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Do Kids Still Program?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the loss-of-impetus dept.

From his journal, hogghogg asks: "I keep finding myself in conversations with tertiary educators in the hard sciences (Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, etc.) who note that even the geeks—those who voluntarily choose to major in hard sciences—enter university never having programmed a computer. When I was in grade six, the Commodore PET came out, and I jumped at the opportunity to learn how to program it. Now, evidently, most high school computer classes are about Word (tm) and Excel (tm). Is this a bad thing? Should we care?" Do you think the desire to program computers has declined in the younger generations? If so, what reasons might you cite as the cause?

13 of 1,104 comments (clear)

  1. No there's MySpace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Kids are too busy taking pornographic pictures of themselves and having sex with teachers.

    1. Re:No there's MySpace by BorgHunter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Kids are too busy taking pornographic pictures of themselves and having sex with teachers.

      Only the lucky ones.

      --
      "Excuse me, did you say 'Trekker'? The word is 'Trekkie.' I should know; I created them." -- Gene Roddenberry
    2. Re:No there's MySpace by richdun · · Score: 3, Funny

      Only the lucky ones.

      The rest get too excited about majoring in some science or engineering in college and end up at schools without females, let alone sex ;)

    3. Re:No there's MySpace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      animals don't count.

    4. Re:No there's MySpace by maxdamage · · Score: 4, Funny

      When the WoW goes down you hear a moan shoot through the whole campus.

    5. Re:No there's MySpace by Cmdr-Absurd · · Score: 2, Funny
      Are you telling all the girls who do science or engineering have sex changes and become boys before going to college?
      Nope. Last year, neither of the girls who went into engineering had sex changes.
  2. Re:Yep, they are. by danratherfoe · · Score: 3, Funny
    I cut my teeth on C++ when I was nine. Graduating from HS this year with a few years of C++, some cursory Java, some cursory web 'languages' below my belt.

    Wow, you've got all that below your belt ... you must be a real hit with the ladies.

  3. Re:yes, they do! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
    1. you have a girlfriend
    2. she manually edits her podcast xml file
    I don't believe that.
  4. Re:yes, they do! by Ganniterix · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a place discovered by a girl called Alice. One day Alice was listening to a fairy tale by her sister ... when she followed a little bunny and fell into a deep hole. There she found this marevelous wonderland and had many adventures.

  5. Re:yes, they do! by carninja · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seriosuly, stop learning how to program, or you'll never get laid.

  6. Re:yes, they do! by zCyl · · Score: 5, Funny

    When C++/Java/Perl/Python have long since been consigned to the garbage colletor in the sky Lisp/Smalltalk/C will still be used to solve problems. I rather think the current period of programming will be seen as the dark ages before the re-birth.

    (((((((Hopefully(the))(result(of(the))car)(cdr)(re -birth)will(be))))(car)(car)cdr car)(()readable))(.)car)

  7. Re:Yep, they are. by linguae · · Score: 2, Funny
    Wow, you've got all that below your belt ... you must be a real hit with the ladies.

    With all of that programming knowledge, once he learns some AI and some robotics (and advance both fields substantially; create some field called "biorobotics" or something), he can program a lady. Problem solved for him and all geeks like myself worldwide.

  8. Re:yes, they do! by MonoSynth · · Score: 5, Funny

    Like when my girlfriend needed to update her podcast and kept screwing up the XML file, I just wrote a little app to do it for her.

    What? screwing up the XML file?