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Programming

Amazon and Code.org Tap Lil Nas X and Katy Perry To Teach Children To Code 80

Posted by msmash from the whatever-floats-your-boat dept.
theodp writes: To help Prince Charles quickly learn the Welsh Language, viewers of The Crown learned this week, Labour prime minster Harold Wilson engaged Welsh nationalist Dr. Edward "Tedi" Millward as his reluctant tutor. To help U.S. children quickly learn to code, readers of Medium learned this week, Code.org and Amazon have engaged Lil Nas X and Katy Perry to be their Hour of Code tutors this December (guess the pair aced their interview with Jeff Bezos!). Last year's signature Hour of Code tutorial Dance Party , Code.org explains, has been given a facelift -- "New backgrounds and foregrounds!" "New songs!" "A brand new character!" -- to yield this year's signature Hour of Code tutorial, Dance Party (2019 Remix) . Separately, the AWS Public Sector Blog Team just announced it's teamed up with the MIT Media Lab on a Scratch-based Hour of Code activity to introduce AWS cloud computing technologies to kids 7 and up. AWS Educate also recently announced it's out to connect the K12 crowd to AWS cloud services, offering free capped AWS Educate Starter Accounts as well as look-Ma-no-limit credit-card backed regular AWS accounts to the 570,000+ students and 300,000+ volunteers participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge.
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Amazon and Code.org Tap Lil Nas X and Katy Perry To Teach Children To Code More

Amazon and Code.org Tap Lil Nas X and Katy Perry To Teach Children To Code

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:16PM (#59436948)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Well her exam showed she got a DD

    • I heard they were both up for the Turing Award this year!

    • Hey they killed two birds with one stone, hiring a gay black guy.

    • You're being very tolerant and inclusive of women and minorities there. Why is it you people never have to follow your own standards?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      To be fair we have been enlisting literal muppets and various entertainers to teach children stuff forever. As long as the material is prepared by experts there is no harm in making it interesting and fun for kids.

    • Maybe we can use it to point out that you don't need to know O(n) notation or have a full CS degree to write something to make your life a bit easier or that interests you. The gatekeeping on this thread is sad.

      You don't need to know about class instantiation or variable dereferencing to write some code. The kids coming up with some insane Minercraft mods likely don't know all that either but are already on a path.

      JFC, what is with eveyone in this thread's thinking that there is only *one* way to code or *o

    • Lil Nas X --the guy...

      Huh...and I thought that was the name of the tenth iteration of a little network-attached storage device.

  • I wrote some code... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ItsJustAPseudonym ( 1259172 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:17PM (#59436952)
    ...and I think I liked it.

    • California Code, it's unforgettable
      BSD, Java's on top
      C++, so hot, we'll melt your Processors
      Oooh oh oooh

  • Amazon and Code.org Tap Lil Nas X and Katy Perry To Teach Children To Code

    Not sure if this is how i'd start out an article, but i'll bite.

  • Crucially neither codes for a living (Score:3)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:22PM (#59436966) Homepage

    Crucially neither codes for a living. So the more rationally minded kids will conclude they want to become vapid, dead-eyed celebs instead.

  • Isn't this kind of misleading? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:31PM (#59437002)

    So we have a problem with people dropping out of CS courses already.

    It sure seems like trying to glamorize coding with popular stars is going to backfire, by making the whole affair seem way more glamorous and fun than it is.

    In fact if there were any celebrity I could imagine being an actual fit for learning to code with, it would either be Sam Kinison or Gordon Ramsay screaming at you about how you fucked up every time the compiler corrected you. That would better approximate the psychic toll that prolonged programming yields, once you can shrug that off that you can find the true joy in programming from pushing through failure to success.

    Sure Kinison is dead but there's no reason you can't bring back a generated personality with his voice for Hour of Code.

    • Re:Isn't this kind of misleading? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timholman ( 71886 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:54PM (#59437086)

      That would better approximate the psychic toll that prolonged programming yields, once you can shrug that off that you can find the true joy in programming from pushing through failure to success.

      I don't waste an instant worrying about these "turn kids into coders" initiatives, because I believe they will have zero effect in the long run.

      Coding is hard work ... very hard work. The only kids who will stick with it will be the ones who would have pursued it anyway. The rest will quickly get bored, drop out, and decide that they'll do something else with their lives ... like maybe become a famous entertainer. Best of luck, kids.

      You can't take something as fundamentally challenging as programming and turn it into a "fun" activity with any real depth, any more than you can make mathematics "fun". Eventually the infotainment runs out, and the real work begins. And that is where you separate those with true talent and interest, and those without. I don't see the overall percentage of dedicated coders in the human population fundamentally changing in developed countries in the coming years.

      • Coding isn't hard work. Try being a roofer in July.

        • A large reason why I have been pretty successful in coding, is that as a teen I spent time doing maintenance work/mowing for a high end golf course...

          Coding isn't hard work. Try being a roofer in July.

          Anyone who has to do any physical outdoor work knows what REAL hard work is like.

          Coding is nothing by comparison. It's just that lots of people I think cannot reach the point where they can be productive at it, so it's sort of "hard" from that standpoint, but not HARD hard.

          • We don't all have the mental capacity or even drive to become coders. Hard work can be done by anyone, but coders not so much.

            • Anyone can code. It isn't that difficult. Most people don't want to.

              • Re:Well that is a good point... (Score:5, Insightful)

                by LordWabbit2 ( 2440804 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @11:25PM (#59437932)
                Anyone can write crap code.
                FTFY
                Just because we can teach people to code (and some would need to be forced at gunpoint and the threat of death) they will make shitty programmers.
                Just like we can get everyone to ride a horse (and I would need the gun for that, I hate horses) they are going to make shitty jockeys.
                What I hate about this "hour of code" crap is that you get people trivialising actual professional coders.
                "I can code, I'mz a coderz, I learnt in an hour, I just don't want to do it for a living, so I will became a business analyst instead and try tell programmers how to code."

              • Code Blue. Code Blue.

                Everyone can code. Everyone does eventually.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Honestly if you find coding to be "very hard work" you are doing it wrong.

        Coding is the easy part, especially when using modern languages. Kids can master it just like they can master basic English grammar and maths.

        The idea is to give them those basic skills so that they can understand the power of coding and so some of them will want to take it further into software engineering and CS.

        • Knowing the basics doesn't give you the ability to write a coherent story or program. It doesn't even give you the tools to analyze a story. It's just the prerequisite you need to understand a story arc or character development. The semi literate will read a great novel and find nothing of value. There's a difference between reading and understanding.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 605dave ( 722736 )

        I completely agree with you, but perhaps instead of hard work we could phrase it as difficult work. Coding takes patience and focus, two things not in big supply these days. It also takes a brain tuned towards math and that kind of thinking, and not everyone is tuned that way (thank goodness).

        So I agree these are terrible choices for an introduction to coding. Coding ain't glamorous, it ain't easy, and it takes long term thinking. The kids that are going to succeed are going to be the ones that seek out the

      • You can't take something as fundamentally challenging as programming and turn it into a "fun" activity with any real depth,

        You absolutely can. By showing them how coding is a tool, like any other tool, to help them in what does interest them. Music has coding in it. I would trust someone that had a music theory degree that learned to code over trying to teach a cliche'd CS coder music.

        My 4 y/o has been swinging a hammer since he was 2. Yeah, it's just to pound nails in or 'help' me make tiny birdhouses or something. Yet the carpenters of the world don't seem to be on the train to shit on that as "not real building". Why does CS

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Teaching coding is an odd thing. The underlying reality those young adults good at learning code, will have been children who sought to learn how to code and taught themselves via various resources, this because they enjoyed the puzzle, assembling those coding puzzles. Those children who did not seek to learn how to code, did so because they dislike it, it forces their brain to operate in ways they find intensely difficult and as such uncomfortable ways.

      Trying to force this will simply force a lot of young

    • So we have a problem with people dropping out of CS courses already.

      This is the problem when we try to over-incentivize any major. A person has to be passionate about what they do in order to do it well. If the only reason a kid gets into CS is because they were told that's where the money's at, then they're unlikely to excel and probably won't be able to stick with it until graduation. While there are plenty of passions one might have that isn't worth pursuing as a professional discipline (poetry), I think it's important to find a field that suits one's interests and natur

    • Coding is a tool. You don't have to be a CS major to code. I've been coding since 12 and went for an mechanical engineering degree. I have coded almost every single day since I started college and now into my career.

      The CS majors of the world need to stop this artificial gatekeeping about what 'coding' is. If I can knock out a VBA script to automate an Excel spreadsheet I got to save myself 40 hours of work a month I see it as a win. The CSers of Slashdot will no doubt find a reason to shit on it as 'not re

    • So we have a problem with people dropping out of CS courses already.

      That's because most people aren't programmers.

      People have gifts. Some are good at fixing physical things, like engines, or toilets, or houses. Some are good at inventing things. Some are good at mentally abstract work. Like math and computer programming. But there are only so many of each kinds of people. So one of the biggest fallacies right now is this "learn to code" notion, in the sense that ANYONE can be a programmer by just taking some courses. It all goes back to the notion that some people have that

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wolfrider ( 856 )

        --I'd mod you up, but decided to reply. If Katy Perry actually knew how to code something useful and helped demonstrate that, it would actually be pretty attractive. If Lil NAS X actually showed how to build a practical ZFS-based NAS from the ground up, that would actually be useful. Apart from that, KP is hot and probably a good draw for publicity. (I honestly hope someone would take the time to teach her properly if she was interested in doing useful things with coding skillz.)

        --Agree with you 100% tho

  • There goes theodp with his anti-CS education crusade again. Don't worry theodp, you will still have your six figure coding job next year too!

  • Katy Perry's ML assembly library (Score:4, Funny)

    by Way Smarter Than You ( 6157664 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:44PM (#59437046)
    Katy and I did a hack a thing style all weekend where she coded this awesome next-gen AI in x86 assembly. It's super fast, uses memory very efficiently and it continues to learn at an amazing pace. The ARM version is almost done and she's gave me beta code for my iPad. Katy is obviously an awesome hacker; we all know that. But did you know she has amazing breasts, too?

    • But that hair at the moment...WTF. I mean, her hair in her early 20s was so perfect for her. Teenage Dream? Fuck yeah. Her over Taylor any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

      P.S. Taylor looked her best when she dyed her hair black for one of her videos. Even then, she wasn't beating Long Dark hair Katy.

      P.S.S. News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.

  • How to grow food in an environmental collapse. Or how to retain your sense of self while placating your corporate master.

  • You want to teach little kids how to code - which is a logical, methodical and somewhat mathematical-procedural cognitive activity that has nothing AT ALL to do with political, religious or gender orientation - and for this to work successfully, you somehow have to recruit WOKE political movement celebs who appear in 6 million Dollar music videos and have a big thing for LGBT rights and SJW shenanigans ??? Precisely why is this if I may ask? Couldn't you put a competent AAA game AI programmer in front of th

  • Katy Perry? (Score:3)

    by dicobalt ( 1536225 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:56PM (#59437090)
    She was the genius that asked Neil de Grassi Tyson if science is related to math. Here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Storing all my linux isos!

    • I've got linux isos going all the way back. A lot of the really old ones have been exiled to cakeboxes, though. They don't warrant a sleeve anymore.

  • It's bad enough trying to decipher poorly written code created by poorly trained engineers with degrees. I don't want to think about the godawful variable and functions names these people will come up with.

  • By using Lil and Katy, Amazon et al show us they aren't serious. If they were serious, they'd hire Donald Knuth instead. But only, of course, after he has finished volume seven of TAOCP.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Don Knuth also has a really low BS tolerance from what I can tell. He would probably not be seen dead in this thing.

  • Is will.i.am still the VP of Creativity at Intel?
    He'd do it. He'll take money from anyone without actually doing anything.
    It's sort of his thing.

  • Lil Nas X (Score:3)

    by mschaffer ( 97223 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @07:23PM (#59437382)

    How many people, when they first heard the moniker "Lil Nas X", thought it was the name of a NAS server that runs on an Xbox?

  • You know, where Barbie solves here coding problems by getting two guys to do it for her?

  • What the heck is a "Lil NaS X" and a "Katy Perry"?

    Are they monkeys? If so, they are apropos choices to teach kids to be monkeys (code monkeys, that is).

    Would it not be more fruitful to see if the little beggars have an aptitude for programming before ruining them forever?

  • isn't "coding" something that lends itself to automation? Why are we preparing so many for a career that will be dead and gone in 10-20 years?

    Oh, and when did "programming" become "coding"?

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