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I doubt Bloomberg uses eight grade chemistry, biology or physics in his day job either. We still teach the sciences -- if nothing else than as a way to entice k

by marcusf 14y ago

I doubt Bloomberg uses eight grade chemistry, biology or physics in his day job either. We still teach the sciences -- if nothing else than as a way to entice kids to continue studying it and keeping a steady influx of engineers in to society. There is nothing different about computation, per se. Instead of a teacher droning on to kids about how to surf, let them learn how to do webpages, or robots. Get them excited about CS and try to disspel the notion that the machine they're sitting by is in any way, shape or form magical and archaic. As for Bloomberg at this phase in his life picking up coding, probably not. On the other hand, he made his fortune in part via hardware and software, so I doubt he's completely clueless about it even now.

primecommenter 14y ago
Most of us use most of a lifetime of knowledge in our day jobs, and machines are magical.
- marcusf 14y ago
  I don't think you truly believe that though. Most people who hack daily have at least a basic working model of the computer. There's a compiler parsing, generating code, there's possibly a VM executing bytecode, an operating system managing memory, scheduling, network and other services, below that there's a CPU executing some representation of assembly code, it's in turn composed of some sort of a logic array, etc. etc. I'm not saying you know the inner workings of everything. It's more along the lines of, we teach physics with the aim that people finishing high school should have a vague notion about at least newtonian physics, some electromagnetism and the scientific model. For computers, we teach how to open Word, check your e-mail etc. Stuff kids know. What they don't know is how this all ticks, and I think there is certainly value in helping kids construct a vague mental model of it all, and how to apply certain parts of it to a screen they'll probably interact with 4-16 hours per day for the rest of their lives.

by marcusf 14y ago

primecommenter 14y ago

Most of us use most of a lifetime of knowledge in our day jobs, and machines are magical.

marcusf 14y ago
I don't think you truly believe that though. Most people who hack daily have at least a basic working model of the computer. There's a compiler parsing, generating code, there's possibly a VM executing bytecode, an operating system managing memory, scheduling, network and other services, below that there's a CPU executing some representation of assembly code, it's in turn composed of some sort of a logic array, etc. etc. I'm not saying you know the inner workings of everything. It's more along the lines of, we teach physics with the aim that people finishing high school should have a vague notion about at least newtonian physics, some electromagnetism and the scientific model. For computers, we teach how to open Word, check your e-mail etc. Stuff kids know. What they don't know is how this all ticks, and I think there is certainly value in helping kids construct a vague mental model of it all, and how to apply certain parts of it to a screen they'll probably interact with 4-16 hours per day for the rest of their lives.