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Children growing up today won't learn C programming by reading the Linux kernel source code. With any luck, children growing up today won't learn C at all, or at least ONLY for historical understanding. It is an absolute security nightmare. Do we not want the next generation to exclusively use safe languages?
> Do we not want the next generation to exclusively use safe languages? Someone has to write (and maintain) the safe languages.
Games. The first computers kids will start to wonder about are the ones they're using to play games, be it a game console, tablet, or PC. Modding comes first, slightly tweaking the game to add a new item, map, or remove some annoying limitation. The truly curious and persistent kids will eventually want to learn how to make their own games. This is where you'll find the next generation of programmers.
Games. The first computers kids will start to wonder about are the ones they're using to play games, be it a game console, tablet, or PC. Modding comes first, slightly tweaking the game to add a new item, map, or remove some annoying limitation. The truly curious and persistent kids will eventually want to learn how to make their own games. This is where you'll find the next generation of programmers.
By that time I was old enough to bug my parents enough to get one (Fairchild Channel F)... and things escalated from there to a Vic-20 (and so forth). The first programming I did was to make a game in BASIC that a friend bought and was broken work (simple syntax error). I learned networking (when PC networking meant IPX, BNC connectors, etc) to get the first multiplayer games up and running.
I had no intent to be a professional technologists/developer. It was a means to an end. Much later, after I had entry level tech jobs, I honed the skills and knowledge to really be a professional... honestly, it came pretty easy once I realized I actually kinda liked the field in my mid-20s.
True story from a part of my life from around the time the author mentions: A Fields Medal winner (this is the highest prize in the field of mathematics, for solving hard open problems that puzzled people for centuries) I have known, by himself read the source of Unix (Sun OS) and learned C. He did it when a young PhD student presented him with code related to problems he discussed with this teacher.
This being said, my 9 year old surprised me this week when he showed me an online computer game that someone abandoned which he fixed by going into the code. A few thousands had played it and given it 4 or 5 stars by the time I saw this working. I had no clue that a kid could do something like this in a rather fancy 3D game. I'd say, lets leave the kids to themselves and try our best to help them keep out of trouble as they go along.
Your children will probably be learning AI, ML and neural networks instead of the lower level stuffs which their dads completed working on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then we need a 'safe' language that has the performance characteristics of C or assembly. Not there yet?
Rust is at least attempting to provide this. I haven't checked the benchmarks, but my understanding is that it's reasonably close for many applications.
Your children will probably be learning AI, ML and neural networks instead of the lower level stuffs which their dads completed working on.
One has to gain fundamental knowledge about operating systems and low-level system programming to tackle problems like kernel development - I do not think it was much easier 25 years ago.