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> We need passionate people who are creative and want to learn to DESIGN software in addition to coding. We also need good workers who can scrape together the

> We need passionate people who are creative and want to learn to DESIGN software in addition to coding. We also need good workers who can scrape together the code to pipe data from one application to another. We need sociologists and detectives who can construct SQL queries. We need scientists and economists who can cobble something together in R. We need physicists and engineers who know their way around MATLAB or SciPy. We need drafters who can write simple LISP programs. We need artists who can do a little bit of JavaScript when they need to. These are not people who will always have a passion for programming, and they won't always be producing products or thinking about design. The dream of the fourth-generation programming language is dead, and the new dream is to teach people a little bit about programming, even if it won't be their career or their passion.

Turing_Machine 14y ago
Yep, all that, plus business people who can write and edit simple spreadsheet macros and people to whom the operation of the programmable thermostat in their house is not a total mystery. Not many people have the talent to become professional photographers, chefs, or musicians. That doesn't mean they shouldn't learn how take non-crappy family pictures, cook an edible meal, or enjoy singing songs with friends.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  But why does programming change the world in that sense? We've had math education for a long time now, you could debate about the quality of it but I'll call you a liar if you couldn't make the debates about programming education, yet we have widespread misunderstandings about many quantitative things, we have had a lot of historical education, yet many people do know basic things in history. I just don't think these code fever is panacea it's made out to be.
  - kolinko 14y ago
    We do have misunderstanding about quantitative things, and people don't know some basic things about history, but it would be even worse without education.
danso 14y ago
I've worked with a lot of smart people in data-gathering fields (researchers, journalists, analysts)...the amount of human-hours wasted on cleaning up data that was compiled by someone who didn't understand delimiting, normalization, or how operations can be repeated when we have a pattern (kind of like map-reduce) is near tragic. Think if you worked at a publishing house in which you had a fantastic story-teller who was illiterate. This person could tell best-selling yarns, she just needed someone to actually put it down on paper. And then re-read to her outloud the sections (and entire chapters) when the material was edited and re-arranged. Yes, you could still produce best-selling books this way. But it's not efficient. And the artist misses out on a lot of what could be done with more direct contact with the written text...and the worst part is, she doesn't know what she's missing out on. edit: Note that I'm not saying that this hypothetical illiterate storyteller has to be a great writer (just like most people do not need to be excellent, best-practices programmers). She just needs to be good enough to re-arrange and re-read her own ideas and take a more active part in the editing process. Believe it or not, in the publishing business, there are amazing storytellers (or reporters) who are not very good writers.
- dietrichepp 14y ago
  1. Compare programming to home DIY. Sure, every year you'll have people who knock down load-bearing walls, get pesticide backwash into the drinking water, or turn a simple de-icing operation into a raging inferno. But people also assemble millions of shelves and beds, unclog millions of drains, and build thousands of greenhouses and planter boxes. 2. Professional programmers create awful messes too. They do it less often, but with greater consequences. Just like the contractors building a bridge are less likely to screw up than some goofball installing a new water heater at home, but a bad bridge is much more dangerous. Give people more training when the potential consequences of bad work are more severe, and less training when it's just not needed. 3. The value of someone with both domain knowledge and programming knowledge is usually immense. You can either teach a programmer about the domain, or you can teach a domain expert how to program. If you have a programmer with a bit of domain knowledge, then they know what kind of questions to ask the domain experts. If you have a domain expert with a bit of programming knowledge, then they know how to communicate technical requirements to a professional programmer. Let's take your analogy with the publishing house. If the fantastic storyteller can write but has major problems with grammar and continuity, then a good editor can clean things up.
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
Do we really need >artists who can do a little bit of JavaScript when they need to? In some ways that statement is tautological, so I guess, fine (we need things that we need, got it). But I don't think this really an interesting statement; maybe it's a little provocative but not realistic. How about we have renaissance style artists that also do mechanical engineering? That's great but now you're argument is not about how programming is the special snowflake but that we need to return to a time of intellectualism ... ... However, that argument doesn't really work either because it's not as if renaissance intellectuals were the norm for their societies. As far as the other examples you cited, there are already people pursuing STEM so I don't really know how fitting the idea of programming solves our societal problems. Without being too hostile about it; does it really matter if the taxi driver can program? In a real sense, do you think this is really greatly benefiting society? I see it as benefiting society the same, or probably less so, than if the taxi driver understood Sartre, Descartes, or knew the history of Islam. But then we're just saying "the more educated we all are the better everyone is" to which I say "great, non-controversial statement but so what?" Just being honest.
- tbeseda 14y ago
  I'm afraid your comment needs some editing before I can fully understand your intention. But I can posit this: What if that cab driver, as a result of knowing a small amount of coding, could optimize his time, his routes, his fuel efficiency, his tire wear, or Hell even eliminate the need for a cab service altogether? Luckily, you're right, someone else will figure it out for him.
  - dinkumthinkum 14y ago
    Well, I edited it but I think it's pretty clear anyway. You're posit does really answer the issue. So you're solution is there is that the cab driver should be an Einstein or something, great but that's just silly. You're basically saying as I said before, that the best case scenario is if everyone was some great intellectual. No one disputes that, it's not controversial. But it's not interesting as something that could be made to happen in reality. As well, why is programming so special in this sense? For this cab driver, knowing a little bit of Javascript to be able make SPA blog engine is not enough to do route optimization, fuel efficiency and all this other stuff. You're talking about a renaissance cabbie that knows operations research, physics, and queuing theory and so on. It's not really serious how programming is the special snowflake in this sense. If the cab driver had taken the time to learn physics, and operations research in high school or whatever is being posited for programming, then he would be able to make this super efficient cab system or probably not have to be a cab driver. Adding "programming" into the mix of education does not fundamentally change anything about society.
Goicochea 14y ago
"the dream of the fourth-generation programming language is dead" I'm pretty sure R, MATLAB, SQL are fourth generation languages.

Turing_Machine 14y ago

Yep, all that, plus business people who can write and edit simple spreadsheet macros and people to whom the operation of the programmable thermostat in their house is not a total mystery. Not many people have the talent to become professional photographers, chefs, or musicians. That doesn't mean they shouldn't learn how take non-crappy family pictures, cook an edible meal, or enjoy singing songs with friends.

dinkumthinkum 14y ago
But why does programming change the world in that sense? We've had math education for a long time now, you could debate about the quality of it but I'll call you a liar if you couldn't make the debates about programming education, yet we have widespread misunderstandings about many quantitative things, we have had a lot of historical education, yet many people do know basic things in history. I just don't think these code fever is panacea it's made out to be.
- kolinko 14y ago
  We do have misunderstanding about quantitative things, and people don't know some basic things about history, but it would be even worse without education.

danso 14y ago

I've worked with a lot of smart people in data-gathering fields (researchers, journalists, analysts)...the amount of human-hours wasted on cleaning up data that was compiled by someone who didn't understand delimiting, normalization, or how operations can be repeated when we have a pattern (kind of like map-reduce) is near tragic. Think if you worked at a publishing house in which you had a fantastic story-teller who was illiterate. This person could tell best-selling yarns, she just needed someone to actually put it down on paper. And then re-read to her outloud the sections (and entire chapters) when the material was edited and re-arranged. Yes, you could still produce best-selling books this way. But it's not efficient. And the artist misses out on a lot of what could be done with more direct contact with the written text...and the worst part is, she doesn't know what she's missing out on. edit: Note that I'm not saying that this hypothetical illiterate storyteller has to be a great writer (just like most people do not need to be excellent, best-practices programmers). She just needs to be good enough to re-arrange and re-read her own ideas and take a more active part in the editing process. Believe it or not, in the publishing business, there are amazing storytellers (or reporters) who are not very good writers.

dietrichepp 14y ago
1. Compare programming to home DIY. Sure, every year you'll have people who knock down load-bearing walls, get pesticide backwash into the drinking water, or turn a simple de-icing operation into a raging inferno. But people also assemble millions of shelves and beds, unclog millions of drains, and build thousands of greenhouses and planter boxes. 2. Professional programmers create awful messes too. They do it less often, but with greater consequences. Just like the contractors building a bridge are less likely to screw up than some goofball installing a new water heater at home, but a bad bridge is much more dangerous. Give people more training when the potential consequences of bad work are more severe, and less training when it's just not needed. 3. The value of someone with both domain knowledge and programming knowledge is usually immense. You can either teach a programmer about the domain, or you can teach a domain expert how to program. If you have a programmer with a bit of domain knowledge, then they know what kind of questions to ask the domain experts. If you have a domain expert with a bit of programming knowledge, then they know how to communicate technical requirements to a professional programmer. Let's take your analogy with the publishing house. If the fantastic storyteller can write but has major problems with grammar and continuity, then a good editor can clean things up.

dinkumthinkum 14y ago

Do we really need >artists who can do a little bit of JavaScript when they need to? In some ways that statement is tautological, so I guess, fine (we need things that we need, got it). But I don't think this really an interesting statement; maybe it's a little provocative but not realistic. How about we have renaissance style artists that also do mechanical engineering? That's great but now you're argument is not about how programming is the special snowflake but that we need to return to a time of intellectualism ... ... However, that argument doesn't really work either because it's not as if renaissance intellectuals were the norm for their societies. As far as the other examples you cited, there are already people pursuing STEM so I don't really know how fitting the idea of programming solves our societal problems. Without being too hostile about it; does it really matter if the taxi driver can program? In a real sense, do you think this is really greatly benefiting society? I see it as benefiting society the same, or probably less so, than if the taxi driver understood Sartre, Descartes, or knew the history of Islam. But then we're just saying "the more educated we all are the better everyone is" to which I say "great, non-controversial statement but so what?" Just being honest.

tbeseda 14y ago
I'm afraid your comment needs some editing before I can fully understand your intention. But I can posit this: What if that cab driver, as a result of knowing a small amount of coding, could optimize his time, his routes, his fuel efficiency, his tire wear, or Hell even eliminate the need for a cab service altogether? Luckily, you're right, someone else will figure it out for him.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  Well, I edited it but I think it's pretty clear anyway. You're posit does really answer the issue. So you're solution is there is that the cab driver should be an Einstein or something, great but that's just silly. You're basically saying as I said before, that the best case scenario is if everyone was some great intellectual. No one disputes that, it's not controversial. But it's not interesting as something that could be made to happen in reality. As well, why is programming so special in this sense? For this cab driver, knowing a little bit of Javascript to be able make SPA blog engine is not enough to do route optimization, fuel efficiency and all this other stuff. You're talking about a renaissance cabbie that knows operations research, physics, and queuing theory and so on. It's not really serious how programming is the special snowflake in this sense. If the cab driver had taken the time to learn physics, and operations research in high school or whatever is being posited for programming, then he would be able to make this super efficient cab system or probably not have to be a cab driver. Adding "programming" into the mix of education does not fundamentally change anything about society.

Goicochea 14y ago

"the dream of the fourth-generation programming language is dead" I'm pretty sure R, MATLAB, SQL are fourth generation languages.