Coding - the new Latin

Post by dlf » Tue, Nov 29, 2011, 12:18 AM UTC

sethg wrote: post #53

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 agree with your factual statements, but my immediate reaction to “coding is the new Latin” is “does this person mean that coding is a skill which is fairly useless for its own sake, but signals to other people that you have mastered a complicated formal system and therefore deserve admission to the club of the elite?”

Post by pmf » Tue, Nov 29, 2011, 1:19 PM UTC

itmag wrote: post #13

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest way would be to shove computing under the maths curriculum. Teach if with guard statements, and skip for, teach recursion. by the time the kids get to sixth form, have a mathmatical computation course where you teach them to apply their knowledge to a language like haskell that mirrors mathmatical notation quite well.

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…