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Code.org – Dedicated to growing computer programming education

509 points by sethbannon 14y ago

pla3rhat3r 14y ago
As cheesy as this video is they're right. My kids do not learn coding in school. Our area high school teaches kids how to use computers but there is no coding classes. When I went to school in the late 80's we have a program that allowed us to move a turtle on a green computer screen. It was my first exposure to programming. I wish schools would put more importance on this skill. Even if kids do not get into technology, knowing a programming language is an invaluable skill in any industry.
rullopat 14y ago
I completely disagree with this. The world doesn't need more coders, but BETTER coders.
jurassic 14y ago
An old math teacher friend of mine has introduced his 7th grade students to "programming" through Lego Mindstorms. The kids work in teams to build the robots from kits and then program them to navigate a maze/obstacle course using Lego's software. I don't think its that close to "real" programming, but it does get the kids thinking about how to break down problems into logical steps. And it's enough like play that pretty much everyone gets into it, and the ubernerds in the group race to see who can finish the course in the best time. I'd like to see more things like this happen in schools, but it's hard to find the time and money for ~10 mindstorms kits in every classroom.
aaronmhamilton 14y ago
The issue is that schools are not a place to learn, they're not the right place for people to actually develop skills. Because schools suck at teaching (because they feel like glorified prisons and lack resources due to ignorance and bureaucracy) we must fix/replace schools before “teaching” kids to code, otherwise we will fail. Also, this illusion that low-level languages like C are any less suitable for introduction than other languages is yet another barrier, I learned in assembly, and I would probably prefer to learn in C, since it's very simple, clear-cut, and consistent. No namespacing, very little context, very little syntax. The best way to teach any skill, is to provide resources and motivation for the completion of real, practical tasks. In software we have the unique opportunity not to break anything real when we build something equally-so.
nickmain 14y ago
If we want to teach the next generation to code we should make sure that the "programming languages" we use work well on a touch screen with no keyboard or mouse. That is, probably not text-based.
eliben 14y ago
The video is worth watching. I like this initiative. For some reason it brings up a lot of cynical responses, but if you really think about it, it's a pretty good thing to encourage young students to learn at least some coding.
- 3A2D50 14y ago
  One possible reason for the cynicism is that an increase in programmers results in an increase in competition for lower pay.
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    I don't think this will result in a flood of for-reals programmers any more than math or writing courses result in tons of mathematicians or writers. What it could/should result in is a future generation of people who even if they don't seriously pursue programming are at least able to hack together scripts to automate tasks that are important to them, just like they are now (hopefully) able to do enough math to get by or enough writing to communicate ideas in whatever field. So I'm in support of the idea fully, though like barbs I think the video is fluff marketing bullshit that paints an inaccurate picture of most software development.
    - randomdata 14y ago
      There is quite a bit of focus on the jobs aspect here, which will inevitably push people towards the business. When I was a student, there was a similar push for teachers (a field also having a shortage of people at the time). The result is that I have several friends who are fully qualified to be teachers that haven't been able to find work in the industry for many years now. I agree that simply having programming in school isn't going to see everyone becoming programmers. Programming has been offered in the schools here since at least my father's time – though there does seem to be a disproportionate number of programmers come from my region, for what it is worth. However, code.org specifically does seem to come with the purpose of trying to bring more people into the industry.
- barbs 14y ago
samstave 14y ago
We need to push two major initiatives in education: the ability to code and the ability to manage finances.
- rhizome 14y ago
  Sounds like an idea for summer camp. Add how to cook, and you'll take care of 80% of adult life!
  - adanto6840 14y ago
    Figure out how to train social skills too and you'll not only have 99% covered, you might even stand to be the next corporate giant. :)
- Lerc 14y ago
  Coding is probably the easier one to achieve. Very few people have an interest in making sure you never learn to code.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  America has a problem where if students were taught about proper financial management and making proper financial decisions the college system would fall apart, because students are expected to commit to huge debts that are often very questionable decisions. The system relies on students never understanding the magnitude of the debt they're committing to, spend 10 minutes reading the personal finance subreddits and it's shocking to see the $200,000 commitments 18 year olds were allowed to make for fluff degrees. England lacks proper financial education too, it wasn't until I was 18 that I found out how taxes worked, up until 18 I thought the taxes paid were flat rate (eg: 20% on everything or 40% on everything, vs. 20% on the first x...). Recently the company I work for offered me a pension plan, after talking to a financial advisor I discovered just how valuable starting a pension young is, up until that day I thought a pension shouldn't be a consideration when young. Super simple and super important things, completely ignored by education. Thankfully for England there is a really great consumer rights person called Martin Lewis that does a bunch of consumer finance things and recently he's been pressuring the government to introduced compulsory financial education to schools and it very recently was confirmed there will now be compulsory financial education in British schools: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financial-education-to-be-added-to-the-national-curriculum http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financi...
why-el 14y ago
Most challenges faced across the global are cultural and linguistic in nature. The heavy dependence on English is a huge barrier to most children and young adults out there. All my attempts to introduce young cousins and nephews to coding failed because they are at the stage where anything not in their own tongue is unfathomable. I looked into making a small ny-own-dialect-based mini language but it seemed that a better approach is to simply translate existing well designed and well maintained efforts such as Alice. Any idea on how to begin doing that or whether a similar translation project is underway?
- dragonwriter 14y ago
  > All my attempts to introduce young cousins and nephews to coding failed because they are at the stage where anything not in their own tongue is unfathomable. I looked into making a small ny-own-dialect-based mini language but it seemed that a better approach is to simply translate existing well designed and well maintained efforts such as Alice. If they are young, its the optimum time for language acquisition. So, it may be easier (and have more side benefits) to teach them English and then programming rather than creating a customized programming environment catering to their native language to use to teach them programming.
- ianb 14y ago
  Logo is one of the few programming languages that has been translated into other languages, you might look for a dialect in whatever your native language is.
- eru 14y ago
  Just having the documentation translated might be enough. I remember using MS QBasic very early on; the language itself had English keywords and function names, but the online help was translated into German.
- nandemo 14y ago
  While it's certainly possible to learn programming without knowing English (millions of programmers have done it!), if your cousins don't speak English or another foreign language then you should probably consider that a priority, instead of programming.
Yoms 14y ago
My grandfather took the time to teach me some BASIC back when I was around 7 years old, and it led to my career. I've been working at teaching programming to my kids as well, but the video here inspired me to give the same chance to other kids... I contacted the principal at my kids elementary school and offered to use my expertise to help any way I could. We get so caught up in what we're doing, it's easy to forget that just a small bit of effort can have a significant impact on peoples lives.
zachgalant 14y ago
I'm making www.codehs.com which is one of the sites featured in the video (the one with the dog). It would be awesome to get some feedback on what people think of it if you get a chance to try it out. We're focusing on making it really fun and accessible to learn to make really cool programs really quickly while learning the fundamentals and getting a strong programming foundation. One of the keys to our site is that tutors look at and give feedback on all the code thats's submitted by students, so if you're interested in helping kids out, it would be awesome if you wanted to help tutor. We're currently testing out and building lots more tutor features, so your feedback and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Go to http://codehs.com/tutors/ http://codehs.com/tutors/ to sign up if that interests you at all.
- aroberge 14y ago
  I looked at the video; did not register for it. I've been working for a while at a very similar idea (basically porting rur-ple, another Karel clone which I wrote 8 years ago, to the web) ... but I intend for it to be free. Kudos for you to want to create a business out of it, but my aim is simply altruistic.
- ivan_ah 14y ago
  Could you tell us more about your business model? Because I don't like this very much: http://codehs.com/pricing http://codehs.com/pricing What do you think about the Khan Academy CS stuff? It is a tricky business you are in, but could work out very well if you can harness the power of community. You should focus on this idea "give students credits when they help students who are further behind than they are". I would suggest a slight change in the term "credits" to distance yourself from the money=knowledge associations. Think more "pay it forward" economy where you earn points by helping others. Seeding the economy with a bunch of paid Tutors could get the economy started. Tutors will just earn "help points" in the system like all other students but they will sell them to you. To get an exchange economy going you will probably need to move away from the crippleware approach(http://codehs.com/pricing http://codehs.com/pricing). You should offer the real service (answering questions when you are stuck), and after users use up their free points ask them to help others.
sjtrny 14y ago
Where's the group pushing "everyone should learn to": be an accountant, doctor, engineer, electrician or a plumber. And on and on and on. Not everyone needs to learn to code. I agree that exposure to it and a basic understanding of it is good, just like other disciplines. But this is already happening! I learnt LOGO in primary school and then mindstorms, VB and HTML in high school. And so did everyone else, they weren't electives.
- Lockyy 14y ago
  Accountant/engineers/electricians: Maths Doctors: Biology Chemists: Chemistry Programmer: Erm... ICT where you can learn how to use word and publisher. It's just not the same. There is no base subject to springboard into the rest of the subject like other subjects do.
- 0003 14y ago
  All of those professions have a lobby pushing their agenda. From the first one on your list see https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/ https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/.
- nsmartt 14y ago
  First, that's not nationwide in the US. I'm not aware of it being nationwide anywhere. In my school, there was a computer programming course on the list of choices. It disappeared when the time to actually register arrived. There was a web design course. We used dreamweaver. No one knew HTML. I spent the majority of my time in the class helping the other students do things they couldn't do in dreamweaver. The situation is less than ideal. In fact, I once presented a slideshow describing various programming languages. When I finished, my teacher asked if there were any questions. A handful of people knew programming was used to make games. Everyone else had blank looks. One girl actually said "I didn't even know this existed" with a look of shock. Second, learning to program doesn't have to be the same as learning to be a software engineer. It's vaguely akin to basic repair skills. Knowing how to automate aspects of your work on a computer is extremely useful. Programming is applicable to almost every remotely technical career path.
  - 14y ago
nsmartt 14y ago
I think teaching students to program is a wonderful idea. Most people use computers every day-- be it work or leisure. Knowing how to automate your workflow in whatever career you choose would be a wonderful asset. However, I'm concerned that this isn't the goal. Lots of the video refers to a great need for programmers. It sounds like lots of the interested people are more interested in preparing students for a career in software engineering,
- 3A2D50 14y ago
  "It sounds like lots of the interested people are more interested in preparing students for a career in software engineering" That could be the case. Programmers are expensive because there isn't enough to meet demand. If you can get a lot more people interested and entering into the market, the cost will go down. I would imagine an employer would prefer programmer's salary to be more in line with what a typical employee's salary is. If there is an end goal, it would probably be to make programming an expected skill set in addition to a specialty, rather than a specialty in of its own.
TheBiv 14y ago
I love the addition of Chris Bosh! After coding being hard, in general, I believe that our industry's biggest challenge is it becoming "sexy" or having role models that a vast amount of people can connect with!
- ronyeh 14y ago
  All we need is for LeBron and KD to take a summer class in JS or python and tweet about it. Maybe they can do some tasks like analyze their own stats.
  - wernah 14y ago
    That would be awesome
  - spicyj 14y ago
    At Khan Academy, we have a series of videos with LeBron asking science-related questions: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/lebron-asks https://www.khanacademy.org/science/lebron-asks
    - ronyeh 14y ago
      Yes, I love these videos! The first one I saw was LeBron asking Sal about the likelihood of him hitting 10 free throws in a row.
LAMike 14y ago
Why isn't HTML/CSS or Python taught in high schools around the country? If I saw a similar video when I was in school I would have started way earlier
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Java is the AP standard. Also, webdesign courses are HTML/CSS/javascript.
johnernaut 14y ago
"Learn to Make Webpages - W3Schools" WAT
- roldie 14y ago
  I don't think they're as bad as they used to be, but still far from the first place I'd send someone seeking help.
  - clockwork_189 14y ago
    Honestly, this was the first place I went when I started out (about 4 years ago). There werent many good sites out for learning to code back then. It was w3schools and lynda.com that really helped me get started.
- QuantumGuy 14y ago
  Just tweeted to them about w3cfools.com hopefully they fix it.
gdilla 14y ago
We should also encourage HCI and usability design sensibilities as a technical vocation kids can pursue if optimizing sorting algorithms and the like isn't for them. Making things easier to use, why things are a pleasure to use and why things aren't is a stimulating field that is very applicable to a computerized future.
- the_watcher 14y ago
  100% agree. There is a lot of value in understanding usability design that I wish I had been presented with younger. I really wish I had the opportunity to choose some form of technical skillset as an elective in high school. I was only offered a choice of visual arts (photography, art, and ceramics).
- geedy 14y ago
  This. Even as a guy whose main interests lie in theoretical aspects of computer science, I need to learn of this stuff.
signed0 14y ago
I like this because instead of saying "everyone must code" it says "everyone should have the opportunity to learn to code". There are always going to be those that are not interested in coding. Forcing anyone to learn something they aren't interested in is just a waste of everyone's time. If you give kids the resources they need to get started and a good environment to experiment in they will take care of the rest.
zopticity 14y ago
What's the difference between Code.org and Codecademy.com ? Are they trying to achieve the same thing but in a different perspective? It looks like a lot more celebrities are on Code.org making it an enticing place to be.
- JMill 14y ago
  Code.org seeks to 'change the wind', so to say, of programming education, to help motivate individuals to learn more about coding. Codecademy.com is one form of online education to help satisfy the needs of those who became interested in programming, such as via Code.org and the many educators and decision makers who inspire non-coders to, well, code.
devgutt 14y ago
favorite quote: "A computer doesn't care about your family background, your gender, just that you know how to code." — Dick Costolo (Twitter)
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  And a computer doesn't even care about that. :)
  - devgutt 14y ago
    They should, like "come back to code, bastard!".
orangethirty 14y ago
This is a great initiative. The video is powerful, but they forgot to include a link to the donate area right there in the video. I'd love to add my little startup to the list of places teaching how to program.
escaped_reddit 14y ago
how did u guys get that domain?
hoi 14y ago
One of the simplest and most accessible forms of coding that most people will encounter in their working lives is the spreadsheet.
- makaimc 14y ago
  In my professional life I haven't found spreadsheets to be a "gateway drug" to programming for people I work with. Spreadsheets are generally used to get something done and then take on a life of their own until they are so critical to a business that their failure can cost enough money to materially damage a business. However, there does seem to be something accessible spreadsheets that perhaps can be used in a slightly modified way to get more people excited about learning to code in a structured programming language.
sybhn 14y ago
IMO make learning programing (fun) a path to learning math (not fun). Once you understand mathematic fundamentals, understanding finance - and other such disciplines - comes naturally. You soon realize that most of (consumer) finance out there are marketing flush revolving around a few formulas.
- eru 14y ago
  You can strike the "(consumer)" before finance, and your sentence will still stand.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Why is learning math not fun? For me, learning math (fun) was a path to learning programming (not fun). Even as someone who 'enjoys' programming as a hobby, I hate the actual coding part. The math is the fun part. And that rush of power you feel where the computer obeys your every wim is a nice bonus (more of a reason to learn bash et el.).
  - sybhn 14y ago
    you're right, the fun factor is very subjective. However, wouldn't you agree that those who enjoy maths from the get-go will generally be successful in most modern education systems? The same is not true for those who have difficulties in maths but were never given a early-enough introduction to coding.
frankdenbow 14y ago
The Academy for Software Engineering is another effort in this area: http://afsenyc.org http://afsenyc.org
teeboy 14y ago
Has anyone noticed that they are recommending W3Schools? http://www.code.org/learn/codecademy http://www.code.org/learn/codecademy
robertlaing 14y ago
This is awesome. I just wish someone had edited Will.i.am's quote though... I think he thinks 'reading code' is like reading music or something... “Here we are, 2013, we ALL depend on technology to communicate, to bank, and none of us know how to read and write code. It's important for these kids, right now, starting at 8 years old, to read and write code.“
interknot 14y ago
I am generally enthusiastic about teaching people to code. That said, I am ambivalent about the backing organization, "Code.org": Every single person on their advisory board (http://www.code.org/about http://www.code.org/about) has a vested interest in there being more programmers competing for jobs. I feel like they are misrepresenting the nature of most programming jobs to the general public. They prey upon people's fear of unemployment and cite numbers about there being fewer programmers than jobs. Nearly every single person in that video has explicitly said they only hire the very best. My guess is that we'd still end up with legions of unemployed people that happen to be mediocre-to-awful at programming.
- NateDad 14y ago
  They're backed by software people, because most software people think coding is awesome and want more people to do it. Also, it's really hard to find good programmers, so they want more people to start doing it, yes.... but teaching 10 year olds to code isn't going to get them any benefit for at least 12 years. I highly doubt they're thinking that far ahead. I think it's much more likely exactly what you see - they want more people to code because they believe everyone should code, and many people will like it once exposed to it.
  - interknot 14y ago
    I hope you are right. That said, I think the points I raised are worth considering. FWIW I'd expect many of the featured people to be thinking much further ahead than 12 years.
- doktrin 14y ago
  > My guess is that we'd still end up with legions of unemployed people that happen to be mediocre-to-awful at programming. Probably true. For all the hype around the job market today, generally speaking only talented developers find employment. The rest tend to end up in other fields or unemployed. I can only imagine what the market will look like when the talent pool expands.
  - 14y ago
kentf 14y ago
High time to change "Hello World" to "Change the World" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5290217 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5290217
epicwhaleburger 14y ago
Fight between codecademy and code.org probably
cek 14y ago
My favorite quote in the video is near the end: "Coding is as close to a superpower as you can get." I feel that.
scottrb 14y ago
If the US were to integrate coding into the school curriculum, our K-12 schools could rise to the global ranks that our university system currently occupies. But it can't just be an addon elective, it needs to be integrated across many subjects. So much of learning that's considered to be dull or boring can be made fun with programming. Write a program to simulate a ball flying through the air and aside from giving students the building blocks to make their own games/animations, they've also learned about gravity, projectile motion, and maybe even calculus. Add some wind into the mix to learn about resistance. Write a simple program that simulates cells dividing and you've got some biology and math happening. Creating some basic tones and sounds with code is a frighteningly tiny distance away from learning about music theory. The software platform could be open sourced. Maybe even written in the programming language that students work in so students could modify it and submit patches, but also to mess with their little minds and get them thinking about self-hosting compilers. And how much would this cost if done correctly? It's probably a terribly small figure per student over the course of their education. It may even save some money on textbooks if it's a tablet device to double as an e-reader. Maybe even more if those textbooks were open sourced and not sold at laughable prices... It's amazing how far we are behind at present. My fear is that people assume (good or bad) that every student will come out a programmer, which is just missing the point. EE/CS degrees would be worth even more in such a world.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Your examples of dull and boring subjects seems like a list of interesting and exiting projects. Newtonian physics (generalized from projectile motion): Using with these 3 obvious facts (maybe a historic tangent on how they are not obvious), we construct new rules that describe the way things work. Don't believe the results? You agree with these 3 assumptions right? Is their any flaw in your work? Then your result is correct, is their a way we can go about testing it? Good job working with Newtonian physics. Now, say that their is wind blowing 5 mph east, how does this effect our results? Well, the coefisiant of wind resistence for sufficiently slow speeds are _. Wait, we already know how to do this, this is just another force, moving on... If you take a code first approach, you routinely miss the good stuff.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
kamaal 14y ago
Hear me out. I was full for this 'teach kids how to code' thingy. But I think we have got this all wrong. Heck we don't have the right kind of tools to teach kids how to code. In fact I have now realized that you can't and should not teach kids how to code. You rather must teach them how to solve problems. Math was supposed to deal with that, but unfortunately that turned out to be complicated symbol manipulation if not for anything else. My niece here in India is around 12 years old, and she is being taught C programming back in school(She is in 8th standard, or 8th grade as per US terms). No she generally comes and stays with us in the summers. So last time she came over for a month's holiday she bought her laptop with her and wanted me to teach her to program in C. The net result is disaster. I tried everything possible. Every other trick in the trade. Even tried to start with Python first and not C. But I figured the nature of problems is something else. Kids view programming very similar to the way they see math. They find themselves manipulating things/symbols/stuff without understanding why, for what, or even why its even relevant to them. They struggle to understand where or why should you use an if/else/switch statement, or a for/do/while loop. Its difficult for them to map solution patterns to a code pattern. Its not their fault. Its ours. Better luck trying to explain a kid why they are being asked to write a program find greatest of three numbers, find factorials, or sort numbers. To them it very clearly looks math in a different language. Its that boring math thing all over again. Much complication starts when stuff like pointers is pushed down their throat. Or something like bit shifting. Oh and yes, they start asking things about the process of compiling, linking etc. Or why they need to put a #include at the start of a program. You can't honestly explain all that without explaining them some underlying stuff. Beyond all this it needs to fun, which it very clearly isn't. What kids need to be taught is how to solve problems, even if it means repairing a mechanical watch. Instead what they are being given is math in a different dose. And trust me at that age, they don't really like doing that. And oh, by the way. Next year they are about to be taught Java. I can only imagine the horror, the way kids of going to deal with the text walls full of verbosity, API dance and the XML mess. And the last time I heard they don't really use IDE's. One thing that I'm convinced is, after this episode due to all this trouble and trauma of having to learn this, she clearly doesn't enjoy, she will hate programming and hope she never has to deal with it again. Because last time I talked to her, she told me she wants to be a journalist. That's how much damage 'Teach kids how to code' has done. I'm now glad no one ever introduced me to coding when I was a kid.
jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
Its a little bit relevant; so I would like to mention that I created a little collaborative and opensource[0] _spanish_ directory of videos and documents to learn programming; it's called http://Programando.la/ http://Programando.la/, I would also like to mention that CodeCademy haves a spanish version[1]. [0]https://github.com/AltIvan/programando.la https://github.com/AltIvan/programando.la (MIT License) [1]http://www.codecademy.com/?locale_code=es#!/exercises/0 http://www.codecademy.com/?locale_code=es#!/exercises/0
potomushto 14y ago
True programming education is a education for hackers or in other words it is a self-education. Today our hollywoodstic world have many examples which may inspire anybody to become a hacker who can learn anything by hacking. Of course coding basics and algorithms, like arithmetic, should be at school, and many countries already have programming courses.
ekianjo 14y ago
Wow, it's even backed up by the official creator of the Internet, Al Gore!
dakimov 14y ago
Growing computer education you say? Also teach kids engineering — it's easy, everybody can do it, right? As easy as programming. Everybody can program. I have no idea why programmers have high salaries. And why we cannot find programmers that are not self-taught and possess at least the fucking theoretical minimum of CS disciplines and a grasp of professional culture. Yes, give the world more ignorant "I can code" folks, there is not enough of them!
dreamdu5t 14y ago
This isn't about growing computer programming education, it's about the basics for people with poor computer literacy. Google search and PHP.net documentation have done more for growing computer programming education than any project like this. We need more great documentation resources, and less "let me hold your hand" tutorials.
hydraphoenix 14y ago
Ll
seanconaty 14y ago
Still with the learn to code meme? In addition to all the reasons that @codinghorror raises in http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-code.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-t..., I have a one more to add. The altruism of it all stinks. The meme is being pushed by parties (non-profit or not) looking to gain from teaching people to program (after convincing them that they absolutely should). While it's true that learning to code is beneficial to some (I don't doubt that) no one talks about how these friendly, helpful, code tutors might be exaggerating the demand for reasons of their own. While you might be trying to help people out, you're also trying to push your startup or non-profit. I like the idea of better aligning education with job demand; something I don't think higher education institutions are particularly concerned with. That's practical and I wish we did more of it. Similar to these learn-to-code websites, colleges could care less what you do with yourself after you've paid your tuition. What I liked about the code.org celeb video were the recollections of first programs. Like a first kiss, you never forget your first program. No matter how simple it is, that feeling is awesome. And if you're made for it, you want to do more, you want to make it better. That's the spark that, if you have it, puts you on the unending journey to being and becoming a coder.
- rjwebb 14y ago
  I wonder if children will watch this video and think that if they learn to code, then they'll get to work in swanky offices with free salad and skateboards...
- meej 14y ago
  "The meme is being pushed by parties (non-profit or not) looking to gain from teaching people to program (after convincing them that they absolutely should)." I believe Douglas Rushkoff was pushing it at least a year before any such parties existed, in his book Program or Be Programmed: http://books.google.com/books?id=SB474JCHewcC http://books.google.com/books?id=SB474JCHewcC
- doktrin 14y ago
  Yeah. I enjoy coding, although there is zero financial incentive for me to do so. It's just something I happen to find pleasure in. Would certainly be nice if others similarly inclined can experience it, but the whole "literacy" meme is simply annoying at this point.
toolslive 14y ago
my kids (9,9 & 11) play around with Scratch to create their own games, interactive presentations , ... They started to learn this a few years ago, and I only had to install it and show them the very basics. After that, they bootstrapped themselves using youtube tutorials. Btw, they are not programming, they are building games (at least that's how they look at it). I just want to say that tossing the right toy in their general direction might be enough.
yankoff 14y ago
What's the matter with this "Let's teach everyone to code" thing? Why code and not, say, medicine? Is there such a lack of engineers?
- cpressey 14y ago
  There is certainly a perceived lack of software engineers. (And, I think, a perception that coding is the most important thing a software engineer does. I'd question both of these perceptions.)
geoffroy 14y ago
In France, we were taught Logo when I was 9/10 (back in 85) on Thomson computers (French equivalent of Sinclair ZX Spectrum) at school. http://regards.sur.sciences.free.fr/ordis/logo/logo.htm http://regards.sur.sciences.free.fr/ordis/logo/logo.htm I got stuck into programming since then !
MrJagil 14y ago
Speaking as someone who is currently taking his first programming lessons in school at the moment, this seems great. What I really need though, is great tutorials in the languages I'm using. Codecademy and Khan both do a great job, but neither has any/proper support for Processing or Java, which is what the courses at my university revolves around (there's a bit of drawing on Khan, but in no way enough to make me anything close to comfortable with the language). In short, what really prevents me from speeding up my learning is content. The will is there, and I believe it is for a lot of other people as well. (btw, yes, i can look up double arrys on processing.org but trust me, it can very difficult to implement their content when it does not relate to your own project. That's why guides are so good. This is not good: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/definition.html http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/defi...)
svsaraf 14y ago
I'm currently in medical school, so I think my opinion might provide another perspective on this. As others have pointed out in this thread, the incentives behind folks pushing the "learn to code" idea are varied: some people want more engineers to hire and some people want to sell to those learning to code. These seem like reasonable criticisms, but I think they miss the point. Many of you, if not most, are in the software industry. You try to solve interesting problems every day, or, at least, you'd like to. Every industry and every field has the need to solve them, at least with my definition of 'interesting'. Solving such a problem is difficult. It requires knowing very clearly about the rules of engagement, and mapping out strategies for tackling the issue. It requires an understanding of the lay of the land, but also the capacity to think outside the box. In short, it is exactly what all of you would expect from a 'good' programmer - the ability to think actively. You'll notice that I make no claims of this sort about physicians. The best doctors may do these things, but most doctors don't. And at the very least, doctors certainly are not trained in ways of solving problems effectively. Instead, we are mostly trained in pattern recognition. So what? Do I think a doctor would benefit from learning to program? Yes. Because figuring out how to writing a complex program is not so different from doing a complex surgery. Understanding algorithms is not so different from producing a good differential diagnosis. Most importantly, if we want to solve big problems we can't always rely on an engineer from the outside looking in and solving it for us. Programming forces you to explain your understanding to something that is very stupid (in a way). If you don't understand what you're doing, your program doesn't work. That basic check doesn't exist for doctors. Ask your doctor what a graph of y = 1/x looks like. Then ask him to graph alveolar CO2 vs ventilation. You should be really afraid of how many doctors only know the latter. I would guess some of them even wouldn't know that! (but they probably know what to do with a patient who's hyperventilating, because they'd memorized it) Programming is the means to the end, not the end. All this talk of APIs and IDEs and C vs Python vs Javascript really seem to miss the bigger picture here. The best way we have of teaching thinking is with programming (IMHO) and there has to be a way of teaching programming by getting all of the annoying crap out of the way. And we desperately do need more people who have the capacity to think and solve problems. Maybe not will.i.am or Chris Bosh or even software junkies in the valley, but definitely in every other industry. EDIT: small grammar edit, no content change.
zhaeng11 14y ago
what should I say?
bromang 14y ago
the universal aims of this project seem a bit misguided. only a small percentage of students will have the ability to be productive programmers.
nyddle 14y ago
I thing teaching kids how to program is needless. Let's make educational games like Robot Odyssey. This one really affected profession choice of people who played it.
shurcooL 14y ago
On this topic, I think it's very important to create tools that allow learning and creation as envisioned by Bret Victor [1]. [1] http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/ http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/

509 points by sethbannon 14y ago

As cheesy as this video is they're right. My kids do not learn coding in school. Our area high school teaches kids how to use computers but there is no coding classes. When I went to school in the late 80's we have a program that allowed us to move a turtle on a green computer screen. It was my first exposure to programming. I wish schools would put more importance on this skill. Even if kids do not get into technology, knowing a programming language is an invaluable skill in any industry.

rullopat 14y ago

I completely disagree with this. The world doesn't need more coders, but BETTER coders.

jurassic 14y ago

An old math teacher friend of mine has introduced his 7th grade students to "programming" through Lego Mindstorms. The kids work in teams to build the robots from kits and then program them to navigate a maze/obstacle course using Lego's software. I don't think its that close to "real" programming, but it does get the kids thinking about how to break down problems into logical steps. And it's enough like play that pretty much everyone gets into it, and the ubernerds in the group race to see who can finish the course in the best time. I'd like to see more things like this happen in schools, but it's hard to find the time and money for ~10 mindstorms kits in every classroom.

aaronmhamilton 14y ago

The issue is that schools are not a place to learn, they're not the right place for people to actually develop skills. Because schools suck at teaching (because they feel like glorified prisons and lack resources due to ignorance and bureaucracy) we must fix/replace schools before “teaching” kids to code, otherwise we will fail. Also, this illusion that low-level languages like C are any less suitable for introduction than other languages is yet another barrier, I learned in assembly, and I would probably prefer to learn in C, since it's very simple, clear-cut, and consistent. No namespacing, very little context, very little syntax. The best way to teach any skill, is to provide resources and motivation for the completion of real, practical tasks. In software we have the unique opportunity not to break anything real when we build something equally-so.

nickmain 14y ago

If we want to teach the next generation to code we should make sure that the "programming languages" we use work well on a touch screen with no keyboard or mouse. That is, probably not text-based.

eliben 14y ago

The video is worth watching. I like this initiative. For some reason it brings up a lot of cynical responses, but if you really think about it, it's a pretty good thing to encourage young students to learn at least some coding.

3A2D50 14y ago
One possible reason for the cynicism is that an increase in programmers results in an increase in competition for lower pay.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  I don't think this will result in a flood of for-reals programmers any more than math or writing courses result in tons of mathematicians or writers. What it could/should result in is a future generation of people who even if they don't seriously pursue programming are at least able to hack together scripts to automate tasks that are important to them, just like they are now (hopefully) able to do enough math to get by or enough writing to communicate ideas in whatever field. So I'm in support of the idea fully, though like barbs I think the video is fluff marketing bullshit that paints an inaccurate picture of most software development.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    There is quite a bit of focus on the jobs aspect here, which will inevitably push people towards the business. When I was a student, there was a similar push for teachers (a field also having a shortage of people at the time). The result is that I have several friends who are fully qualified to be teachers that haven't been able to find work in the industry for many years now. I agree that simply having programming in school isn't going to see everyone becoming programmers. Programming has been offered in the schools here since at least my father's time – though there does seem to be a disproportionate number of programmers come from my region, for what it is worth. However, code.org specifically does seem to come with the purpose of trying to bring more people into the industry.
barbs 14y ago

samstave 14y ago

We need to push two major initiatives in education: the ability to code and the ability to manage finances.

rhizome 14y ago
Sounds like an idea for summer camp. Add how to cook, and you'll take care of 80% of adult life!
- adanto6840 14y ago
  Figure out how to train social skills too and you'll not only have 99% covered, you might even stand to be the next corporate giant. :)
Lerc 14y ago
Coding is probably the easier one to achieve. Very few people have an interest in making sure you never learn to code.
citricsquid 14y ago
America has a problem where if students were taught about proper financial management and making proper financial decisions the college system would fall apart, because students are expected to commit to huge debts that are often very questionable decisions. The system relies on students never understanding the magnitude of the debt they're committing to, spend 10 minutes reading the personal finance subreddits and it's shocking to see the $200,000 commitments 18 year olds were allowed to make for fluff degrees. England lacks proper financial education too, it wasn't until I was 18 that I found out how taxes worked, up until 18 I thought the taxes paid were flat rate (eg: 20% on everything or 40% on everything, vs. 20% on the first x...). Recently the company I work for offered me a pension plan, after talking to a financial advisor I discovered just how valuable starting a pension young is, up until that day I thought a pension shouldn't be a consideration when young. Super simple and super important things, completely ignored by education. Thankfully for England there is a really great consumer rights person called Martin Lewis that does a bunch of consumer finance things and recently he's been pressuring the government to introduced compulsory financial education to schools and it very recently was confirmed there will now be compulsory financial education in British schools: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financial-education-to-be-added-to-the-national-curriculum http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/family/2013/02/financi...

why-el 14y ago

Most challenges faced across the global are cultural and linguistic in nature. The heavy dependence on English is a huge barrier to most children and young adults out there. All my attempts to introduce young cousins and nephews to coding failed because they are at the stage where anything not in their own tongue is unfathomable. I looked into making a small ny-own-dialect-based mini language but it seemed that a better approach is to simply translate existing well designed and well maintained efforts such as Alice. Any idea on how to begin doing that or whether a similar translation project is underway?

dragonwriter 14y ago
> All my attempts to introduce young cousins and nephews to coding failed because they are at the stage where anything not in their own tongue is unfathomable. I looked into making a small ny-own-dialect-based mini language but it seemed that a better approach is to simply translate existing well designed and well maintained efforts such as Alice. If they are young, its the optimum time for language acquisition. So, it may be easier (and have more side benefits) to teach them English and then programming rather than creating a customized programming environment catering to their native language to use to teach them programming.
ianb 14y ago
Logo is one of the few programming languages that has been translated into other languages, you might look for a dialect in whatever your native language is.
eru 14y ago
Just having the documentation translated might be enough. I remember using MS QBasic very early on; the language itself had English keywords and function names, but the online help was translated into German.
nandemo 14y ago
While it's certainly possible to learn programming without knowing English (millions of programmers have done it!), if your cousins don't speak English or another foreign language then you should probably consider that a priority, instead of programming.

Yoms 14y ago

My grandfather took the time to teach me some BASIC back when I was around 7 years old, and it led to my career. I've been working at teaching programming to my kids as well, but the video here inspired me to give the same chance to other kids... I contacted the principal at my kids elementary school and offered to use my expertise to help any way I could. We get so caught up in what we're doing, it's easy to forget that just a small bit of effort can have a significant impact on peoples lives.

zachgalant 14y ago

I'm making www.codehs.com which is one of the sites featured in the video (the one with the dog). It would be awesome to get some feedback on what people think of it if you get a chance to try it out. We're focusing on making it really fun and accessible to learn to make really cool programs really quickly while learning the fundamentals and getting a strong programming foundation. One of the keys to our site is that tutors look at and give feedback on all the code thats's submitted by students, so if you're interested in helping kids out, it would be awesome if you wanted to help tutor. We're currently testing out and building lots more tutor features, so your feedback and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Go to http://codehs.com/tutors/ http://codehs.com/tutors/ to sign up if that interests you at all.

aroberge 14y ago
I looked at the video; did not register for it. I've been working for a while at a very similar idea (basically porting rur-ple, another Karel clone which I wrote 8 years ago, to the web) ... but I intend for it to be free. Kudos for you to want to create a business out of it, but my aim is simply altruistic.
ivan_ah 14y ago
Could you tell us more about your business model? Because I don't like this very much: http://codehs.com/pricing http://codehs.com/pricing What do you think about the Khan Academy CS stuff? It is a tricky business you are in, but could work out very well if you can harness the power of community. You should focus on this idea "give students credits when they help students who are further behind than they are". I would suggest a slight change in the term "credits" to distance yourself from the money=knowledge associations. Think more "pay it forward" economy where you earn points by helping others. Seeding the economy with a bunch of paid Tutors could get the economy started. Tutors will just earn "help points" in the system like all other students but they will sell them to you. To get an exchange economy going you will probably need to move away from the crippleware approach(http://codehs.com/pricing http://codehs.com/pricing). You should offer the real service (answering questions when you are stuck), and after users use up their free points ask them to help others.

sjtrny 14y ago

Where's the group pushing "everyone should learn to": be an accountant, doctor, engineer, electrician or a plumber. And on and on and on. Not everyone needs to learn to code. I agree that exposure to it and a basic understanding of it is good, just like other disciplines. But this is already happening! I learnt LOGO in primary school and then mindstorms, VB and HTML in high school. And so did everyone else, they weren't electives.

Lockyy 14y ago
Accountant/engineers/electricians: Maths Doctors: Biology Chemists: Chemistry Programmer: Erm... ICT where you can learn how to use word and publisher. It's just not the same. There is no base subject to springboard into the rest of the subject like other subjects do.
0003 14y ago
All of those professions have a lobby pushing their agenda. From the first one on your list see https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/ https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/.
nsmartt 14y ago
First, that's not nationwide in the US. I'm not aware of it being nationwide anywhere. In my school, there was a computer programming course on the list of choices. It disappeared when the time to actually register arrived. There was a web design course. We used dreamweaver. No one knew HTML. I spent the majority of my time in the class helping the other students do things they couldn't do in dreamweaver. The situation is less than ideal. In fact, I once presented a slideshow describing various programming languages. When I finished, my teacher asked if there were any questions. A handful of people knew programming was used to make games. Everyone else had blank looks. One girl actually said "I didn't even know this existed" with a look of shock. Second, learning to program doesn't have to be the same as learning to be a software engineer. It's vaguely akin to basic repair skills. Knowing how to automate aspects of your work on a computer is extremely useful. Programming is applicable to almost every remotely technical career path.
- 14y ago

nsmartt 14y ago

I think teaching students to program is a wonderful idea. Most people use computers every day-- be it work or leisure. Knowing how to automate your workflow in whatever career you choose would be a wonderful asset. However, I'm concerned that this isn't the goal. Lots of the video refers to a great need for programmers. It sounds like lots of the interested people are more interested in preparing students for a career in software engineering,

3A2D50 14y ago
"It sounds like lots of the interested people are more interested in preparing students for a career in software engineering" That could be the case. Programmers are expensive because there isn't enough to meet demand. If you can get a lot more people interested and entering into the market, the cost will go down. I would imagine an employer would prefer programmer's salary to be more in line with what a typical employee's salary is. If there is an end goal, it would probably be to make programming an expected skill set in addition to a specialty, rather than a specialty in of its own.

TheBiv 14y ago

I love the addition of Chris Bosh! After coding being hard, in general, I believe that our industry's biggest challenge is it becoming "sexy" or having role models that a vast amount of people can connect with!

ronyeh 14y ago
All we need is for LeBron and KD to take a summer class in JS or python and tweet about it. Maybe they can do some tasks like analyze their own stats.
- wernah 14y ago
  That would be awesome
- spicyj 14y ago
  At Khan Academy, we have a series of videos with LeBron asking science-related questions: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/lebron-asks https://www.khanacademy.org/science/lebron-asks
  - ronyeh 14y ago
    Yes, I love these videos! The first one I saw was LeBron asking Sal about the likelihood of him hitting 10 free throws in a row.

LAMike 14y ago

Why isn't HTML/CSS or Python taught in high schools around the country? If I saw a similar video when I was in school I would have started way earlier

gizmo686 14y ago
Java is the AP standard. Also, webdesign courses are HTML/CSS/javascript.

johnernaut 14y ago

"Learn to Make Webpages - W3Schools" WAT

roldie 14y ago
I don't think they're as bad as they used to be, but still far from the first place I'd send someone seeking help.
- clockwork_189 14y ago
  Honestly, this was the first place I went when I started out (about 4 years ago). There werent many good sites out for learning to code back then. It was w3schools and lynda.com that really helped me get started.
QuantumGuy 14y ago
Just tweeted to them about w3cfools.com hopefully they fix it.

gdilla 14y ago

We should also encourage HCI and usability design sensibilities as a technical vocation kids can pursue if optimizing sorting algorithms and the like isn't for them. Making things easier to use, why things are a pleasure to use and why things aren't is a stimulating field that is very applicable to a computerized future.

the_watcher 14y ago
100% agree. There is a lot of value in understanding usability design that I wish I had been presented with younger. I really wish I had the opportunity to choose some form of technical skillset as an elective in high school. I was only offered a choice of visual arts (photography, art, and ceramics).
geedy 14y ago
This. Even as a guy whose main interests lie in theoretical aspects of computer science, I need to learn of this stuff.

signed0 14y ago

I like this because instead of saying "everyone must code" it says "everyone should have the opportunity to learn to code". There are always going to be those that are not interested in coding. Forcing anyone to learn something they aren't interested in is just a waste of everyone's time. If you give kids the resources they need to get started and a good environment to experiment in they will take care of the rest.

zopticity 14y ago

What's the difference between Code.org and Codecademy.com ? Are they trying to achieve the same thing but in a different perspective? It looks like a lot more celebrities are on Code.org making it an enticing place to be.

JMill 14y ago
Code.org seeks to 'change the wind', so to say, of programming education, to help motivate individuals to learn more about coding. Codecademy.com is one form of online education to help satisfy the needs of those who became interested in programming, such as via Code.org and the many educators and decision makers who inspire non-coders to, well, code.

devgutt 14y ago

favorite quote: "A computer doesn't care about your family background, your gender, just that you know how to code." — Dick Costolo (Twitter)

dinkumthinkum 14y ago
And a computer doesn't even care about that. :)
- devgutt 14y ago
  They should, like "come back to code, bastard!".

orangethirty 14y ago

This is a great initiative. The video is powerful, but they forgot to include a link to the donate area right there in the video. I'd love to add my little startup to the list of places teaching how to program.

escaped_reddit 14y ago

how did u guys get that domain?

hoi 14y ago

One of the simplest and most accessible forms of coding that most people will encounter in their working lives is the spreadsheet.

makaimc 14y ago
In my professional life I haven't found spreadsheets to be a "gateway drug" to programming for people I work with. Spreadsheets are generally used to get something done and then take on a life of their own until they are so critical to a business that their failure can cost enough money to materially damage a business. However, there does seem to be something accessible spreadsheets that perhaps can be used in a slightly modified way to get more people excited about learning to code in a structured programming language.

sybhn 14y ago

IMO make learning programing (fun) a path to learning math (not fun). Once you understand mathematic fundamentals, understanding finance - and other such disciplines - comes naturally. You soon realize that most of (consumer) finance out there are marketing flush revolving around a few formulas.

eru 14y ago
You can strike the "(consumer)" before finance, and your sentence will still stand.
gizmo686 14y ago
Why is learning math not fun? For me, learning math (fun) was a path to learning programming (not fun). Even as someone who 'enjoys' programming as a hobby, I hate the actual coding part. The math is the fun part. And that rush of power you feel where the computer obeys your every wim is a nice bonus (more of a reason to learn bash et el.).
- sybhn 14y ago
  you're right, the fun factor is very subjective. However, wouldn't you agree that those who enjoy maths from the get-go will generally be successful in most modern education systems? The same is not true for those who have difficulties in maths but were never given a early-enough introduction to coding.

frankdenbow 14y ago

The Academy for Software Engineering is another effort in this area: http://afsenyc.org http://afsenyc.org

teeboy 14y ago

Has anyone noticed that they are recommending W3Schools? http://www.code.org/learn/codecademy http://www.code.org/learn/codecademy

robertlaing 14y ago

This is awesome. I just wish someone had edited Will.i.am's quote though... I think he thinks 'reading code' is like reading music or something... “Here we are, 2013, we ALL depend on technology to communicate, to bank, and none of us know how to read and write code. It's important for these kids, right now, starting at 8 years old, to read and write code.“

interknot 14y ago

I am generally enthusiastic about teaching people to code. That said, I am ambivalent about the backing organization, "Code.org": Every single person on their advisory board (http://www.code.org/about http://www.code.org/about) has a vested interest in there being more programmers competing for jobs. I feel like they are misrepresenting the nature of most programming jobs to the general public. They prey upon people's fear of unemployment and cite numbers about there being fewer programmers than jobs. Nearly every single person in that video has explicitly said they only hire the very best. My guess is that we'd still end up with legions of unemployed people that happen to be mediocre-to-awful at programming.

NateDad 14y ago
They're backed by software people, because most software people think coding is awesome and want more people to do it. Also, it's really hard to find good programmers, so they want more people to start doing it, yes.... but teaching 10 year olds to code isn't going to get them any benefit for at least 12 years. I highly doubt they're thinking that far ahead. I think it's much more likely exactly what you see - they want more people to code because they believe everyone should code, and many people will like it once exposed to it.
- interknot 14y ago
  I hope you are right. That said, I think the points I raised are worth considering. FWIW I'd expect many of the featured people to be thinking much further ahead than 12 years.
doktrin 14y ago
> My guess is that we'd still end up with legions of unemployed people that happen to be mediocre-to-awful at programming. Probably true. For all the hype around the job market today, generally speaking only talented developers find employment. The rest tend to end up in other fields or unemployed. I can only imagine what the market will look like when the talent pool expands.
- 14y ago

kentf 14y ago

High time to change "Hello World" to "Change the World" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5290217 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5290217

epicwhaleburger 14y ago

Fight between codecademy and code.org probably

cek 14y ago

My favorite quote in the video is near the end: "Coding is as close to a superpower as you can get." I feel that.

scottrb 14y ago

If the US were to integrate coding into the school curriculum, our K-12 schools could rise to the global ranks that our university system currently occupies. But it can't just be an addon elective, it needs to be integrated across many subjects. So much of learning that's considered to be dull or boring can be made fun with programming. Write a program to simulate a ball flying through the air and aside from giving students the building blocks to make their own games/animations, they've also learned about gravity, projectile motion, and maybe even calculus. Add some wind into the mix to learn about resistance. Write a simple program that simulates cells dividing and you've got some biology and math happening. Creating some basic tones and sounds with code is a frighteningly tiny distance away from learning about music theory. The software platform could be open sourced. Maybe even written in the programming language that students work in so students could modify it and submit patches, but also to mess with their little minds and get them thinking about self-hosting compilers. And how much would this cost if done correctly? It's probably a terribly small figure per student over the course of their education. It may even save some money on textbooks if it's a tablet device to double as an e-reader. Maybe even more if those textbooks were open sourced and not sold at laughable prices... It's amazing how far we are behind at present. My fear is that people assume (good or bad) that every student will come out a programmer, which is just missing the point. EE/CS degrees would be worth even more in such a world.

gizmo686 14y ago
Your examples of dull and boring subjects seems like a list of interesting and exiting projects. Newtonian physics (generalized from projectile motion): Using with these 3 obvious facts (maybe a historic tangent on how they are not obvious), we construct new rules that describe the way things work. Don't believe the results? You agree with these 3 assumptions right? Is their any flaw in your work? Then your result is correct, is their a way we can go about testing it? Good job working with Newtonian physics. Now, say that their is wind blowing 5 mph east, how does this effect our results? Well, the coefisiant of wind resistence for sufficiently slow speeds are _. Wait, we already know how to do this, this is just another force, moving on... If you take a code first approach, you routinely miss the good stuff.
dinkumthinkum 14y ago

kamaal 14y ago

Hear me out. I was full for this 'teach kids how to code' thingy. But I think we have got this all wrong. Heck we don't have the right kind of tools to teach kids how to code. In fact I have now realized that you can't and should not teach kids how to code. You rather must teach them how to solve problems. Math was supposed to deal with that, but unfortunately that turned out to be complicated symbol manipulation if not for anything else. My niece here in India is around 12 years old, and she is being taught C programming back in school(She is in 8th standard, or 8th grade as per US terms). No she generally comes and stays with us in the summers. So last time she came over for a month's holiday she bought her laptop with her and wanted me to teach her to program in C. The net result is disaster. I tried everything possible. Every other trick in the trade. Even tried to start with Python first and not C. But I figured the nature of problems is something else. Kids view programming very similar to the way they see math. They find themselves manipulating things/symbols/stuff without understanding why, for what, or even why its even relevant to them. They struggle to understand where or why should you use an if/else/switch statement, or a for/do/while loop. Its difficult for them to map solution patterns to a code pattern. Its not their fault. Its ours. Better luck trying to explain a kid why they are being asked to write a program find greatest of three numbers, find factorials, or sort numbers. To them it very clearly looks math in a different language. Its that boring math thing all over again. Much complication starts when stuff like pointers is pushed down their throat. Or something like bit shifting. Oh and yes, they start asking things about the process of compiling, linking etc. Or why they need to put a #include at the start of a program. You can't honestly explain all that without explaining them some underlying stuff. Beyond all this it needs to fun, which it very clearly isn't. What kids need to be taught is how to solve problems, even if it means repairing a mechanical watch. Instead what they are being given is math in a different dose. And trust me at that age, they don't really like doing that. And oh, by the way. Next year they are about to be taught Java. I can only imagine the horror, the way kids of going to deal with the text walls full of verbosity, API dance and the XML mess. And the last time I heard they don't really use IDE's. One thing that I'm convinced is, after this episode due to all this trouble and trauma of having to learn this, she clearly doesn't enjoy, she will hate programming and hope she never has to deal with it again. Because last time I talked to her, she told me she wants to be a journalist. That's how much damage 'Teach kids how to code' has done. I'm now glad no one ever introduced me to coding when I was a kid.

jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago

Its a little bit relevant; so I would like to mention that I created a little collaborative and opensource[0] _spanish_ directory of videos and documents to learn programming; it's called http://Programando.la/ http://Programando.la/, I would also like to mention that CodeCademy haves a spanish version[1]. [0]https://github.com/AltIvan/programando.la https://github.com/AltIvan/programando.la (MIT License) [1]http://www.codecademy.com/?locale_code=es#!/exercises/0 http://www.codecademy.com/?locale_code=es#!/exercises/0

potomushto 14y ago

True programming education is a education for hackers or in other words it is a self-education. Today our hollywoodstic world have many examples which may inspire anybody to become a hacker who can learn anything by hacking. Of course coding basics and algorithms, like arithmetic, should be at school, and many countries already have programming courses.

ekianjo 14y ago

Wow, it's even backed up by the official creator of the Internet, Al Gore!

dakimov 14y ago

Growing computer education you say? Also teach kids engineering — it's easy, everybody can do it, right? As easy as programming. Everybody can program. I have no idea why programmers have high salaries. And why we cannot find programmers that are not self-taught and possess at least the fucking theoretical minimum of CS disciplines and a grasp of professional culture. Yes, give the world more ignorant "I can code" folks, there is not enough of them!

dreamdu5t 14y ago

This isn't about growing computer programming education, it's about the basics for people with poor computer literacy. Google search and PHP.net documentation have done more for growing computer programming education than any project like this. We need more great documentation resources, and less "let me hold your hand" tutorials.

hydraphoenix 14y ago

seanconaty 14y ago

Still with the learn to code meme? In addition to all the reasons that @codinghorror raises in http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-code.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-t..., I have a one more to add. The altruism of it all stinks. The meme is being pushed by parties (non-profit or not) looking to gain from teaching people to program (after convincing them that they absolutely should). While it's true that learning to code is beneficial to some (I don't doubt that) no one talks about how these friendly, helpful, code tutors might be exaggerating the demand for reasons of their own. While you might be trying to help people out, you're also trying to push your startup or non-profit. I like the idea of better aligning education with job demand; something I don't think higher education institutions are particularly concerned with. That's practical and I wish we did more of it. Similar to these learn-to-code websites, colleges could care less what you do with yourself after you've paid your tuition. What I liked about the code.org celeb video were the recollections of first programs. Like a first kiss, you never forget your first program. No matter how simple it is, that feeling is awesome. And if you're made for it, you want to do more, you want to make it better. That's the spark that, if you have it, puts you on the unending journey to being and becoming a coder.

rjwebb 14y ago
I wonder if children will watch this video and think that if they learn to code, then they'll get to work in swanky offices with free salad and skateboards...
meej 14y ago
"The meme is being pushed by parties (non-profit or not) looking to gain from teaching people to program (after convincing them that they absolutely should)." I believe Douglas Rushkoff was pushing it at least a year before any such parties existed, in his book Program or Be Programmed: http://books.google.com/books?id=SB474JCHewcC http://books.google.com/books?id=SB474JCHewcC
doktrin 14y ago
Yeah. I enjoy coding, although there is zero financial incentive for me to do so. It's just something I happen to find pleasure in. Would certainly be nice if others similarly inclined can experience it, but the whole "literacy" meme is simply annoying at this point.

toolslive 14y ago

my kids (9,9 & 11) play around with Scratch to create their own games, interactive presentations , ... They started to learn this a few years ago, and I only had to install it and show them the very basics. After that, they bootstrapped themselves using youtube tutorials. Btw, they are not programming, they are building games (at least that's how they look at it). I just want to say that tossing the right toy in their general direction might be enough.

yankoff 14y ago

What's the matter with this "Let's teach everyone to code" thing? Why code and not, say, medicine? Is there such a lack of engineers?

cpressey 14y ago
There is certainly a perceived lack of software engineers. (And, I think, a perception that coding is the most important thing a software engineer does. I'd question both of these perceptions.)

geoffroy 14y ago

In France, we were taught Logo when I was 9/10 (back in 85) on Thomson computers (French equivalent of Sinclair ZX Spectrum) at school. http://regards.sur.sciences.free.fr/ordis/logo/logo.htm http://regards.sur.sciences.free.fr/ordis/logo/logo.htm I got stuck into programming since then !

MrJagil 14y ago

Speaking as someone who is currently taking his first programming lessons in school at the moment, this seems great. What I really need though, is great tutorials in the languages I'm using. Codecademy and Khan both do a great job, but neither has any/proper support for Processing or Java, which is what the courses at my university revolves around (there's a bit of drawing on Khan, but in no way enough to make me anything close to comfortable with the language). In short, what really prevents me from speeding up my learning is content. The will is there, and I believe it is for a lot of other people as well. (btw, yes, i can look up double arrys on processing.org but trust me, it can very difficult to implement their content when it does not relate to your own project. That's why guides are so good. This is not good: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/definition.html http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/intro/defi...)

svsaraf 14y ago

I'm currently in medical school, so I think my opinion might provide another perspective on this. As others have pointed out in this thread, the incentives behind folks pushing the "learn to code" idea are varied: some people want more engineers to hire and some people want to sell to those learning to code. These seem like reasonable criticisms, but I think they miss the point. Many of you, if not most, are in the software industry. You try to solve interesting problems every day, or, at least, you'd like to. Every industry and every field has the need to solve them, at least with my definition of 'interesting'. Solving such a problem is difficult. It requires knowing very clearly about the rules of engagement, and mapping out strategies for tackling the issue. It requires an understanding of the lay of the land, but also the capacity to think outside the box. In short, it is exactly what all of you would expect from a 'good' programmer - the ability to think actively. You'll notice that I make no claims of this sort about physicians. The best doctors may do these things, but most doctors don't. And at the very least, doctors certainly are not trained in ways of solving problems effectively. Instead, we are mostly trained in pattern recognition. So what? Do I think a doctor would benefit from learning to program? Yes. Because figuring out how to writing a complex program is not so different from doing a complex surgery. Understanding algorithms is not so different from producing a good differential diagnosis. Most importantly, if we want to solve big problems we can't always rely on an engineer from the outside looking in and solving it for us. Programming forces you to explain your understanding to something that is very stupid (in a way). If you don't understand what you're doing, your program doesn't work. That basic check doesn't exist for doctors. Ask your doctor what a graph of y = 1/x looks like. Then ask him to graph alveolar CO2 vs ventilation. You should be really afraid of how many doctors only know the latter. I would guess some of them even wouldn't know that! (but they probably know what to do with a patient who's hyperventilating, because they'd memorized it) Programming is the means to the end, not the end. All this talk of APIs and IDEs and C vs Python vs Javascript really seem to miss the bigger picture here. The best way we have of teaching thinking is with programming (IMHO) and there has to be a way of teaching programming by getting all of the annoying crap out of the way. And we desperately do need more people who have the capacity to think and solve problems. Maybe not will.i.am or Chris Bosh or even software junkies in the valley, but definitely in every other industry. EDIT: small grammar edit, no content change.

zhaeng11 14y ago

what should I say?

bromang 14y ago

the universal aims of this project seem a bit misguided. only a small percentage of students will have the ability to be productive programmers.

nyddle 14y ago

I thing teaching kids how to program is needless. Let's make educational games like Robot Odyssey. This one really affected profession choice of people who played it.

shurcooL 14y ago

On this topic, I think it's very important to create tools that allow learning and creation as envisioned by Bret Victor [1]. [1] http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/ http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/