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New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

joelonsoftware.com

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Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#31

Post by warfangle »

jrockway wrote: post #8

I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in that way. But deciding at 20 is…

There is a lot to learn about the world when you're 14. But I was already programming when I was 14. When I was younger than that, I asked my dad how I could cheat at the qbasic games we had on the family computer: he handed me a 'learn qbasic' book, and told me that all I needed to know to cheat in those games was in there.

Just because the school will focus on software engineering doesn't mean it will lack in other areas. I'm fairly certain I would have done better in math, for example, if the math courses were programming-oriented instead of pencil-and-paper oriented.

It's pretty specifically stated that this is not a vocational school.

A lot of classes can benefit from an injection of programming - a few off the top of my head include statistics, maths, physics...

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#32

Post by tghw »

JonWood wrote: post #7

I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide range of subjects. The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line work" or "street sweeping"?

By high school, I was already passionate about software. If an old, retired army colonel hadn't pushed his way into my school to teach computer science (thanks Mr. Mims!), I would have had to wait another three years to get any sort of formal CS instruction. Instead, I was able to test out of all of the introductory CS classes in college, which gave me more time to learn about the more advanced areas of CS.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#33

Post by nik_0_0 »

digitallimit0 wrote: post #10
JonWood wrote: post #7

I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide range of subjects. The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line work" or "street sweeping"?

The thing is, those aren't fair comparisons. Software engineers are in exceedingly high demand at this stage. This is just a reaction to that demand. In addition, software engineering is a very flexible field. You can engineer under or tangentially to almost any position or field and be a part of what makes those things interesting. Assembly line worker and street sweeper are not so similarly blessed.

True, they aren't exactly fair comparisons, but I find them relevant. I recall just a few days ago, there was a discussion how "everyone" should be able to program, and a lot of the value comes from applying that programming to another, personally interesting field. I remember a quote "in 10 years not being able to program will be like not being able to...". No matter what that last word is, I agree with the above statements, a school so focused on one thing needs to give the students a chance to probe their other interests, ones they can use their software engineering prowess to excel at.

I think this is a great idea, but hope that in 10 years the kids who only have experience in software engineering do not become a commodity.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#34

Post by vaksel »

digitallimit0 wrote: post #10
JonWood wrote: post #7

I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide range of subjects. The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line work" or "street sweeping"?

The thing is, those aren't fair comparisons. Software engineers are in exceedingly high demand at this stage. This is just a reaction to that demand. In addition, software engineering is a very flexible field. You can engineer under or tangentially to almost any position or field and be a part of what makes those things interesting. Assembly line worker and street sweeper are not so similarly blessed.

too much of a good thing is never good...do you really want to turn programming into a commodity? Do you want to be paid $10/hr for your work?

It's a supply and demand curve, there really only needs to be a few thousand too many developers looking for work and the entire thing will crash from the programmer perspective. Salaries/benefits will fall because people will be more eager to settle...and then there'll be in a race to the bottom taking less and less compensation in order to get a job

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#35

Post by mk »

warfangle wrote: post #31
jrockway wrote: post #8

I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in that way. But deciding at 20 is…

There is a lot to learn about the world when you're 14. But I was already programming when I was 14. When I was younger than that, I asked my dad how I could cheat at the qbasic games we had on the family computer: he handed me a 'learn qbasic' book, and told me that all I needed to know to cheat in those games was in there. Just because the school will focus on software engineering doesn't mean it will lack in other…

I was in a similar boat. I was already programming in qbasic when I was around 14-15, but went to a standard high school. Math had always been my strong point, but I lost interest and my grades suffered. It was then very difficult to catch up because I wasn't learning whatever I needed to learn throughout the year.

I did however excel at the programming course we had. I loved going to the computer lab and trying stuff out. This school would have been awesome if it was around when I was in school. It would have been a perfect fit.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#36

Post by untog »

imgabe wrote: post #24
JonWood wrote: post #7

I'm not convinced by the idea of heavily specialised high schools. At that age you should be discovering what you're passionate about, and sampling a wide range of subjects. The focus here seems to be more on training kids up for a job - would anyone be so enthusiastic if we replaced "software engineering" with "assembly line work" or "street sweeping"?

This notion that you should spend the first 30 years of your life figuring out what you want to do is a pretty recent one. Nobody ever questioned a 14 year old blacksmith's apprentice. I think for most of human history you just did pretty much whatever your father did. It's not like the kids are being forced to go into this school. If you graduate at 18 and decided you don't want to be a programmer that's still plent…

Nobody ever questioned a 14 year old blacksmith's apprentice. I think for most of human history you just did pretty much whatever your father did.

I'm a little confused by your post, because the tone seems to suggest that this is a good thing.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#37

Post by sudonim »

jrockway wrote: post #8

I'm not sure it's a great idea to get so focused at such an early age. There's a lot to learn about the world when you're 14, and it might be good to explore a wide range of topics. (I personally took most of my "real" classes in high school, so by the time I got to college, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. After going to college for a year, I realized my needs would not be met in that way. But deciding at 20 is…

From the article:

"Unlike traditional vocational schools, this new school will have a rigorous academic component and will prepare students for college"

You're going to the school because you want to learn to code, but it's not just coding.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#38

Post by seer »

I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide where hey want to learn at about 13 years of age. You can of course switch schools as you like, but more prestigious ones have some requirements. The point is that I did know I wanted to work with computers and made this decision then to go to he programming school here and I consider this one of he best decisions in my life. Most of my classmates have ended up with quite accomplished careers in IT but a surprising number end up with very different professions - doctors, dentists, musicians - the emphasis on programming did not hinder their progress that much maybe even helped hem.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#39

Post by imgabe »

untog wrote: post #36
imgabe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion that you should spend the first 30 years of your life figuring out what you want to do is a pretty recent one. Nobody ever questioned a 14 year old blacksmith's apprentice. I think for most of human history you just did pretty much whatever your father did. It's not like the kids are being forced to go into this school. If you graduate at 18 and decided you don't want to be a programmer that's still plent…

Nobody ever questioned a 14 year old blacksmith's apprentice. I think for most of human history you just did pretty much whatever your father did. I'm a little confused by your post, because the tone seems to suggest that this is a good thing.

I think it's good that people have more options than they used to. But for the vast, vast majority of people, their career will not be the fulfillment of some life-defining purpose, and trying to treat it as such is going to lead to disappointment.

Basically, I'm saying that it's ok if what you do for a living is not an all-consuming passion. I know if you're doing a startup, there's a good chance that it is, but there are other ways to lead a satisfying life besides through your job.

It's not so much that working towards a career is good, but I don't think it's the unmitigated disaster that some comments here are making it out to be.

Re: New York City gets a Software Engineering High School

#40

Post by aswanson »

humanfromearth wrote: post #4

At my high-school in Romania we silently eliminated religion (yeah, surprised?), philosophy, 1 lesson of geography, 1 lesson of french and maybe something else.. and at the end we got 2 cs theory lessons and 6 full lessons of coding in the lab per week. We all had a linux shell on the school's server and most used vim to code C with gcc and makefiles. That had a lot to do with what kind of programmer I am today even…

A shell, gcc, makefiles...and not a clue of context of the world surrounding the toolbox to change it. Sounds like they were trying to churn out perspective-deprived automata.
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