Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

President Obama calls on every American to learn code

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 441 posts

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#31

Post by Crito »

avenger123 wrote: post #18

This "learn to code" meme is getting tiresome. Why not focus on the more critical skills in life that are more applicable to most people. Here's a big one: 1. Learn to communicate. Improve your writing and speaking skills.

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 societal benefit, why not advocate learning how to swim? Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim.

Of course "either tell people to learn how to swim, or tell them to learn to code" is a false dichotomy (both can be done at once) but I am wondering why "learn to code" gets so much attention. The amount I hear about getting the general public to code seems disproportionate.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#32

Post by humanrebar »

simlevesque wrote: post #20

Do you really need to know some science to code ? From my perspective it is not required.

Electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science are related.

But, no, you don't need to know much about science to make phone apps or webpages. Studying a foreign language or in-depth grammar would probably be just as useful for those industries.

That being said, children going into software would benefit from exercising the parts of their brains responsible for patience, tenacity, intellect, technical reasoning, and problem solving.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#33

Post by chiph »

sliverstorm wrote: post #5
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #2

He looks so very tired in that video.

Agreed. No matter how effective you think he is, or how much you like his policies, it seems pretty clear he's under tremendous stress.

The job is brutal. Look at photos of Bush Jr. before & after -- same thing.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#34

Post by dnautics »

potatolicious wrote: post #22
rhizome wrote: post #4

The message is clear: top political donors want cheaper labor.

Wat. A few months ago when someone taught a homeless man to code we congratulated him on improving another man's lot in life. We continue to give kudos to folks like CodeAcademy for teaching people how to code free of charge and introducing more people to our industry. But when the government does it it's a conspiracy the depress wages? Sometimes I just... nevermind, I forget where I am.

when you go to codeacademy that is your choice to improve yourself, and you either enrich yourself or quit. Fine. Very few on HN say, "you're an awful person, you tried to code on codeacademy and couldn't do it" (OK maybe someone might rag on a non-technical MBA that tries to pull the strings on engineers without understanding the damage they are causing).

When the government urges people to go do things (presumably to be followed by things like subsidies), it is a recipe for blowing up the industry by steamrolling people through it. Good examples abound: Home ownership. Going to college. Getting into STEM.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#35

Post by TallGuyShort »

jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

I love your parallel between car maintenance and coding, and I have repeated it many times myself. I think changing a tire is a reasonable thing to expect every driver to be able to do. Likewise, I think understanding SSL errors is the kind of thing every computer user should be able to do. Not code, necessarily, but understand something about this system you trust with most of your life.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#36

Post by khawkins »

jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

I'm actually surprised how hostile HN is in these comments, considering that I thought the popular sentiment was similar. Every other day a new "learn how to code" post hits the front page, despite, I'm sure, most people who are commenting/upvoting don't need the tutorial for themselves.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#37

Post by kaonashi »

gum_ina_package wrote: post #26
gfodor wrote: post #24

Obama says a few nice things about Computer Science and encourages people to learn more about the world, and HN still manages to find every possible negative angle to trash it. Impressive!

Obama said a fundamentally ignorant statement that seems even more ignorant considering all the technical problems with Obamacare. Hacker News is just pointing this out.

You've told me nothing; you've added an irrelevancy.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#38

Post by williamcotton »

avenger123 wrote: post #18

This "learn to code" meme is getting tiresome. Why not focus on the more critical skills in life that are more applicable to most people. Here's a big one: 1. Learn to communicate. Improve your writing and speaking skills.

1. Learn to listen.

2. Learn to speak.

Re: President Obama calls on every American to learn code

#39

Post by pmiller2 »

jmduke wrote: post #21

A lot of people are getting attached to the "every American" aspect of things, and I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer." Amateur programming (for lack of a better term) like basic Python for data analysis or HTML/CSS to work on Wordpress sites (Hell, one of my friends who's a Social Media Manager learned Python to create some QoL scripts for her day-to-d…

>I think its important to note the distance between "knowing how to code" and "becoming a programmer."

Very true. I know people who are highly educated but have no idea what computers are capable or incapable of doing.

On the other hand, more people actually know how to code than know they know how to code, thanks to Microsoft Excel. See http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/Papers... for instance, where Excel is referred to as "the world's most popular functional language."

Post reply on HN