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I don't understand this. It seems to be encouraging the misconception that programming = computer science that lay people and politicians have. If computer scie

I don't understand this. It seems to be encouraging the misconception that programming = computer science that lay people and politicians have. If computer science is a branch of mathematics, it seems very odd to me to say everyone should learn it. The bar is so low for math and science literacy compared to the humanities that surely there are many elementary things which should come before computer science. If programming is increasingly important for everybody (I don't doubt), then in my opinion the first thing to do is to go and research (or look up the research on) how professionals who aren't CS majors but write programs do it. I imagine there isn't going to be much overlap with a typical B.S. in C.S. curriculum. This quote seems relevant and timely, if exaggerated: "A handful of people, having no relation to the will of society, having no communication with the rest of society, will be taking decisions in secret which are going to affect our lives in the deepest sense." But it's beyond me how some sort of computer science for everyone improves their ability to deal with problems in algorithms developed by the FAANGs and other companies working with the government. Ok, I know what a DFA is, now what? During part of my elementary school years, they were having students all learn Logo. But I don't recall it opening any vistas of experimentation. It seemed like a fad where everyone checked boxes, did some exercises, and moved on. Despite learning about other kinds of programming outside school, I never realized there was anything more to Logo than the most basic turtle commands. Whenever people talk about general computer literacy, I imagine more of the same.

gh0std3v 5y ago
I hate the term “computer science”. It not only conceals the true nature of the field (one that is deductive and mathematical rather than inductive and empirical) but it has been excessively conflated with programming and IT literacy. Forget computer science or programming; IT literacy itself is manifold in nature. We need to analyze the goals of computer and IT literacy before we even begin teaching it.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I'm not sure what everybody should get educated in to cope with today's society that they don't get now. Maybe someone could update "How to Lie With Statistics" (I think it would need a truly massive effort) and make a course out of that.
- fuzzfactor 5y ago
  To me computer science is the part that scientists are best at, software engineering & hardware engineering are the part that engineers are best at. Along comes IT who takes whatever hardware & software they can get possessing varying degrees of scientific advancement, and tries to network everybody to their wildest dreams without losing any data. I would say computer science is the art of using computers to make advancements whether or not the advancements are made to the very computers or software themselves or not. Lots of worthwhile computer science can actually be accomplished without writing any software or doing any engineering. Anyway, this is the 21st century, every student was expected to be much more familiar with both computer science and coding by now, so that the aggregate benefits overall would be far more widespread than in just a few "tech" centers. Every more-computer-literate high school graduate could not have been expected to be an expert, but every org of a certain size would ideally have enough in-house talent to at least take care of their own software needs by now.
bsder 5y ago
> then in my opinion the first thing to do is to go and research (or look up the research on) how professionals who aren't CS majors but write programs do it. Look at a recipe book. That's how non-CS majors do it. And then look at the number of people who can't follow basic recipes.

gh0std3v 5y ago

I hate the term “computer science”. It not only conceals the true nature of the field (one that is deductive and mathematical rather than inductive and empirical) but it has been excessively conflated with programming and IT literacy. Forget computer science or programming; IT literacy itself is manifold in nature. We need to analyze the goals of computer and IT literacy before we even begin teaching it.

perl4ever 5y ago
I'm not sure what everybody should get educated in to cope with today's society that they don't get now. Maybe someone could update "How to Lie With Statistics" (I think it would need a truly massive effort) and make a course out of that.
fuzzfactor 5y ago
To me computer science is the part that scientists are best at, software engineering & hardware engineering are the part that engineers are best at. Along comes IT who takes whatever hardware & software they can get possessing varying degrees of scientific advancement, and tries to network everybody to their wildest dreams without losing any data. I would say computer science is the art of using computers to make advancements whether or not the advancements are made to the very computers or software themselves or not. Lots of worthwhile computer science can actually be accomplished without writing any software or doing any engineering. Anyway, this is the 21st century, every student was expected to be much more familiar with both computer science and coding by now, so that the aggregate benefits overall would be far more widespread than in just a few "tech" centers. Every more-computer-literate high school graduate could not have been expected to be an expert, but every org of a certain size would ideally have enough in-house talent to at least take care of their own software needs by now.

bsder 5y ago

> then in my opinion the first thing to do is to go and research (or look up the research on) how professionals who aren't CS majors but write programs do it. Look at a recipe book. That's how non-CS majors do it. And then look at the number of people who can't follow basic recipes.