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Do Kids Still Program?
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?
But they're not programming computers...
... just look at sites like www.ticalc.org
they're programming calculators like the TI-83 Plus and TI-89
not only that, but they're learning C, ASM, and BASIC... wow!
Learning programming was so frequent back in the day because the primitive nature of early PCs required people to be able to do so low-level work to use them well. Heck, the Altair didn't even have a monitor, you had to flip switches to process commands. Freiburger & Swaine's Fire in the Valley shows you some of these early computers and their users. Everyone was programming back then because these simple machines attract a crowd of people willing to think analytically.
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.
The main issue here is that programming isn't necessary anymore for kids - whatever any kid wants to do they can rush out and buy a bit of software for, or find a utility online. All the functionality they'd want is at their fingertips already, so programming is left to the tinkerers.
And I rarely program anything for fun anymore because I'm overscheduled. Too many classes, too many bloody standardized tests, and programming itself isn't rewarded at the HS level because of a refocus on reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic. Out of the set of dedicated students, the more well off kids burn time at prep schools and cram classes, the less well off burn time studying. Few chances to program 'for fun' - I've got a really old RPG engine that I add bits and pieces to every now and then, but there's no way I can finish it anytime soon.
Do you think the desire to program computers has declined in the younger generations? If so, what reasons might you cite as the cause?
When I was in elementary school we had this GREAT program called 'LAMP' (logic, art, mathematics, programming) where they took the smart kids out of class every once and a while and had us do extracurriculars in the above-mentioned subjects. The 'programming' aspect consisted of nothing but logo and some linear BASIC on TRS80s, but it at least got me interested in futzing with my Commodore 64 to the point where I could make rudimentary text programs and dream of mastering the 'poke' command.
Without an easy-to-learn language like BASIC where do you begin to teach the fundamentals of programming? The syntax, class structure, includes, etc of modern object-oriented programming languages are a huge barrier to picking up the basics. Would you start a third or fourth grader out on Java? C++? I certainly wouldn't be able to handle that - I had a difficult enough time making my LOGO turtle move around. Perhaps the best solution would be some sort of drag-and-drop IDE, like visual basic for 6 year olds, where children could understand the concepts of programming without being overwhelmed by the syntax all at once. Anyone know of one? I seem to remember something similar using java beans demoed by Sun while I was in college . . .
I think there's also the problem that so many of today's kids are so used to getting instant gratification (i.e. - they're spoiled) that the sustained intellectual effort necessary to learn programming is simply beyond them.
I came to this realization in a (mandatory) Intro to Programming course I had to take at the local state college. 3 1-1/2 hour sessions a week, and half the class had disappeared before the end of the 3rd week; in the hall before class, I heard many of them complaining that they didn't 'get' the concepts behind programming: AND vs NAND, OR vs XOR, NOT, and so on. Non-decimal arithmetic (binary, octal, and hex) threw them completely. Boolean logic might as well have been Swahili for all most of them understood it. It was, as I said, a mandatory course; they were going to HAVE to take it to the end, sooner or later - yet most of the drop-outs simply didn't want to be bothered. The (very) few of us that already had some experience programming cruised through while the rest (including some taking it for the 3rd or even 4th time) applied whatever mental effort was needed to learn the subject.
I heard one of the disappeared comment to a friend "What do we need this crap for, anyway? All the programs we need are already written; you just have to know which one to buy or download!"
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Speaking as one who is too much older than the demographic you speak of, and is a fairly competent programmer, I call your BS. Complexity has gone up, but it is by no means beyond someone who is interested and dedicated.
:/
My school doesn't offer any classes in programming, so I teach myself, but sadly, I'm not sure how many people would take it if they did offer it. Most kids my age are just lazy sheep; programming isn't required to graduate, and it isn't 'cool', so people don't take it, sans geeks.
Geek to sheep ratio is low though
DYWYPI?
Now, enter open source software. Guided by the right people and articles, anyone can learn to program. Guidance is the key word here. Most kids aren't going to go off and buy textbooks just to learn how to Do Cool Stuff.
A lot of programming is a mystery and there needs to be better education earlier in schools about what programming is. Programming is just like Math or Chemistry these days- it is required for many B.S. majors and can turn out to be hell if someone did not know what they were doing. In order to prepare kids for college, programming in a language like JavaScript would be a good starting tool. There is no barrier to learning JavaScript- the compiler exists in (almost) every web browser, which students should have access to.
Some of the problem is that few people how to teach at the High School level very well. VB is not a good language to learn on, and it causes awful headaches for students who later decide to learn Java and C. VB, though, seems to be what is taught, even though most students do not have access to a VB compiler at home. Learning in school is not enough- it is homework that is also important. I advocate teaching kdis HTML and JavaScript so they can make a cool web site with image rollovers, calculators, and other various algorithms.
Not only does this introduce the concept of programming, but it also gives students a great tool for publishing resumés and marketing themselves as an intelligent young people who have something going for them.
A nice web page can do a lot, even if it is just a little.
I work with middle-school kids. The biggest difference I see, compared to
kids 20 years ago, is the total lack of
curiosity. About anything.
When I was a teenager, we talked about what it would be like to live in Alaska;
tried to figure out how to buy a sailboat so we could bum around the islands; bought motorcycles and made road trips to California.
If you mentione such ideas now, kids will just shrug and say 'whatever'.
There's no sense of adventure there anymore. No curiosity whatsoever about
anything. Including programming.
Just so you know, computer science has almost nothing to do with programming. You'll write some code to explore compsci concepts, sure, but no respectable college will make that the focus of your degree. I mention this because there were a lot of surprised freshmen at my school, and I'd like to help you not be one of them.
I have experience in HTML, C, C++, and Java. I have not mastered any yet, but still working on it.
Apprentice: "I still have so much to learn..."
Intermediate: "I know this language inside and out!"
Expert: "I still have so much to learn..."
If you think you've mastered a language, you haven't. Don't let yourself forget that.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
It didn't start recently, that's the shame.
I haven't been in school in a decade, so I don't know how much worse it may have gotten, but things have been on the way downhill since before I was in school myself.
I've recently become a fan of Richard Feynman, and he has some scathing things to say about the teaching of Algebra when *he* went to school. I'll relate one of his stories as best I can from memory, but I do highly recommend reading his "memoirs" such as "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" even if the lectures he gave on physics do not interest you.
He talk about when he was learning mathematics himself, as a kid -- I believe he was about 10-12 and he'd taught himself algebra from a book called "Algebra for the Practical Man" or some such -- at any rate, his cousin (I think) was learning Algebra in school at the same time. And he told Richard he was having a hard time with some problem, say 2x + 4 = 8, solve for x and Richard said, "Oh, you mean '2'?" and his cousin said, "Yes, but you did it by arithmetic; we have to do it by Algebra."
Feynman then makes the claim that this is evidence of how the school system is in decline; he knows the important thing isn't how you get the answer, it's understanding how these things relate and (he explains all this much better than I do) that schools had invented this "process" called "Algebra" where you could follow some rote steps and arrive at the right answer with no understanding whatsoever of what you were doing.
Tell me if that last part doesn't ring true for the education YOU received in Algebra. It certainly does for me.
-Chris