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Coding - the new Latin

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Coding - the new Latin

#61

Post by Fargren »

Jach wrote: post #2

I think that's a horrible phrase. The first thing that comes to mind is: "Coding isn't dead!", then: "But coding has direct benefits, not hand-waving indirect benefits like 'you will get better at English!'" I get that it's meant to convey that if you can't code even a little, you're an uneducated person, much like in older times people who didn't know Latin (and Greek) were uneducated. That's a fine sentiment to hav…

I don't think the slogan is talking about the value of knowing latin today(or a few years ago), it's about the value knowing latin in the middle ages. In the middle ages(in Europe), knowing latin meant you had access to most of the culture that existed. Not knowing latin meant you didn't. In that sense, it would be awesome for coders if coding were the new latin. Alas, it's not. You don't need to know how to code in order to access culture nowadays. You maybe need to know how to sue a computer, but there's a long distance from that to knowing how to code.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#62

Post by chc »

delinka wrote: post #47
cletus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you're missing the point. Here are some historical uses of Latin: - Obviously it was the language of the Roman Empire; - It is the basis for many European languages; - It was the language of Christianity, the Papacy for thousands of years (tying in somewhat historically with the conversion of Constantine). This went so far as Roman Catholic services being held in Latin until IIRC the 1960s; - Prior to the p…

"I believe you're missing the point." "Coding - the new Latin" is a marketing slogan. And if it breeds misunderstanding, or has to be explained, then it's not a good marketing slogan. I design software and write code. My initial reaction to the phrase was "so you're telling people it's hard and they should give up before they get started?" After that, I decided I had to read the article to get the meaning. Perhaps it…

If it breeds misunderstanding or has to be explained to people who aren't in the target demographic, that's neither here nor there. They don't strictly need you to understand any more than they need cocker spaniels to. From what I can tell, the people they're trying to reach are British educators and education policy-makers, and if you're not one of them, I feel pretty sure their relationship with Latin is very different from yours.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#63

Post by adestefan »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #55
berntb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the total number of steel workers as percentage of the work force in the year 1900 to a hundred years later. Very much less. My personal lesson from this, is that computer software jobs in general might soon have the hourly pay of PHP coders on elance. (Then the cycle of few people studying computer science will repeat... like ten years ago.)

What makes you think "soon"? It's obvious that in some distant point of future programming will cease to be The hot thing to do, but what makes you think it might be soon enough for us to see it?

I'm not sure that steelworkers were ever "the hot thing to do." The downfall of the steel industry in the US is multifaceted, but mainly boils down to the fact that importing steel from outside US is cheaper than producing it in the US and technological improvements in building with steel has greatly reduced the number of people needed to construct things with steel.

Take from that what you will about the software industry, but just remember that everyone either gets replaced by someone cheaper or technology takes their job away.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#64

Post by bad_user »

jseliger wrote: post #50
bad_user wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does everyone really need to know about recursion? Does everyone really need to know the basics of calculus? Or how about genetics? Does everyone really need to know French? I had classes for the above in my high-school. In fact I can't think of any class I took in high-school that isn't useless to a large portion of high-school graduates. And I can't think of many examples that are more useful than grasping the conc…

I think everyone needs to be at least introduced to those fields so they have some shot of figuring out what they might like while learning something that might serve them. Also, if you replace "calculus" with "statistics" and "French" with "English," I would say yes.

You're not dissagreeing with me here.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#65

Post by morsch »

pseudonimble wrote: post #4

My experience with IT education in the UK is genuinely atrocious. During secondary school we made a spreadsheet in Excel and a couple of Word documents. The closest thing to programming was a picture of traffic lights we had to "programmatically" operate. For a single hour lesson. And that is it. We were lucky if our computers even turned on.

We programmed abstract data structures in Pascal. I think we implemented quicksort. I guess I was lucky?

Fun story: The first time I was truly speechless in CS in high school was when my teacher, looking at my code, told me that, for a boolean variable foo, it's not necessary or reasonable to write

  IF foo = TRUE THEN // whatever;  "=" is comparison in Pascal BTW
but rather you can just write

  IF foo THEN // whatever
It seems trivial, even stupid now, but at the time it was an eye-opener.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#66

Post by learc83 »

tezza wrote: post #46
cletus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you're missing the point. Here are some historical uses of Latin: - Obviously it was the language of the Roman Empire; - It is the basis for many European languages; - It was the language of Christianity, the Papacy for thousands of years (tying in somewhat historically with the conversion of Constantine). This went so far as Roman Catholic services being held in Latin until IIRC the 1960s; - Prior to the p…

It is a little harsh on me to say that I "missed the point". I was not short of understanding of the historical significance of Latin. I led with the fact that I studied Latin for 6 years. During this time all your reasons were expounded ad nauseam . I want to avoid getting into any flamewar with someone whose StackOverflow karma is measured in exponents. (I made no point on the importance of training people to progr…

I don't think the OP is comparing programming to Latin today, but to Latin during the Renaissance.

Yes Latin isn't spoken, and nothing is created in it today, but that wasn't true hundreds of years ago.

Programming is like Latin 400 years ago.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#67

Post by FreakLegion »

tezza wrote: post #46
cletus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you're missing the point. Here are some historical uses of Latin: - Obviously it was the language of the Roman Empire; - It is the basis for many European languages; - It was the language of Christianity, the Papacy for thousands of years (tying in somewhat historically with the conversion of Constantine). This went so far as Roman Catholic services being held in Latin until IIRC the 1960s; - Prior to the p…

It is a little harsh on me to say that I "missed the point". I was not short of understanding of the historical significance of Latin. I led with the fact that I studied Latin for 6 years. During this time all your reasons were expounded ad nauseam . I want to avoid getting into any flamewar with someone whose StackOverflow karma is measured in exponents. (I made no point on the importance of training people to progr…

There are actually a fair few people who practice spoken Latin for pleasure. As for the pronunciation divide, that's a quirk we inherited from German.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#68

Post by sedachv »

berntb wrote: post #42
wingo wrote: post #10

It is important, but I prefer Eben Moglen's analogy: "Software is what the 21st century is made of. What steel was to the economy of the 20th century, what steel was to the power of the 20th century, what steel was to the politics of the 20th century, software is now. It is the crucial building block, the component out of which everything else is made, and, when I speak of everything else, I mean of course freedom, a…

Check the total number of steel workers as percentage of the work force in the year 1900 to a hundred years later. Very much less. My personal lesson from this, is that computer software jobs in general might soon have the hourly pay of PHP coders on elance. (Then the cycle of few people studying computer science will repeat... like ten years ago.)

Steel workers were never highly paid. Engineers were, and continue to be.

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#69

Post by itmag »

_exec wrote: post #57
itmag wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would probably create a whole new class called "thinking 101" or something. It should teach: -numeracy: how much is 1 million/1 billion/1 trillion, etc. -common cognitive biases. -logical fallacies. -basic science. -basic coding. -De Bono's 6 thinking hats. -how the brain works. -meditation (ie not thinking). -how to learn stuff faster and better. -how to remember stuff: memory palace and the like. -etc I could thi…

I'd definitely be interested in reading the full list :) Any more suggestions?

It depends on what you are interested in. Thinking better in general?

Re: Coding - the new Latin

#70

Post by itmag »

tikhonj wrote: post #3

I think it's a great analogy--there is little like programming for opening your mind up in certain ways. Big ideas from computer science--more than those from any other single subject--have changed they way I see the world. Of course, I am highly involved in computer science, so its effect on me is disproportionate. However, I think that everyone would benefit from at least a cursory understanding of the big ideas be…

This. I often get stuck in communication with people because I tend toward abstraction and they toward being more concrete-bound. I often get annoyed with people when they get hung up on stuff which is just irrelevant detail to me. "No, disregard that, it's not important to the general principle here, you see..."

But lately, I am gaining some appreciation for the detail-focused mindset. It's just two ways to look at things.

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