

#222

Post by randomdata » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

base698 wrote: post #116

zwegner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yawn. I would say the same about the glorious PhD professors that attempted to teach me. Even the best professors, who were actually pretty knowledgeable, would never really code at all, pushing that off to the grad students. Some people just don't fit into the way academia works, and making silly judgments like yours about them does nothing but entrench the status quo.

I agree, but you still have to read the book. Coding can not be learned by copy and pasting other people's code. All I was trying to say is for every 20 people that say they are self-taught only one of them can write a feature from scratch from a blank slate and explain the trade offs of why they used a hashset vs a list. The other 19 may be able to get something working by copy and pasting another section and spendi…

> Coding can not be learned by copy and pasting other people's code.

Absolutely it can. I would even argue that is the best way to intro into programming, and even learning in general. You, of course, cannot stop after you have pasted it in. You have to think about why the author made the choices he made, but in doing that you will quickly build an intuition to be able to apply similar choices to entirely new problems. With a little experience, you won't even need to draw on other's code anymore.

The distinction you really seem to be making here is that self-taught programmers are able to enter the job market on day one, without that experience. While graduates have at least four years of experience under their belt before they are reasonably able to enter the job market. Of course the people with more experience are going to perform better. As more time passes, the skills between the groups will start to average out (with amazing and not-so-amazing people found in both groups).

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

#223

Post by michaelochurch » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

cwzwarich wrote: post #163

michaelochurch wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already produce way more PhDs than the economy can absorb; if anything we should either produce less PhDs or create a better job market for them. When I was a kid and first learned about the Roman Empire and its fall, and of all the other historical empires that collapsed, one of the things that I wondered was how these people could be so "stupid". Of course, I didn't understand the day-to-day nuances involved. I…

Historically speaking, wasn't the temporary boost in demand for PhDs after WW2 the abnormality?

Personally, I dislike the argument that recent progress is an "abnormality". A large middle class (post-1925) is an "anomaly". Slavery being illegal is, historically speaking, extremely unusual.

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

#224

Post by ditonal » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

sskates wrote: post #202

ditonal wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have an example of a job opening where they're offering 60k for a MIT programmer? I can give you a bunch where they offer substantially more (all $100k+ with just an undergrad degree): https://www.google.com/about/jobs/search/#t=sq&q=j&j... http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/grad-software-job... https://www.dropbox.com/jobs

You are totally missing my point. Yes, I realize MIT programmers make more and you need to pay them well to hire them. However, if you look at average software engineering salaries, you will realize most people do not pay as well as prestigious tech companies. Yet their job openings are used to indicate a shortage. Shortages are just low bids in a market, the fact that lots of people want to buy gold at $1 an ounce does not mean there is a shortage of gold. It's a bad metric if you understand anything about economics, and yet I've yet to see another metric used to argue for a 'shortage'.

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

#225

Post by huherto » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 4:41 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #36

jonknee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 of us don't have the autonomy to choose our tools or decide whether to use or replace old legacy code. Shouldn't our…

I think you're off the mark, because you're always "working for someone else". Details change, but ultimately there's no difference between "mak[ing] something that is useful" and working for others. Sometimes the terms are great, and sometimes they're awful. The implicit assumption is that "working for an established organization" must imply "working with miserably low levels of autonomy". I'm not sure that I agree.…

| The implicit assumption is that "working for an established organization" must imply "working with miserably low levels of autonomy". I'm not sure that I agree.

And it is not only about autonomy. It sucks to work for somebody stupid, in general somebody that doesn't understand the nature of software development, probability, statistics, etc.

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

#226

Post by crgt » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

aashaykumar92 wrote: post #214

crgt wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

let me know if im missing something, but where do they mention specific programming languages? I don't seem to see any reference to it. Furthermore, Objective C is taught like the others--for example, CodeSchool has an entire section on iOS app development and an Objective C tutorial to go along with it...

When you volunteer to teach (http://www.code.org/help), they list languages that you can teach, and the list they push does not include Objective-C. Nor is there an "other" option.

EDIT: They added an "other" option to that list since yesterday when I first tried to sign up. That's a good start.

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

#227

Post by duaneb » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 5:08 PM UTC

kevin_rubyhouse wrote: post #179

crynix wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, programming is taught inside of _some_ high schools. A shockingly low amount of high schools actually teach it though. Neither my high school nor other nearby high schools have any sort of computer science curriculum.

These schools would offer the course if enough of the students are interested. There is no lack of information around us (internet, libraries, sit down at a book store) to learn programming. The issue is the perception of programming in high school - the stigma around it. This might be perpetuated by some of the more eccentric programmers, and these programmers are very good and tend to grow into strong programmers!…

No, this is just false. My high school was run by incompetent people, the result being Photoshop classes being offered to people wanting to program. This is further complicated by people who can't afford their own computers or internet and are explicitly disallowed from programming at the library.

You have a very optimistic view of high schools.

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

#228

Post by jamesjporter » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 5:17 PM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #177

jamesjporter wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lack of US PhDs? We already produce way more PhDs than the economy can absorb; if anything we should either produce less PhDs or create a better job market for them.

The job market certainly sucks, but it maybe because a large number have uncompromising dreams of working in academia. In EE a PhD will land you a job at a company of your choice. As does the U.S. in general, the NavLabs suffer from an increasingly severe shortage of trained replacement civilian personnel in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (= STEM topics). The Navy’s problem is more severe than the…

This is true for EE, but that's an engineering degree. Sciences PhDs have a much harder time, even in industry (e.g. biotech is languishing).

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

#229

Post by lilsunnybee » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 6:12 PM UTC

scarecrowbob wrote: post #75

obstacle1 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. Are you saying that your friends are too distracted by TV to learn coding?

I feel that if my peers would stop with the incessant stream TV, movie, and video games, they would have no problem fitting in the time to learn all manner of useful tricks, including picking up skills that would free them from the jobs they hate. I don't believe this is a collective personal shortcoming on their part-- it's probably just the way of the world-- but the idea that so many of them hate their jobs but ha…

10 hours of leisure time a week is too much?

Also why exactly do you think it is so easy to get a programming job? Most employers want either work history or formal education. Even if you teach yourself programming, finding a better paying job might not be any easier.

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

#230

Post by throwaway1979 » Wed, Feb 27, 2013, 8:18 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #162

jamesjporter wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lack of US PhDs? We already produce way more PhDs than the economy can absorb; if anything we should either produce less PhDs or create a better job market for them.

We already produce way more PhDs than the economy can absorb; if anything we should either produce less PhDs or create a better job market for them. When I was a kid and first learned about the Roman Empire and its fall, and of all the other historical empires that collapsed, one of the things that I wondered was how these people could be so "stupid". Of course, I didn't understand the day-to-day nuances involved. I…

Right on. I was at the Smithsonian Natural History museum in DC a few days ago. They had an exhibit on pollution in the world's oceans. I was shocked at the reasons they gave to reduce pollution. To paraphrase: if we don't stop polluting, we will hurt the local economy, etc. My jaw dropped. That's the reason why we aren't supposed to destroy the oceans???

As a scientist, it is totally sad to see the state of research, and the standing scientists have in society. I don't understand why sane people would choose to get themselves into such career paths.