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President Obama calls on every American to learn code

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Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#231

Post by im3w1l »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #181
United857 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We teach writing as a required subject in schools, without the expectation that everyone is going to be a professional writer. We teach science without the expectation that everyone is going to be a scientist. We teach physical education without the expectation that everyone is going to be a professional athlete. These are all good life skills to have even if you don't learn enough to make it your career. So it shoul…

Just because we currently teach everyone trigonometry, it does not mean we should also teach everyone X. What exactly is the point of knowing how to code a little, without being very good or proficient at it, which most people won't be able to attain ? But I do agree that every school should have C.S. curricula as an option, not as a requirement

I think everyone should know enough programming to know where programming is an appropriate tool, even if they are not also to wield it, so that they can bring in someone else to solve it with programming, instead of throwing manpower at problems like copy pasting between documents.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#232

Post by gaplus »

Learning anything new is all well and good, but the thing that's actually valuable to society and "america's future" isn't really more coders, it's people who are really fantastic at what they do; whatever it may be. I'd rather someone dedicate their life to becoming the best preserve-maker in the world than fixing bugs in groupon. The preserve-maker may not reach billions of people with his/her work, but based on my own observations, I've found that the relative quality of one's achievements in a field has more leverage than the scale.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#233

Post by Houshalter »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #187
Tuftelien wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how to cook basic nutritious meals, personal finance, etc.. This is already being taught (atleast here in Norway.)

Unfortunately, in the US, it isn't being taught :(

There were classes like this at my school at least.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#234

Post by gfodor »

Crito wrote: post #156
gfodor wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that in 100 years we will still have people performing some derived concept of "coding" today, whereas all of our plumbing will probably be done by the machines which are created by those people. Coding is an abstraction on top of an ever more essential skill: directing automated symbol manipulation. It seems foundational and those fighting against it are best likened to the subset of monks who surely saw wr…

The extent that programming has been required to make effective use of computers has been in freefall since computers were first constructed. I see no reason to think that this trend will not continue. Making sure that people can effectively use computers is different from having people learn to code. I really think that anyone who insists that the later is necessary has some serious tunnel-vision.

If this were true then we'd be hearing less and less about coding education, not more. There would be less "I have an idea and need a programmer" people, and not more.

More people want to learn how to code now because they realize they are at a fundamental disadvantage in manipulating these things that are entering every facet of our lives. This is the dominant force, not the slow marginalization of the utility of writing source code vs. well established problems like those that can be solved by Excel. In any case, programmers are currently proverbial priests who are the gatekeepers to enabling this effective use of computers, which I think explains a lot of the resistance to this stuff.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#235

Post by blktiger »

lhnz wrote: post #229
grellas wrote: post #217

Speaking as a non-coder, but as one who did minimal things with programming-like higher-level stuff ranging from the old DOS batch files to VBA and some dabbling with SQL, I am curious whether real engineers believe the idea of broad literacy in coding truly would be valuable and, if so, how exactly. I am not speaking as a skeptic, just as one who does not readily see the point and wants to know. Of course, we are in…

When I think about the practical skills that I learnt in my education, years later there were only a few key concepts which really mattered: rudimentary arithmetic in Mathematics, good writing/reading skills from English, understanding of empiricism from the Sciences. I think the question is: is there a foundational skill or concept that learning coding gives you? I think perhaps there is and it's something to do wit…

I suspect it has more to do with problem-solving and analysis. In theory students should gain this kind of knowledge from mathematics, but I don't think that seems to work out in reality for most people.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#236

Post by matthewmcg »

Steve Jobs in one of the Bob Cringley interviews:

"I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer--should learn a computer language--because it teaches you how to think. It's like going to law school. I don't think anybody should be a lawyer, but I do think going to law school would actually be useful because it teaches you how to think in a certain way, in the same way that computer programming teaches you, in a certain way, how to think. I view computer science as a liberal art. It should be something that everybody takes."

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#237

Post by toomuchtodo »

Houshalter wrote: post #233
toomuchtodo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, in the US, it isn't being taught :(

There were classes like this at my school at least.

I haven't been in high school for over 14 years; are they mandatory/required?

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#238

Post by Crito »

NAFV_P wrote: post #130
Crito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well presumably because we already are telling people to learn how to write and communicate. Public schools spend more time on those topics than probably any other. Furthermore, advocating mastery of one skill is different from advocating basic literacy in another skill. This said, I agree that "learn to code" is tiresome. Why aren't cries of "learn basic electrical engineering" as popular? Or, if we want clear socie…

Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim. I'm not surprised with the high level of obesity in the US.

Obesity isn't as much of a factor as you might think. With proper technique, very obese people can swim (at least 24 yards, which was the bar used for that statistic) without much effort.

Adipose tissue (fat) has a density slightly lower than that of water, so the primary concern is really keeping your head above water and not panicking (both of those are mostly technique, not really 'physical feats'). Once you've got floating mastered, an elementary backstroke will get you moving slowly through the water without much caloric expenditure.

Swimming ability seems to correspond to family income (and therefore access to pools) rather closely. Increasing the swimming skills of the general population would mostly be a matter of ensuring that school districts have pools, and making swimming lessons in PE classes a higher priority. Kids don't die because they don't know how to play badminton, but people do drown...

(Disclosure: One of my jobs through highschool and part of college was working as a swimming instructor, which is part of why this issue has my attention)

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#240

Post by Crito »

gfodor wrote: post #234
Crito wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extent that programming has been required to make effective use of computers has been in freefall since computers were first constructed. I see no reason to think that this trend will not continue. Making sure that people can effectively use computers is different from having people learn to code. I really think that anyone who insists that the later is necessary has some serious tunnel-vision.

If this were true then we'd be hearing less and less about coding education, not more. There would be less "I have an idea and need a programmer" people, and not more. More people want to learn how to code now because they realize they are at a fundamental disadvantage in manipulating these things that are entering every facet of our lives. This is the dominant force, not the slow marginalization of the utility of wr…

> "If this were true then we'd be hearing less and less about coding education, not more."

I don't think that follows. My hypothesis is that lots of programmers think that programming is more important than it really is, and politicians wanting to get tech on their side, humor them.

You know how rural farming towns often have strong 4H clubs? I think this "teach kids to code" stuff is the tech equivalent of that. Everyone wants little jimmy to grow up just like daddy and mommy, because daddy and mommy consider their line of work to be uniquely important or special.

Those communities think it is very important for children to learn how to raise cows, or drive a tractor. Ours thinks that it is very important for children to know something about computer programming. I think that either suffers from tunnel-vision and is is trying to put children into a box.

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