Jason Bradbury Believes Coding Lessons In Schools Are a Waste of Time (trustedreviews.com) 281
An anonymous reader writes: Famous TV personality Jason Bradbury, who hosts The Gadget Show, believes that the UK government is wasting its time trying to teach kids learn how to code. In a recent interview, he said, 'My kids won't need to code because soon computers will just code for them. I fundamentally disagree with the government initiatives to get my kids coding. It's a complete waste of time. Soon startups will just be run by really creative people -- there won't be a coder with bad social skills stood on the stage. The future will just be about being creative. This is why we need to challenge STEM and introduce an art component and rename it STEAM -- science, technology, engineering, art and maths."
or (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Should... (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop This Everybody Must...stuff
It's not that everybody must, it's that most should.
A lot of people are really unfathomably stupid. And they could increase their intelligence by probably an order of magnitude if they internalized a few important additional mental patterns. One of those is if-then statements.
If A then B. If C then not D. Just the idea of reacting intelligently, of planning ahead a little bit and choosing an action based on what happens, rather than intuiting your way through life.
Of course almost nobody is going to do that all the time, and that's good because habits and ignorance save a lot of time and can make life much more practical. But people should have the chance to learn.
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Stop This Everybody Must...stuff
It's not that everybody must, it's that most should.
A lot of people are really unfathomably stupid. And they could increase their intelligence by probably an order of magnitude if they internalized a few important additional mental patterns. One of those is if-then statements.
If A then B. If C then not D. Just the idea of reacting intelligently, of planning ahead a little bit and choosing an action based on what happens, rather than intuiting your way through life.
Of course almost nobody is going to do that all the time, and that's good because habits and ignorance save a lot of time and can make life much more practical. But people should have the chance to learn.
Whether you say "must" or "should" doesn't matter. Most either "must not" or "should not."
The problem, as I see it, is that people who are themselves not enormously computer-literate are imagining what would make them so, and then foisting it upon others. There's a lot of things that should be taught about computer science: basic communications, architecture from a high level (database, application server, web server, browser), and the parts of a computer. This is analogous to how in driver's ed we learn
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But teaching to code is like that driver's ed class teaching metallurgy or weight engineering; just as neither of those skills are necessary for a driver, learning to code has no real benefit to the average computer user.
Most STEM stuff I see (in grade school at least ) is more about teaching kids to think and how the world works than teaching them to code. They use stuff like snap circuits, lego mindstorm, littlebits, scratch, and tinkercad. In lego mindstorm, it's less about programming and more about solving how to use a few simple instructions and a few simple legos to accomplish a simple task. With snap circuits and littlebits, it's about explaining what makes the modern world tick and again, solving simple problems
Re:or (Score:4, Interesting)
I especially disagree with his opinion about art. I could see a practical art, maybe, but most of the art scene in big cities sucks. I have had a lot of exposure to it because my sister is really into it (and is one of said artists.) I have attended the shows and other stuff she hosts, and am around lots of other artists that come to these things, and one thing I've observed is that basically nobody comes to these artsy events/shows unless they themselves are an artist, and even then they're mostly just there to support their fellow artists. While the later is applaudable I guess, I can't help but observe that this business model just doesn't work very well, and explains why most of them are poor.
Before I say what comes next, I need to draw an analogy. Presently most lawyers are grossly underemployed, and there's a simple reason for this: There's an economic need for about 7,000 new lawyers per year, yet our universities are pumping out 40,000 new lawyers per year.
Under the same vein, and while I don't have any numbers to show, I suspect that universities are also pushing out too many new arts (and liberal arts) graduates per year. That is, we have more professional artists than there's an actual demand for. Another thing I've observed is that if you aren't very obviously talented early on in life, then a college probably isn't going to change that. Thus I think adding "arts" in the same vein as STEM careers is probably not a good idea.
As for his prediction of the future, let's wait and see what exactly AI can code before we start asking a lot of new college graduates (presumably with their big student loans) to become the founders of new tech startups and go even further into debt.
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If only there was a way to increase the number of lawyers needed. Sounds like maybe something the government could help with, they're all lawyers.
Re: or (Score:3)
Because most "artists" are just talent-less weirdos who want to be applauded for being weird rather than talented.
Sadly, there's truth to this.
And out back of the STEAM building (Score:5, Funny)
Are a bunch of disaffected youths, wearing disheveled 2nd hand clothes, razor hair cuts, smoking their hacked e-cigs, putting safety pins in their leather jacket lapels.. standing around.. looking like a bunch of punks.. a bunch of STEAM punks.
Teach Problem Solving (Score:5, Insightful)
Using coding, however, as a broader set of methodologies to teaching problem solving and how you break it down and arrive at a solution IS a good thing. This will prepare our kids for the future no matter what it brings as they will then know how to approach a problem and solve it. That is what I find lacking in the newer grads I work with today.
There are many tools, techniques, and ways to make that fun and interesting for children and I wish we would change the focus to address that and stop focusing on just coding. A programmer without problem solving abilities is like a writer with perfect grammar, but nothing to say.
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I tend to agree - file this under "too little, too late"
By the time these kids grow up and enter the job market, the practical aspect of what they are being taught today will likely be obsolete.
Public education simply can't keep pace with the rate at which technology advances and changes.
I'm even more worried about the effect that _FORCING_ computer science on kids in schools will have on their choice to enter the field.
Ex: I reside in Canada where I was forced to take French from grades 4-9
To this day I do
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Figuring out how to do multiple test-cases and to do particular math operations based on those test cases is a programming-style task. Coming up with =IF(ISBLANK($C6),IF(ISBLANK($C5),"",IF(ISBLANK
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Figuring out how to do multiple test-cases and to do particular math operations based on those test cases is a programming-style task. Coming up with =IF(ISBLANK($C6),IF(ISBLANK($C5),"",IF(ISBLANK($C6),SUMIFS(E$4:E$44,$A$4:$A$44,$A5))),((INDEX($Equip.D$4:D$100,MATCH($C6,$Equip.$C$4:$C$100,0)))*$B6)) without some programming ability would be much more difficult.
So what you're really pointing out is that primary school computer programming classes need only consist of one lesson:
"Don't freakin' use Excel ever ever EVER to do anything with numbers!"
What you wrote there would take about half the character count in R or Matlab, and you'd only have to write (and proofread) it once, not 10thousand times in 10thousand different cells.
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Except, some of us will never get permission to use R or Matlab in a work environment... And the customer surely would not want to pay for it on their server or client computers.
I hate it, with a passion... but I have frequently seen programs built in C# as stand-alone executables with a config file converted into VBA in an Excel sheet so that it can run on client machines without that scary install called ".NET framework".
Writing a program for turning a rs232 sniffer-file into human readable text is annoyi
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a writer with perfect grammar, but nothing to say
Otherwise known as Grammar Nazis in middle school. Needless to say, I learned neither English nor grammar from them. I had wonderful college instructor who didn't upbraid me for explaining that a particular grammar example "felt right" because I didn't know and couldn't explain the rulebook definition.
teach lots of things (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not only that, we need to stop thinking of school as a place to learn job skills. Until college school needs to be about exposing kids to all kinds of information so they can discover what drives their passions and move into a career driven field of study. Kids have to learn all sorts of 'useless' things in school for that very reason. How many high school kids will ever use calc or physics in their careers? That said without those classes the people who do need those skills would have never discovered a pa
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Until college school needs to be about [...]
You're wrong. For a college (of quality), its about basic preparation of candidates for a career in academia. What is the point in correcting what primary education should be, and not realize your perception of secondary eduction is just as flawed.
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I think you misinterpret my intent. While college is still about general education and preparation it typically has a much more narrow field of study focused on a career path. For example while working towards a MIS degree the majority of my studies were focused on the purpose of the major. This major was selected because my primary career goal was a technology job.
Prior to this selection of focus education needs to be about a wide variety of experience to allow a student to have the chance to truly know wh
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Real world problem solving is important, especially as a way to motivate learning. I often illustrate factorisation (and distributivity) with a shopping example:
You want cornflakes for breakfast. So, each day you:
1) Go to the shop
2) Buy milk
3) Go home again
4) Go to the shop
5) Buy cornflakes
6) Go home again
7) Go to the shop
8) Buy sugar
9) Go home again
10) Eat cornflakes
I then point out that nobody would do this, one sensible improvement being:
1) Go to the shop
2) Buy milk, sugar and cornflakes (in one transact
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There is no skill that is safe from AI.
There is not much point in worrying about what we may see that's beyond our (conceptual) horizon. The point is to maximize your child's cognitive skills, not train them to be optimal wage slaves in an economy that may not exist in twenty years.
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The best teacher should be the parents. I guess your kid is doomed.
but wishing I had stayed on a computer science path.
You're mistaken about what you think a grunt level position in the STEM field offers. No point in regrets about something you're mistaken about anyway.
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Most people won't make it as a software developer without at least a few classes in certain fundamentals: pointers, recursion, functional programming, and some understanding of what code compiles into (assembler, call stacks, memory addresses, etc). Most people find some of that easy, and some of it they just won't really understand without help. Each of those may come up rarely on the job, depending on the job, but they do come up and you're pretty screwed if you've never crossed those bridges.
Learning t
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The best programming teacher I ever had was in middle school. He was actually trained in math. His answer to almost every question I asked was a physical description of the location of the book or manual that might have the answer; and since the school only had a few computer books, often he referred me to the city's public library.
The thing a lot of people just don't manage to get their heads around is that there is too much ongoing knowledge collection that is required for education to matter. You have to
I've heard this before... (Score:5, Funny)
My kids won't need to code because soon computers will just code for them.
The 1980's called and want their software back.
Re:I've heard this before... (Score:5, Insightful)
20 years ago my computer science prof used this to explain why I should stay for my PhD rather than get a job doing real work (which at the time, was paying really, really well). If anything there is less effort in AI now than there was then, I've seen no attempts at self-programming computers yet, just languages with higher and higher levels of abstraction that take care of some messy details for you (with extreme limitations).
Meanwhile, I'm not sure why "creative people" is mutually exclusive with STEM, you don't need the 'A' to be creative. I associate the 'A' with technical skills in the fine arts, performing arts or academic skills in art history, literature, anthropology, etc.. You can be incredibly uncreative in any of those fields too (and still be successful), but have an excellent grasp of the skills. See the story about the Chinese village dedicated to copying artwork: high artistic skill, 0 creativity. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2375270/Dafen-Oil-Painting-Village-thousands-artists-recreate-paintings-sale-overseas.html, although there was one yesterday I can't find as well).
Creativity is orthogonal to the canvas you choose to work with. Coding skills however are very likely to enable you in any chosen profession, even if you do not do it professionally. I cannot count how many times in life some very simple thing did not exist because "we don't have a coder free". Sometimes that thing was just sending out an email periodically, or pulling stuff from a db into a spreadsheet in a particular way. There's no reason why everyone can't do things like that for themselves, except the lack of training and the belief that it is somehow hard.
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20 years ago my computer science prof used this to explain why I should stay for my PhD rather than get a job doing real work (which at the time, was paying really, really well).
My college computer instructor in the early 1990's told the class that 4GB RAM was all anyone needed in the future. Back then, 4MB RAM was a big deal. For the most part, he was correct. My current gaming PC had 4GB RAM since 2007. I'll probably go with 16GB or 32GB in the next rebuild.
I associate the 'A' with technical skills in the fine arts, performing arts or academic skills in art history, literature, anthropology, etc.
These days it better to be a 'C' (corporate) person who hires 'B' people for management and 'A' people for engineering. You want to own the corporate ladder rather than be owned by the corporate ladder.
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And it depends on the type of problems you are trying to solve, Any embedded control not requiring vision, you are safe under 1GHz. Simulation (of which games are a class of) can use as much as you have. The rule of thumb that we learned in EE computer design class was 1B ~= 1Hz.
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I've seen no attempts at self-programming computers yet,
I was thinking other day whenever I see someone doing ***real*** programming, they are writing text just like was done in 1980s. The difference is they are using a keyboard that is lower profile and the screen is flat. Other than that it's straight text. Last week I talked with this guy banging out code in text on his linux laptop, it must have been because it had a penguin sticker (also an EFF sticker), I asked why is coding still done in text (I kind knew this already). He said GUIs are dynamic, when wri
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Yip, we'll probably see flying cars before self-programming computers or practical DIY coding.
I've worked with roll-your-own code from those who master spreadsheet macros/scripting enough to automate their stuff BUT have no experience with maintenance issues, and maintenance is the biggest cost of software, not creation. Their code is messy and poorly factored. They move on and leave us holding their pasta bag.
It may be okay for automating your own personal tasks, but any larger-scale data sharing should in
Compilers and "High level" languages (Score:5, Funny)
"My kids won't need to code because soon computers will just code for them"
Computers already do this. You used to have to code by manually entering the 1s and 0s but now there are things called compilers which actually do the coding for you. All you have to do is write some simple instructions saying what you want the computer to do and the compiler does the coding for you.
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You're making a joke, but this is going to be the future, at some point in this century.
Creative people are overrated (Score:3, Insightful)
Creative people are overrated. It takes sober, well trained engineers to produce safe, reliable, electromechanical products, drugs, chemicals, etc. Try telling an FDA or FAA auditor that they "just don't get it."
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What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
AI writing code for us? What could possibly go wrong?
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
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AI writing code for us? What could possibly go wrong?
Bloated code like the old HTML editors used to produce in late 1990's. My first job as a Software QA tester was to fix the HTML code that Dreamweaver produced when the picture perfect table goes FUBAR and the web designer had a hissy-fit. I still prefer using a text editor for HTML code.
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And you stayed in the business rather than becoming a tour guide or a plumber? I'd have bitten my fingers off.
I did it once[1], for an hour, on a training course. That was back when most HTML was written by hand (and I can see why).
Kudos for your staying power.
[1] Hand cleaning HTML, not cannibalism.
Fool. Code has been written by computers for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who has written assembler knows that modern static analysis and optimising compilers will write far better code than the average assembler programmer; most chips expect hinting and other flags which are not really part of a human activity. Everything else is just assist.
So the creativity element of programming is still very human driven. It will be for a long, long time. But the mechanics of software programming has become increasingly invisible to the programmer.
As another person says (as if it wasn't just a cheap media-whoring attention-grab) - what a twat.
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Anyone who has written assembler knows that modern static analysis and optimising compilers will write far better code than the average assembler programmer, most chips expect hinting and other flags which are not really part of a human activity.
Lol... "hinting and other flags" is proof that you are talking straight out your ass right now. You clearly dont know anything about assembler for either x86 or ARM.
What you did was take a bit of buzz-like words and put them into a sentence. Sure, the x86 has a flags register, but what the hell are YOU talking about? The x86 also has some hinting instructions, which have been ignored by the CPU for about 6 generations of chips now, so what the hell are YOU talking about?
How come its always someone like
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The term "flag" in English has the generic definition of an artifact placed specifically as an indicator to modify the procedural strategy in process. Literal flags mark hazards and approved paths; conceptual flags include highlights and emphasis in text, markers on e-mails which need revisiting, compiler hints (e.g. likely() unlikely()), and CPU instruction code hints (branch prediction hints, prefetch/non-prefetch instructions, and so forth).
Modern branch predictors are highly complex; compilers rely
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Actually no. You are right though - I've never coded assembler on either x86 or ARM. However, I have coded for Z80, 68000, PowerPC 601, PIC, and AMTEL chips.
I was referring primarily to branch-prediction and other instruction hints. They were pretty modern by the time I left commercial assembler coding. But I'm not too surprised if they are no longer used. I'm just older than you. That's all.
However, and this was my point regardless of your flame, you would be a total fool to attempt to write a modern op
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Actually, I probably could explain that to you. But I won't, because I really only write comments for the reason that my sig. says. Have an ostre egg on me though.
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I totally agree - I used to be part of a demo group and we could make speed-ups which were serious. Lots of it using our domain knowledge - knowing what implicit boundaries are to be expected on a data-set often means we could reduce tons of cpu work to a few LUTs and work magic from them instead.
But I wouldn't write an OS (or even a standard commercial shrink-wrap application) that way, and you know it :-D
'Creative' people? (Score:2)
Most 'creative' people, just found an excuse for smoking pot all day and doing nothing.
Which isn't to say that 'creative' isn't a real thing. Just that those who use the term to self describe are fucking useless.
Coding is supposed to go away every 10 years or so, I was first aware of it 3 cycles ago. Coding tools are generally getting better, than there is Javascript.
The problem is analyzing a problem isn't the kind of thing most creative people are any good at. Once you understand the problem the co
Jason Bradbury (Score:5, Insightful)
Who?
Oh that cock who has no idea how to sell or test gadgets and hosts a program where they show them on a screen for a fraction of a second without showing you anything useful or discussing a single down-side?
And who - it appears - has no actual qualifications (besides a pilot licence) listed anywhere that would suggest anything "gadgety" in his background?
Sorry, but he's an author / TV presenter. I've yet to see any qualification beyond that that gives him any say in education or coding at all.
And the number of times I've cringed at things he's said/done on that program, I couldn't count. Last time I saw it, he was screaming like a little girl because some $2000 remote control car he was controlling nearly spun out of control because he "forgot to steer".
Don't even get me started on the crap they recommend on that show. It's basically a 30-minute advert for 50 products and then a "competition" at the end to win them all.
Re:Jason Bradbury (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh:
http://www.independent.co.uk/n... [independent.co.uk]
He's probably never written a line of code in his life.
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Yeah, and an author of what - kids' stories.
We might as well ask J.K.Rowling for her opinions on UI design.
Lots of lessons are a waste of time (Score:2)
Why should coding lessons be any different? When you try to teach everyone a broad but shallow set of knowledge, it's a good way to maximize the total amount of wasted time.
want kids to learn the basics first (Score:2)
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I do not know about you, but one of my main grumps while in school was the dry non-interactive way everything was taught.
Doing something where you use what you've learned in other classes to have something 'do' something was fun for me at least.
Middle-school in Norway has "Technology and Design" as a class. One thing they did was design a miniature house (think doll-house sized open-sided) where they built furniture and various 'innards'. As part of this design process they put in electric wiring and switch
Correct statement, wrong reasonig (Score:5, Insightful)
He's right that teaching every kid coding is a waste of time. Not because coders will become obsolete (who will write the code that writes code for everyone else?), but because not everyone has interest in or the proclivity for coding.
Governments didn't scramble to teach every kid electronics from 1930-1970, nor did they scramble to teach every kid auto mechanics from 1950-1980. Education programs have enough trouble teaching kids math and critical thinking, how the hell are they going to wrap their heads around programming?
By his logic, kids shouldn't be taught anything because soon enough technology will do everything for them.
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Teaching game programming is a fun way to learn math and critical thinking.
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Re:Correct statement, wrong reasoning (Score:3)
He's right that teaching every kid coding is a waste of time. Not because coders will become obsolete (who will write the code that writes code for everyone else?), but because not everyone has interest in or the proclivity for coding.
Actually, I simultaneously agree and disagree with this statement. In the sense that teaching kids to code in say, Javascript as a job skill, I agree wholeheartedly.
In the sense that learning to code teaches a bunch of other important skills I disagree. Learning to code is an excellent way to learn general problem-solving skills, and also how to coherently communicate complex ideas.
Although probably the most important life skill that can be taught by learning to code is that all programs have bugs. And t
Make a Real 4GL Environment Work First (Score:2)
Teaching Watson to code my OS/2 clone (Score:2)
Consumer with no idea (Score:2)
why a new buzzword? (Score:2)
This is the third time I've heard about STEAM in the last two days. Why a new buzzword?
Once we add "arts" shouldn't we just call it "education"?
Are we in such strange times that a standard, well-rounded education is now "innovated"?
Jesus wept.
How does he know? (Score:3)
>> "Bradbury went on to describe the SAM Labs system as âoea perfect example of this prediction that coding will not exist in the future."
>> "I bought a big box of SAM Labs kit. My kids can come in here and decide to make a device where if my son squeezes his teddy he will send me a tweet to say, 'I love you.' Or if you walk through a laser tripwire it will set off an alarm. It interacts with actual hardware, actual code and all it requires is a squeeze, a drag-and-drop and a little imagination."
So that's how we will all be coding the complex software that controls our aircraft and nuclear power plants in the future.
"The reactor is going into meltdown"
"Quick, squeeze the teddy bear and imagine it not killing us all!"
He thinks everyone should get Liberal Arts degrees (Score:2)
Incorrect reasons (Score:2)
Although I do agree that there is way too much of a push lately to have everybody code, not everybody needs to understand everything about code. They should be exposed to logic and technology and some code but they need to know the more basic stuff. However the idea that AI is going to put together code for us is ludicrous at least for the foreseeable future (give it 50-100y or so)
At some point the people that know the 'basics' like how to bootstrap your computer to boot the OS to run the application to do
computers will just code for them (Score:5, Insightful)
My kids won't need to code because soon computers will just code for them
Coding is how you communicate with a machine in order to tell it what you want it to do. Even if we one day have a computer doing what is today thought of as coding, you still need to tell the computer what you want it to do, and *that* will be what coding is.
There was a time when people would code in actual machine language, and then we invented assemblers which did that for us. We then coded in assembly language until we invented compilers which did the assembly code for us. Now we code in "high level" programming languages. Maybe we will go up a few more levels, and computers will do more of the work for us. It doesn't mean we won't code anymore. It means we will be more productive and there will be even more benefit to knowing how to communicate with these magical machines that are willing to work for free.
Turd logic (Score:2)
My very very favorite part FTA
I bought a big box of SAM Labs kit. My kids can come in here and decide to make a device where if my son squeezes his teddy he will send me a tweet to say, ‘I love you.’ Or if you walk through a laser tripwire it will set off an alarm. It interacts with actual hardware, actual code and all it requires is a squeeze, a drag-and-drop and a little imagin
Until something goes wrong (Score:2)
I respectfully Disagree... (Score:2)
...while most kids who learn coding in school don't actually learn the higher level arts (e.g., system design; writing comprehensive--and comprehensible--specifications, etc.), they will gain an understanding of the sequential nature of today's software models, how much they can accomplish with just a few verbs and parameters, and the limitations/dangers of leaving things unspecified. In that way, they gain a deeper understanding of what we who program actually do, the limitations the technology imposes, a
Flamebait (Score:2)
"...soon computers will just code for them"
No they won't. Has this guy even looked at the trashfire that is most code? He's using the South Park profit logic here and just spewing nonsense.
Kids do need to learn programming logic. They also need math and arts.
Why should eveyone be forced (Score:2)
into programming. I'd rather had my kids learn mechanics, home ec, farming and survival skills than be forced into learning how to program.
Focus on "coding" is misguided (Score:2)
''My kids won't need to code.." (Score:2)
My kids won't need to code because soon computers will just code for them
My kids won't need to know how to do {insert skill here} because soon computers will just do it for them
My kids won't need to learn {insert knowledge here} because soon computers will know everything
This is one of the stupidest frames of mind I could possibly imagine, and it's also one of the most dangerous trends I've been seeing lately. 'Convenience' is all well and good, but am I the only person looking forward far enough into the future to see that this kind of thinking will lead to a dystopian future like in the movie Idiocracy, where nobody knows how anything works anymore, or knows how to do anything themselves, so everything just starts falling apart, and being dumb is the rule rather than the
government mandated curricula (Score:2)
Coding *is* creative (Score:2)
Coding, at least if you include the full range of what software developers do, is a very creative profession. Yes, it also has elements of extreme detail orientation which some people think is not consistent with creativity... but have you ever talked to an artist about the details of their work? They obsess to a degree that makes my eyes glaze over, probably much the way they'd glaze if I went on about the criticality of code organization and naming.
Same mistake (Score:2)
In the 90s I earned good money "coding HTML" (yes people really called it that) to build crappy brochureware websites. This basically doesn't exist anymore. It's automated by well designed WYSIWYG editors generating the HTML "code" for you, or programming frameworks generating the html for you.
I don't know if we ever get to drag and drop utopia of software development, but there is no doubt that things are advancing rapidly.
The software development shortage will not be solved by a greater number of costly d
General IT education because coding too narrow (Score:2)
I do agree that programming is too specific an IT topic for lower grades. Naive office workers are a bigger drain on the economy than (alleged) lack of coding education, and a general IT course(s) would be a better use of time and resources in pre-college education.
For example, many office workers often don't understand basics like the difference between clients and servers; and trade-offs associated with relationships, such as one-to-many, many-to-many, etc. Managers often ask for stupid crap because they
He's right... (Score:2)
There's no point learning to code until PHP 6 is released.
Ah STEAM (Score:2)
So, everything. Oh wait, that's what everything is. So coding would be the non-art part of steam. Dumb statement.
That said, no, coding should not be a part of school curriculum. It's a job today. That's why I started learning 30 years ago. It won't be anything special twenty years from now -- just another blue-collar job, like brick-laying.
Also, coding is one of those all-application kind of things. There's nothing academic to learn, it's al practicum. Teach logic, sure. Teach technical writing. Te
Wanna Promote Coding Among Kids? BAN IT! (Score:2)
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To a lot of people it seems like learning religion dictating the rules of the imaginary "friend" $DIETY is a lot more important than learning useful stuff.
Re:What a twat (Score:4, Informative)
Don't worry, the Morlocks will take care of it for them... and they barely eat any of the Eloi at all.
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Why even look at it from the "promotion" point of view? In this economy, advancement can come by maximizing your free agent potential. Why "hope" that you are unique and valuable enough to be "kept" at your job, and that you'll achieve riches and advancement staying at the same company because loyalty is "valued"?
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From what I've seen, management is not a great way to get ahead in engineering companies. Lower-level managers are not paid any more than engineers, and they usually have more work to do, such as spending a bunch of time in meetings. If you're good at the political stuff, you can work your way up to higher-level management, where you really do get paid more.
The problem with management is that the skills aren't very transferrable. If you're a good programmer, you can get a job lots of places, because the
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Damn. Kudos for the sig.
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The only rationale behind the "everybody needs to learn to code" is to further lower wages and that's why nobody in their right mind would touch programming with a barge pole.
Welcome to the aerospace industry in the early 1980's. Except automation is going to hit all areas of employment in twenty years. It makes as much sense to avoid programming as it does advanced math; "you'll never use it...". And yet, perhaps, listening to the knee jerk isn't the smartest move after all.
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While the term STEM is overused and abused, the whole point of lumping Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics together is that they have a huge amount of overlap, or similar kinds of thought processes and mindsets are necessary to successfully pursue careers in fields that apply to the label. Arts, by contrast, does not generally apply in the same way. There are some applications for STEM to the Arts, but generally that's either in-support-of or
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Stop trying to lump things together that do not need to be lumped together. It dilutes all of it to the point of mediocrity.
This isn't surprising. Some states are calling for more funding of STEM and less funding of the humanities. If the degree doesn't lead to a high-paying job, it shouldn't be funded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/business/a-rising-call-to-promote-stem-education-and-cut-liberal-arts-funding.html [nytimes.com]
Re:BwaHaHaHaHa. Haha. Giggle. Oh my. (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be what happens when you let people who know nothing about an industry decide how we should educate students who will work in that industry.
First, we don't need to double the number of STEM majors. There aren't jobs for them.
Second, even if you get past that, what they're missing is that having a major in those other subjects means that you have faculty who can teach classes in those areas. If you stop funding the French major, you aren't going to have more than the first year of French, and eventually you won't even have that. So how will students in STEM majors take French?
The reality is that almost nobody wants programmers who just know how to code. Software engineers need knowledge of other subjects so that they have a better understanding of the real world. Those outside interests are a big part of what drives innovation—new ideas from people with different perspectives arising out of different experiences. The more you cut education for non-STEM majors, the more you end up with a monoculture—people who have exactly the same perspective, and who do things the same way they have always been done, solely because that's the way they've always done it. The only possible end result is an America that cannot compete in the global market, that can only be a mindless producer of works designed by people in other countries.
College is not supposed to be a trade school. It is supposed to prepare you for the real world. If you want a trade school, go to a trade school. If you want to be a well-rounded STEM major who won't be stuck competing with foreign programmers for low-end jobs until the day you die, go to a college and take as many classes beyond the STEM curriculum as you possibly can.
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College is not supposed to be a trade school. It is supposed to prepare you for the real world. If you want a trade school, go to a trade school.
Every high school is sending kids straight into college (or prison in poorer areas). None are telling kids that trade school is an option. The US is facing a shortage of skilled trades people like plumbers, electricians and carpenters.
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Just change the E to Elementary School Teaching. Boom, no girls in STEM problem solved.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
And here I thought I could make a career being a software engineer.
You haven't been reading the ads lately, then. The vast majority of positions advertised heavily emphasize HTML, CSS and JavaScript or similar front-end stuff. Back-end? Not so much. Not good for those of us who are wizards with algorithms and lousy graphics artists. But as long as you do it pretty and do it fast, and do it cheap, that's all that counts, right?
'Cause with any luck you'll have executed your exit strategy before the security exploits get announced on the news.
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Well, somebody has to write the code that talks to the database and presents REST / SOAP interfaces for all those HTML / CSS / JavaScript web coders to consume... THAT sure isn't writing itself.
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I already have the code generators; all the different features that the idiots want are just checkboxes or radio buttons.
Does a new web whatthewhat cost $3000, $5000, $9000, $14000, $35000, or $65000? Yes!
If you pay $35k for a new dynamic web application, I could have done it for $3000. But I wouldn't give out a telephone contact, it would prepaid and email-only. ;)
So even here where all the code is written by humans, the only reason that automation doesn't replace 99% of the work is that the people who nee
He's an "Ideas Man" (Score:3)
hire people to write a bunch of new bugs on top of the framework that does the actual work.
That made me lol. It holds true all the way from Excel power users to the EEs who design the chip circuits. There's a kind of recursive irony in the fact that the EE cannot design a modern cpu without the aid
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Well, if you were a competent software engineer, you would have realized this a few years ago. While I have nothing but compassion for the medical profession and software engineers who entered the industry in the last decade, the writing is on the wall now. Todays kids need to be raised to be champion entrepreneurs, utterly able to deal with uncertain, near future job trends. Or be good at not getting caught, in a Mad Max dystopia.
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>
Jason, if you really believe the drivel you spout, then you should prepare your kids for a life of burger flipping, 'cos that'll be the only thing left that computers can't do cheaper.
I think this guy is completely right about not need to teach everyone coding, and completely wrong about computers writing all the code.
However, the fact that his kids might be burger flippers or not is irrelevant. His kids and everyone else's might well become burger flippers in the future. The fact that there is an undesirable future if what he suggests comes to pass doesn't mean that such a future is impossible. There are already whole job descriptions in almost every industry where humans are no long
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that way you can try to analyse why the machine you're working on is failing...
And learning the techniques for that skill which will be obsolete and irrelevant when AI is catching all that stuff. Its the same reason I don't bother with including archaic reference counting while debugging a C program. While I agree that programming develops a useful mental skill in resolving computer-like problems, not all problems are computer like. There's no point in making everyone learn to churn their own butter.