Obama endorses required high school coding classes • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#81

Post by jwwest » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

It may be a flash in the pan, but I'm starting to see the commoditization of programming talent here. Back in 1999/2000 we saw a rash of "learn computer repair and network administration by CD!" companies, accompanied by "certificate mills" pumping out brain dumped-MCSEs by the boatload.

These days we're seeing a similar pattern with mobile development: "learn to program for the iphone! Make lots of money!" and to a lesser extent general computer programming.

The cynical part of me believes it's another sign of a bubble, but it may just be circumstance.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#82

Post by largesse » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

If Obama cares about education, he can start by dismantling the 'No Child Left Behind' apparatus.

It is the most concrete impediment to responsive education I've seen in my lifetime.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#83

Post by blablabla123 » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:01 PM UTC

Given some famous wisdom that approx 50% of the population is not able to code, this doesn't make much sense IMHO.

Tools become better, many people will never need to code to become productive. One tool that allows people to do fancy stuff without coding is Excel. In fact the whole MS Office suite has means to create automatizations that would take a coder a long time to realize from scratch.

On the other hand I would be in favour of mandatory HTML classes. It's a purely descriptive language, used in many fields. (But who knows, that skill might as well become obsolete when MS releases Frontpage 2020 RT.)

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#84

Post by scarecrowbob » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:18 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #78

yoloprocro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude. You claim that "The uninsured rate has actually remained roughly flat at 15%." in response to nhashem's claim that there were fewer uninsured in 1980. But your graph only goes back to 1987!! Geez.

Nhashem is definitely wrong. It is impossible for 80% of Americans to receive something from their employer if 80% of Americans didn't even have an employer. My graph does go back to 1987, because that's when the census started collecting data on health insurance. If nhashem has data he is free to post it. It's up to him to prove his claim, not on me to disprove an unsourced assertion.

" It is impossible for 80% of Americans to receive something from their employer if 80% of Americans didn't even have an employer."

Data aside, that is not a logically true claim: in 1980, I had health insurance... through my mother's employer.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#85

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:19 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #78

yoloprocro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude. You claim that "The uninsured rate has actually remained roughly flat at 15%." in response to nhashem's claim that there were fewer uninsured in 1980. But your graph only goes back to 1987!! Geez.

Nhashem is definitely wrong. It is impossible for 80% of Americans to receive something from their employer if 80% of Americans didn't even have an employer. My graph does go back to 1987, because that's when the census started collecting data on health insurance. If nhashem has data he is free to post it. It's up to him to prove his claim, not on me to disprove an unsourced assertion.

[deleted]

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#86

Post by DGCA » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:45 PM UTC

scarecrowbob wrote: post #84

yummyfajitas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nhashem is definitely wrong. It is impossible for 80% of Americans to receive something from their employer if 80% of Americans didn't even have an employer. My graph does go back to 1987, because that's when the census started collecting data on health insurance. If nhashem has data he is free to post it. It's up to him to prove his claim, not on me to disprove an unsourced assertion.

" It is impossible for 80% of Americans to receive something from their employer if 80% of Americans didn't even have an employer." Data aside, that is not a logically true claim: in 1980, I had health insurance... through my mother's employer.

Don't forget spouses.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#87

Post by randomdata » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:49 PM UTC

DeepDuh wrote: post #57

spc476 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, one must know how a car works in order to drive? I'm really torn on this topic. I'm a programmer, and I can understand how understanding how a computer works can be useful. And if I were to be extreme, I would demand that every programmer should not only learn assembly, but write one non-trival program in it. I mean, it's not hard. Tedious, yes, but not hard. But I'm realistic enough to know that not everyone wil…

Would we require people to know the basics about car mechanics if 90% if out jobs were depending on driving a car and if people had about 50 of them on average? I think yes, Sir.

I wasn't able to find exact numbers, but several sources hinted that the vast majority of the population, in the US at least, do depend on driving a car for work (notably for getting there).

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#88

Post by liquidise » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 4:52 PM UTC

I feel like this would be a shortsighted move. It is my experience that coding takes a certain manner of thinking. This thought process (structured, boolean and logical [formal logic]) does not come naturally to many (most?) people.

In highschool i took my first formal programming course, and despite a very good teacher, the majority of my classmates struggled. I can say i saw similar results in my early college programming.

I love the idea of introducing more people to programming, but from my experience, this would be setting a majority of students up for struggles and failures. The few who would succeed will instead be distracted by the rest.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#89

Post by randomdata » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 5:16 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #75

ryanmolden wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view would be that people that are interested, the most likely to pursue it as a career, don't need a requirement to drive participation. Those forced to do it like they are forced to take are not really likely to learn anything terribly useful, or remember it. They may cram for a test and be able to pop out a half-working FizzBuzz implementation (You're hired!!), but I suspect a year or two down the line anything…

I got into computer programming comparatively late, because it wasn't taught that it was even a thing. I didn't know it was a career option, an academic discipline, anything. Computers were just the thing this boring woman taught us to do spreadsheets on. At home my old C64 was something that could be programmed, sure, but I was under the impression that was basically a toy. If I hadn't had a parent who were at least…

Programming has been taught by the public education system in my jurisdiction going all the way back to my father's time (using punch cards in his day), so maybe I'm biased, but I don't see why programming should be singled out specifically. There are a lot of industries hidden in much the same way that would be equally valuable to learn about.

Re: Obama endorses required high school coding classes

#90

Post by andrewflnr » Fri, Feb 15, 2013, 5:37 PM UTC

spc476 wrote: post #55

danilocampos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't get why "computer skills" should be conflated with learning how to program completely. Speaking as someone who has been on both sides, you do not fully understand how a computer works until you understand how to write code for it in some form. Do they need to know how to write a compiler? Absolutely not. But knowing how to write a script with conditional outcomes is probably a worthwhile exercise. >…

So, one must know how a car works in order to drive? I'm really torn on this topic. I'm a programmer, and I can understand how understanding how a computer works can be useful. And if I were to be extreme, I would demand that every programmer should not only learn assembly, but write one non-trival program in it. I mean, it's not hard. Tedious, yes, but not hard. But I'm realistic enough to know that not everyone wil…

People always bring up cars in these discussions like it's a counter argument, when they're actually a perfect example.

You don't necessarily need to know how a car works to drive one, but if you don't you're completely at the mercy of those who do when something goes wrong. Even when things are going okay, you can only do magic rituals to your car, with no understanding. That's how most people interact with computers. It's a bad thing.

What to teach? The very basics. Some idea of processors, machine code, compilers and interpreters. Skim over computability, Turing completeness, the halting problem. Designing an algorithm to catch edge cases. Conditionals, loops, variables. Strings. I think that's enough to start off with. If they're still interested, set them loose with some real coding classes, or just point them to the Python tutorial.