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Inspiring the next generation of college students to sign up for freshmen CS classes and shockingly realize that programming is only a small component in the fi

Inspiring the next generation of college students to sign up for freshmen CS classes and shockingly realize that programming is only a small component in the field.

devrelm 10y ago
Perhaps, but while programming may be only 20% of CS, learning it probably takes up 80% of a student's time. Reducing that additional cognitive load during the first couple semesters could allow them to focus on other CS fundamentals and improve overall comprehension over the course of their degree.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  And I honestly can't recall a single CS course where I didn't write an executable program after my first (CS 1301 at GT circa 2000, done using a pseudo-code language based on Pascal). Even my theory classes, I used programming to express/analyze the material discussed in class.
Apocryphon 10y ago
Or perhaps, turning programming into a cross-discipline skill, and slowly decreasing the need for a CS degree?
- mcphage 10y ago
  This is what I'm hoping for. I want my kids to learn how to program, not so that they can become a programmer like me, but so that they can use programming to inform and enhance whatever they choose to do.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    Yeah, I'm using my programming skills to write scripts to assist me in making/designing/balancing physical board games. Probably no one would assume that programming would assist in the hobby in any way, but I'm finding it quite useful.
- j-pb 10y ago
  And have more horrible software that breaks once you look at it , causes billions in damages, wastes millions of live hours, and endangers lives (shitty medical software cough)?
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    Presumably, the more coders there are, the smart thing to do is to hire some of them for reviewing pull requests. Perhaps professional code-copyeditor will become a thing.
    - j-pb 10y ago
      Every organisation already does code review. Why would you want to have code review done by subpar people? All this will do is push down wages. We don't need more programmers, we need a higher percentage with a strong background in math, and with a thorough understanding of the infrastructure underpinning ever application (operating systems, hardware, networking). But what we instead get is another post every week of somebody complaining that reversing a binary tree is too hard, and not relevant to our profession.
Someone 10y ago
I think it is a safe bet that the fraction of users of this program that will end up going for a CS degree will be so tiny that 'zero' is a good enough approximation. Reason? That's true for the general population, too. This IMO isn't even targeted at people who will go into software engineering or even science degrees. Instead, I think the target audience is anybody who might benefit from occasional scripting, 'down' to for those who will not program at all, but may benefit from knowing a bit more about what programming entails. If successful, it will allow those people to, for example, write better spreadsheets, for some of them to write the occasional script, and for those ending up as managers to be a bit better at managing the software side of their projects. Basically, I think this aims at the rest of the world, like logo and smalltalk do/did. Of course, the open question is whether it will succed at that.

Inspiring the next generation of college students to sign up for freshmen CS classes and shockingly realize that programming is only a small component in the field.

devrelm 10y ago

Perhaps, but while programming may be only 20% of CS, learning it probably takes up 80% of a student's time. Reducing that additional cognitive load during the first couple semesters could allow them to focus on other CS fundamentals and improve overall comprehension over the course of their degree.

Jtsummers 10y ago
And I honestly can't recall a single CS course where I didn't write an executable program after my first (CS 1301 at GT circa 2000, done using a pseudo-code language based on Pascal). Even my theory classes, I used programming to express/analyze the material discussed in class.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Or perhaps, turning programming into a cross-discipline skill, and slowly decreasing the need for a CS degree?

mcphage 10y ago
This is what I'm hoping for. I want my kids to learn how to program, not so that they can become a programmer like me, but so that they can use programming to inform and enhance whatever they choose to do.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Yeah, I'm using my programming skills to write scripts to assist me in making/designing/balancing physical board games. Probably no one would assume that programming would assist in the hobby in any way, but I'm finding it quite useful.
j-pb 10y ago
And have more horrible software that breaks once you look at it , causes billions in damages, wastes millions of live hours, and endangers lives (shitty medical software cough)?
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  Presumably, the more coders there are, the smart thing to do is to hire some of them for reviewing pull requests. Perhaps professional code-copyeditor will become a thing.
  - j-pb 10y ago
    Every organisation already does code review. Why would you want to have code review done by subpar people? All this will do is push down wages. We don't need more programmers, we need a higher percentage with a strong background in math, and with a thorough understanding of the infrastructure underpinning ever application (operating systems, hardware, networking). But what we instead get is another post every week of somebody complaining that reversing a binary tree is too hard, and not relevant to our profession.

Someone 10y ago

I think it is a safe bet that the fraction of users of this program that will end up going for a CS degree will be so tiny that 'zero' is a good enough approximation. Reason? That's true for the general population, too. This IMO isn't even targeted at people who will go into software engineering or even science degrees. Instead, I think the target audience is anybody who might benefit from occasional scripting, 'down' to for those who will not program at all, but may benefit from knowing a bit more about what programming entails. If successful, it will allow those people to, for example, write better spreadsheets, for some of them to write the occasional script, and for those ending up as managers to be a bit better at managing the software side of their projects. Basically, I think this aims at the rest of the world, like logo and smalltalk do/did. Of course, the open question is whether it will succed at that.