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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?
Kids are too busy taking pornographic pictures of themselves and having sex with teachers.
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!
Most kids are taught in high school that HTML is a PROGRAMMING language. It is very common for younger nerds to want to make web pages. Some of them even venture into Javascriptlets. Few blossom into real programmers, but it could be noted that HTML, because of how commonplace it is, is the gateway language to keyboard hacking.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
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.
Let's see, what will a qualified programmer do?
Work in an environment where pay and job security is according to seniority, not competance. Work with lazy and dumb students who disrupt class, yet can not be kicked out or even (except in Texas) spanked. Get stuck doing odd jobs like minding the bus loading/unloading area and trying to stop food fights.
Work in a cubicle for $40000 to $150000 while surrounded by fairly intelligent nerds and all the Mountain Dew you can drink.
Gee, I dunno...
Yes, kids still enjoy programming, but not all kids. It isn't all that long since I gradutated high school, and I can say that in my experience it's an issue of earlier specialization among geeks. Those who are interested in a topic are becoming more focused on that topic at earlier levels of education as opposed to not until college. What this leads to is the branching that you used to see later in life.
To phrase it another way, if you are interested in some other hard science and not a do-it-all genius type, why devote the kind of time it takes to be a good programmer if you have little or no plans of needing it later in life? Even at that early stage, you ask your programmer geek buddy to code what you need. You just need to learn to be good at giving specs, not writing code.
Before the flames and such start, I'm not saying this is a correct view, but it seems to be a prevailing one. To some extent, I find myself in this view as well. I'm a sysadmin, but I know a little programming. However, if I need anything beyond a basic script, I'm going to go to a real programmer to get the job done. Why? Because I've become specialized and I don't have the time and/or brilliance (and when it comes to programming, frankly the inclination) to master other fields.
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...a current highschool student. I must say, programming is a dying art among my peers because it's seen as 'uncool, unhip and boring.' There's no drive for it any more. I'm in my Junior (Grade 11.) year and I'm just picking up some C++ and C. Granted, I learned how to program for LinguaMOO's and I picked up some HTML back in 5th and 6th grade, so it's a little easier for me. But the point is, it's been... convoluted? I guess that'd be the word I'm looking for. It's been washed out by things like sports, staying fit and doing drugs. Hooray.
Seriously, the complexity associated with modern development tools is way too steep a curve for your average 14 year old to wrap their heads around. We're trying to address this to a certain extent with the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions, but it's a tough problem. It's no longer as simple as getting a bare-bones BASIC interpreter built into your computer's ROM. I think there have been some cool advances in this space, though, in the recent past. Take the Kids' Programming Language, for example. It's is expressly aimed at the younger crowd. I've seen a demo of it (the guys from Morrison Schwartz who created it came by to give a talk on it last year), and I must say that I am suitably impressed their work. Check it out if you have a younger child who you want to introduce to development.
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
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 . . .
But I mean, you don't need a school to learn programming. I started in elementary school with the second edition of Kernighan & Ritchie's C programming language book and I've been hooked on coding ever since.
My first programming experience was with a Mattel Aquarius that I got for Christmas when I was quite young (five or six, maybe). There were some game (and other) cartridges. But, when you didn't put a cartridge in, you turned on the computer and got an "OK" prompt. Time to start entering BASIC code! Of course, most of us can't be expected to know what to do with that right away. Good thing the Aquarius came with two (if I remember right) manuals. One was a set of example programs to try to teach BASIC programming on the thing. Typing on the soft-key keyboard wasn't that great, even with the control-key macros for the most common BASIC tokens. The other manual was more of a language reference. Between the two manuals, I learned a whole lot about basic control structures (such as GOTO, unfortunately).
My next computer at home was an Apple IIgs. Guess what happened when you turned that on with no disks? An Applesoft BASIC prompt. And, it came with another programming manual, A Touch of Applesoft BASIC. Programming that got a little dull, though, as the manual had what I found to be less interesting examples. I talked my parents into getting me a subscription to Nibble. Then, I had example programs to type in, both in BASIC and assembly. Well, the assembly was just hex codes until I eventually got a compiler. But I found it all rather interesting at the time.
Now, computers come with no such resources. You don't get a BASIC prompt when you turn on your Intel x86 machine, and you don't get a programming manual in the box. I'm not saying that BASIC is the best way to go to learn programming at all, but at least it was something. Plus, there exists software to do most tasks now, at least most tasks that a kid would think of.
Also, the perceived identity of programmers seems to have changed. In my Apple IIgs days, there were a lot of programs developed entirely by one programmer, often distributed as shareware. Of course, these folks still exist, but kids probably think that programmers are adults who work for someone like Microsoft, if they even think about the subject at all. Few would probably think that they could try programming because it isn't presented with the computer and it isn't presented as something that an individual could actually do as a (geeky) hobby.
It's a shame, really.
Frankly, I think the real problem lies in the fact that the standard OS nowadays (Windows) does not come with a readily accessible programming language. Back in the good ol' days, there was GW-BASIC and (later) Q-Basic. Qbasic even came with some games (remember gorilla?), that you could look at and see how things are done. All that made for a low technical barrier to entry (but not for good programming style). Now, unless you've got an inclination for programming, there's no way you can get started easily.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary, and those that don't.
My nephew used to brag to me about how he was some l337 haxor with mad skills.
He was hanging out on various web sites with all of the other cool script kiddies. In his mind, getting stuff from the web without knowing what it was; or designing web pages with a WYSYWIG HTML editor; or using a level-editor to make a new map -- all of that WAS cool. He just couldn't grasp that he wasn't doing anything difficult, and certainly not worthy of his haxor belief about himself. In reality, he was running other people's programs and using interfaces to do stuff.
Kids today either don't fully understand what it is they're doing, or think something utterly trivial is l337.
They can accomplish a whole lot of 'meaningful' tasks with the software which is readily available for free. They don't *need* to try and cobble together little wee programs to achieve minor tasks. Back in the day, we were happy to achieve tasks which are, nowadays, stinkin' trivial. Because the computer didn't do much unless we made it so.
Kids nowadays don't find themselves confronted with the need to program -- they're not staring at a blinking cursor trying to figure out what to do. They go onto teh intarweb and download it. They're not trying desperately trying to figure out how to write something to make the creation/management of D&D characters (or, whatever). They're downloading free (or pirated) software which already accomplishes what they need to do.
People aren't programming out of necessity anymore, they're running software on the magic box which has always been there. They don't need to think about how software gets made in the first place. The generation before them have filled in most of the gaps for them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
For three years, I taught myself through online tutorials here and there. Freshman year of high school I did a lot of programming, because I wanted to show my stuff off the the computer programming teacher (the class is only offered to sophmores and higher). Last year, once I was in the class I discovered how terrible high school is. In a one semester class, the other students only had a rudimentary knowledge of functions and no idea what OOP was. Basically it was a study hall for me, though I did write a tic-tac-toe game in C using SDL to show I did something.
I'd have to say that my knowledge of C++ is pretty rough. I may know syntax, but I sure as hell don't know how to use it for anything complicated. That said, sophmore year, I competed in the National FBLA competition for C++ programming and got 6th! This absolutely surprised me. Surely there must be more people who know C++ than this?
I'm disappointed in the US, in my teachers, and the school board. I've tried as hard as I could to learn in high school, but I end up being a slacker. Even classes at the local technical college (I've taken C# so far) have been a disappointment.
In general, students aren't encouraged to do programming at all. Math books have logic cicuits, boolean logic, and tons of example BASIC programs, but teachers skip over them. Educators need to educate, not push kids through school.
Drop out.
You don't need a degree to do incredible things.
Excessive schooling and socialization could be holding you back, at worst permanently infecting you with an inability to create and lead. A mind is a terrible thing to lose!
You really had to be something if you could pull anything off.
I can remember working with the better students in our 8th grade class to create a dithering routine for images displayed on Apple II and Apple III systems.
At the time, it felt like a gigantic accomplishment.
Can you imagine the dirty looks kids would give you now for even showing them a dithered image?
A lot of the really cool frontiers have been supplanted. For example, overclocking is now seen as cooler than programming.
Now, any true geek knows that hardware geeks are the slum dwellers of the geek world. It's a nothing skill compared to something like building a secure interface and database for a user-driven website and putting it out live on the internet to be assaulted by every kid with some CMS hacking bot.
I was talking to a 15 yr old kid who thinks he's a hacker because he can run a couple scripts to piss with Yahoo Messenger chats!
It was impossible to explain to him that he needs to channel that interest into real programming, and not just downloading someone else's program and committing vandlism with it.
That's just the state of things.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I think you've nailed it right on the head. On the gamedev.net forums, I see kids coming in almost every day who aspire to write an MMORPG right now. Many give up when you try to guide them through their first step because they can't immediately manage results on par with the games they usually play.
I'm actually amazed at what kids are doing with computers today and at such a young age.
Kids are instant messaging and emailing their friends, creating articles on MySpace, creating nifty Flash movies, modding their favorite fps game and distributing their effort over the Internet for 1000s of others to enjoy. They are actually using computers for a purpose rather than as quirky, nerdy obsession
This is WAY more productive and creative than what my friends and I were doing with our computers in the 80s. Kids are not only creating (and hopefully learning along the way) but they are connecting with LOTS of other people in the process!
Perhaps us oldbies view the seemingly lack of interest in actually programming a computer as a problem because we come from a background where the computer was more about what it could potentially do for us rather than what it could actually do at the time. Programming was a necessity to fill that gap, often in relative seclusion and obscurity.
I'm sure our dads say the same thing about us young whipper-snappers not knowing the first thing about the cars we drive and nod knowingly to each other about what a tragedy that is.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
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...
I showed to my 12 year old bro how I learned to program back then, I started a C-64 emulator and started typing BASIC commands like print, input, etc. He immediately liked it very much and we tried our hand at little programmes. Then he asked, what if I want to do the same on Windows?
I found a BASIC interpreter (with line numbers) for Windows and Mac called Chipmunk. Since then, my bro doesn't stop and tries a lot of things.
Anyway I went to school in a rich district. They could afford it and it made them feel special to have nerds win prizes for the school. Taxpayers don't get a great ROI on the football team either, by the way...
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
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.
>... Gifted students are being dragged down to the level of everyone else
>... normal classes are slowed down to accomodate for slower learners
Oh, stop it, now I'm getting all nostalgic! Yep, sounds like everything's EXACTLY THE SAME.
*sniff* *sniff*
the standard OS nowadays (Windows) does not come with a readily accessible programming language.
You mean other than JScript and VBScript, both of which run inside IE? I guess VBScript could almost be considered the descendant of the GW-BASIC that you mention.
(I would recommend Visual Basic Express, a free download for the owner of a legit copy of Microsoft Windows, but it appears that you need to be a Passport member to acquire an activation key, and Passport members need to be 18+.)
I'm the only person at my (very small) private high school to pass the AP Computer Science test in the last couple years. In fact, I'm the only person who is even taking the second year of the class. Personally, I love programming, and I've actually written some c# which is working in a (pretty nice) live site right now. I am continually suggesting to any semi-nerdy personalities that they should give Linux a try, because I know that they might really enjoy computers if they ever bothered to learn anything about them. But every nerdy kid I know who has an ounce of talent with computers has wasted every free second in the last few years obsessively playing World of Warcraft.
The CS course at my school only makes things worse, as the current teacher manages to make even Java extremely difficult, and the last teacher failed to teach at all. Maybe a factor in this lack of young interest is a lack of competant teaching talent? I can't speak for others, but I cannot imagine anyone continuing any work with computers if they have to learn from the people I've seen teaching them.
And yes, I can attest that most high school computer courses now consist of (shudder) Microsoft office and frontpage. In fact, my school just added "Business Accounting" (read Excel) and another similiar class to the curriculum.
Just my experience.
Kid, you're only in your second year of high school. It will, hopefully, get harder for you from here on out. Or maybe not.
Like other posters have said, if there is something you are interested in, go buy a book and use the Internet to teach yourself. Formal education limits your ability to be creative and develop your skills in the directions that you want to take them.
If you really want to LEARN something and be able to apply it, you have to work outside of the classroom. You'll be working outside of a controlled situation where you won't have a textbook to go back to for the answers, and you will have to learn how to diagnose a problem and be resourceful to solve it.
My Sysadmin Blog
"Programming" is creating code that, when compiled, produces a binary that needs nothing more than an operating system or JIT compiler to run.
"Scripting" is making funky text documents that need another program to do something. PHP, HTML, and Perl are technically scripting.
But a JIT compiler is "another program." For that matter, so is an operating system.
The distinction between "programming languages" and "scripting languages" is becoming sillier every day, as erstwhile scripting languages become increasingly powerful tools for developing big, powerful apps. Unless you're writing rather specialized drivers that only talk to the bare metal, you're not really doing anything that's more "real programming" in Java, or even C, than you are in Perl or PHP.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm currently finishing up my freshmen year in College majoring in CS - take that into consideration with how "relavant" I am in this history. I started doing web based "programming" in 6th grade, and in 7th started doing C and C++. I quickly learned a plethora of other languages in subsequent years. So, for regards to my age generation - yes, kids still learn to program. I don't know if my recency is relevant enough for this case though. Also, I should point out that CS enrollment in universities is declining - even though demand is increasing rapidly.
Education is driven in large part by demand, which is often driven by supply. In the 70s and 80s when I was a child and learning to code, first on a VAX at the UW (hanging around the computer department and punch card systems) as well as later the Tandy/RadioShack store with TRS 80s, then Apples and finally Macs/PCs, there was a dire need for folks to understand coding. Mostly cause applications and tools had to be developed to allow others to get work done effectively. Now there are tools and layers on top of tools and layers that have in part become too complicated for the average user to grasp and become a toolsmith. Today folks are oriented to getting a job done quickly, and then forget about the paperpush, moving on to the next project that keeps them employeed or as a student may be, competative. Microsoft and others have talons in the minds of the consumerbase, and knowing basic 'skills' like Turd or Decel are the endgame, to get an internship or job. Its kinda funny, there are failing kids in my wife's classes (she's a teacher at a HS) who are making more than I am (with 25 years coding experience) writing web based apps. So there is a market, however most kids don't see outside the box enough to get motivated to learn these skills. And finally tonight I say without question the average kid is being taught to take tests, not to think. We are a society focused on crisis management, not doing things right to avoid the crisis in the first place. So Knuth CS education in JH and HS is not in the realm of reality. We are slipping educationally in the US, and getting kids to simply be able to Read, Write and Balance a Checkbook out of HS is a large part the challenge. Nevermind the ability to think outside the box. Refocus on doing things right, not doing them for economic gain and I thinnk for a large part you will get back to a balance in the CS (and other) fields of science. Just my .50 CAN worth today :) Isn't it nice how we are almost back to equality
with the USD? Its been a long long time coming.
To some extent, maybe. One could also make a good argument that teaching Excel/Access/Word is not pointless, because in many jobs and even in college knowing them (or some equivalent, and let's face it, Word and Excel are far more widely used than OO.org Writer and Calc) is a necessity.
The reason I say "to some extent" is that when I was in middle school and high school (1974 - 1980), there were no computer classes either. None. Zero. I don't think one teacher in either school even knew how to use a computer. But, we did have computer access in my middle school (my high school was private and had nothing).
We had dial-up 300 baud access to the city schools computer systems (HP 2000 Access machines). We had two terminals - a DECWriter II and some heinous CRT that would practically burn the eyeballs out of your head after a few hours.
Students had to join the computer club to use them (set up by the principal; I don't know if he knew computers himself or not, but he was a very insightful and forward-looking man who clearly appreciated their value and potential). You could play games like Star Trek or Wumpus, or you could program in BASIC. Most of us mostly programmed. One guy had a paper route, and had written a program to do all of his paper route accounting. Other people worked on games and stuff. One guy wrote the first malware I ever saw :-) It disabled the break key and pretended to be the login screen. You had to know *its* password to disable it. If you typed in your userid and password, it would save them to a file and return to its bogus login screen. Some of us had access to the source code, and this set off a little competition of sorts to see who could most improve upon it to make it more realistic.
The thing about this computer use and the computer club is, there wasn't really anybody who taught us. There were no classes. The club moderator (a teacher) wasn't a programmer, either. We taught ourselves and taught each other, as best we could. Experienced guys (and I mean guys; I went all through 7th, 8th, and 9th grade without ever seeing a girl attend a computer club meeting, let alone actually join) would help the n00bs get started, and when we were no longer n00bs, we'd pass it along.
So, while I agree with your point about a lack of programming classes, that's hardly the only thing that matters. You have so many more resources than I did when I was in junior high school. In most schools, most students have at least one computer of their own at home, and that one computer has more processing power than every computer in my entire city did in 1974. Compilers and IDEs are affordable (or free, if you're using *nix). There are more programming books in an average bookstore than you could even get home in your car. There are massive amount of free tutorials available on the web. We didn't have any of those resources in 1974. The one resource we had was one that you have, too: a group of like-minded peers who were interested in computers and helped each other learn. One of the things that got me into Linux in the late nineties was that I found the user community was very much like my old junior high school computer club: smart, very enthusiastic, talented, very often self-taught, and very willing, ready, and able to help others who wanted to help themselves.
I bet that if I had a list of names of all the students who were in the Taft Junior High computer club and could track them down today, I would find that most of them either are working, or have worked, in computer jobs.
The one resource I had available for learning computers in junior high is a resource you have available, too: a like-minded peer group. If you're not in touch with people like that, get in touch. If there's no club and you think it would be beneficial
Speaking from experience, a good chunk of people who take high school programming classes are in there simply because they think they can surf the internet for an hour, like you can in most other HS computer classes. I started my Junior year with Java, and by the time I graduated I had also learned C++, PHP, and HTML. Definetly gave me a leg up when I started college last year.
Programming is still important for many professions and schooling that don't seem related at all. I'm an Aerospace Engineering student (Senior), and I've been programming since middle school (Basic, C++, VB), and I'm glad I did because most people struggle with it for classes.
Some codes I've had to write/design are specialized CFD simulations, finite element solutions, burn rate simulations, data retrieval, storage, and control onboard a rocket, etc...(all in FORTRAN). Working on these, most of my peers are lost with regard to proper programming, because its not taught. It seems to me that most technical fields, no matter how removed from normal CS areas, still require this kind of programming.
Granted, its not OO or scripting or dealing with crazy data structures and compiling your kernel from source, but basic structural programming still seems vital to many fields, where specific problems required specialized solutions for which there would never be any GUI-ified programs.
Even more than the pay (which isn't actually all that bad if you annualize it) the working conditions and the low status just kill being a teacher. The conditions teachers have to work under are horrible. Not only do you have poorly disciplined children to deal with, but you can't establish order or the psycho parents will get you. Your principle will in the best of circumstances provide no help, and in the worst be a petty tyrant. No matter how well you do your job, it will garner no added respect over the folks who are just phoning it in.
Then look at the status issue. In the US, status comes from two places: economics and education. Congratulations, a grad student making $10k a year or less has more status than you do, because teachers generally come from the bottom 30% of college graduates. All the bright people you might want to socialize with have vivid memories of both the REALLY dumb teachers they had coming up through school, and of the education majors they knew in college for whom Tuesday was the start of weekend because they had so little work to do. The automatic presumption when you tell people you are a teacher is that you aren't very bright, and that you are pretty lazy.
Then look at the unionization issue. You pay dues every week to be represented by group of folks who are actively trying to protect the most knuckle dragging segments of your profession. They actively oppose trying to pay you decently for teaching well. They have driven the system in which you work into one that is based solely on seniority. Seniority systems are HORRIBLE for everyone but the dead weight. Change job, loose your seniority and see your pay plummet. So after a few years you are TRAPPED in your job. A huge percentage of your compensation is backended onto your union pension, so to get most of your compensation you have to stick out the 30 years to retirement. How do you think your principle and superintendent treat you when they know going anywhere else to work means a 30-50% drop in pay for you? Do they treat you as a valued contributor, or a serf? If you really want to see the degree to which you are treated like livestock look at the 403b offerings your union recommends. In many case they are the most amazingly bad, high fee, low return things imaginable. You frequently would be better off in a money market account. But the plans basically bribe the unions and union officials, and you get sold like a sucker.
Contrast that with being a bright young programmer. Pay is relatively good. As you prove yourself to be better, your pay rises quickly. If you decide to change jobs, you are likely to see a pay increase. Programming is still somewhat of a prestige career, not top of the status ladder, but fairly up there. It is likely if you are any good you have management who is interested in keeping you happy and productive, because they are afraid you will leave for somewhere else. Typically as a programmer you have radical flex time. You can telecommute at least part time. You are constantly learning and things are constantly changing (the latter is not for everyone, but I like it a lot). You are capitalized appropriately (in otherwords, your employer provides the equipment you need to get your job done).
Why the hell would anyone who can program want to teach in the public schools?
Although I learned BASIC in elementary school (on an Apple IIc, which was 3 years older than I was), I never really tinkered with programming computers that much. Then, in 4th grade, I purchased a Casio CFX-9850G. That was perhaps the best purchase in my life. I learned how to program its unique dialect of BASIC, and spent many school hours ignoring the teacher and just programming (my school system barely did anything for talented kids, and I've heard that they've scaled back what little they did do down even further). I programmed some simple mathematical functions, some fun-with-graphics stuff, and even a mini-rpg. When I lost it in 7th grade, I replaced it with a TI-89 and spent even more time learning that calculator's more powerful language.
So, I must say that although I did program as a kid, I programed graphing calculators. Computers are way too complex nowadays to enjoy programming like hackers used to. For example, for someone to use the programs that he/she programs on a computer, they'd probably need to learn complex GUI programming to match what else they do on the computer. But a graphing calculator is still command-line at heart, so it's much less harder to program something that you'll use repeatedly.
And using what you've programmed feels great.
I went to school between the generation that had to program their C64 and the script-kiddies who just download their homework. I had a second hand 8086 when I was 8 and by the age of 12 the fastest computer at school was a 8088 on which we all had to learn to type. I could use a 80486 by the time I was 16 to learn the basics of Turbo Pascal on (for a mere 6 months) and we shared the 128kbit ISDN connection with 150 computers ranging from 486->PII
.NET, Ajax, Ruby on Rails and other 'Frameworks'. This takes the real thinking out of programming and even the dumbest ass can program in those languages. This doesn't mean it is good to learn the basics through such a 'languages' but I have been at a company that was programming their complete ERP system in VB, .NET and .NET2 for the last 4 years with 5 full-time programmers. The problem is that those 'programmers' don't understand that you can just stick to the same language if you use a core language like C or C++ and don't follow the framework flavor of the month. With some good design, you can even program quicker and more efficiently in a basic language and the product will be faster and have a smaller footprint AND be portable too.
What I would like to point out is that schools have way underestimated and underbudgetted their IT and computer expenses. I have never had a decent teacher that could explain the least thing about computers, programming or anything else. Governmental school systems are way to slow to adapt to the new technologies. It takes on average 10 years to change something fundamental in the program, the other schools are way to expensive for the average joe's kids.
Everything I learned (PHP, C, C++, ASM) I learned on my own and I don't have a degree in any IT or computer field. I am currently freelancing as a PHP programmer and *Nix Systems Administrator and soon I am going to administer a hybrid IBM mainframe/Windows/MacOSX/Novell network and I am currently earning close to 75k (I am not even 25).
Kids who are interested in having a good job later, shouldn't care too much about schooling anyway imho. What they teach in schools was way deprecated (even geology, history and chemistry) when I learned it and I had to correct teachers on multiple instances on different subjects. I read 100's of books of decent size about Novell, Linux, C++, OS/2 and other and experimented with different programming languages, hardware and software when other kids were playing outside.
The current decay in interest is also because everything seems to be prepared for them thanks to projects as
Anyway, the problem is imho that kids don't get educated good enough and some organization let is seem that programming is just some easy thing to do, that everybody could do while the real work isn't being done by anyone anymore.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Python/Tk and Perl/Tk are also good for the same reason - simple(ish) scripting language, very analogous to BASIC, that is multi-platform, cheap & easy to obtain, and can be programmed without a Master's and a bunch of GUI screen designers and rapid development tools.
Java applets were, not so long ago, very popular with the younger generation. For the same reasons as above. Quick, easy, graphical, sharable. Java is more restricted in that it can't really be run as a script - it can barely be run when compiled into bytecode! - so you don't get the same feel of "what happens when I change this here". Nonetheless, it is still an excellent place for very young coders, and OO isn't that steep a curve if you've not been polluted with procedural programming techniques.
Of course, although they're rarely used, LOGO, FORTH and other early languages still exist. You see them listed on Freshmeat all the time! I'd honestly encourage geek parents to install something like that and get younger kids interactively involved in programming.
The big reason that everyone seems to forget for why nobody codes these days is that we're in a culture of instant gratification. Why write the coolest game on Earth when you can buy the next-coolest (or get someone else to) from the local store?
In the 80s, during the heyday of DIY programming, more than a few kids too young to sign a contract were earning more than most highly-paid programmers do today. This is why, when I see parents "acting responsibly" by getting kids to earn maybe enough to buy a whole can of coca-cola after 8 hours of mowing lawns and washing cars (even though, by that time, they are probably dangerously dehydrated), it gets me a bit depressed.
What parents are teaching kids, by doing this, is that it's better to earn sub-survival incomes, risk causing heart damage later in life and learn nothing useful for later in life, than it is to develop logic skills (which are infinitely transferable) and write potentially sellable software.
Sure, the days of bashing out Chuckie Egg III and earning enough in royalties to retire at 16 are gone. On the other hand, starting from a standard Open Source 3D gaming engine and some toolkits for some of the more obscure implementation details, and a 9-12 year old should (at the very least) be able to code a game that would be worth a few hundred pounds or dollars over the course of a year, possibly a few thousand if really good. (That's still only 100-200 copies sold, in total, at the prices a lot of "budget" games go for.)
Kids really are useless with money and have zero comprehension of magnitude, but there can't be many who would take the can of coke (and heat-exhaustion) over and above being able to get all the high-tech junk anyone in the school might have PLUS whatever everyone else would give their front teeth for. Not all kids would even code for the purpose of being THE star to all the other kids. Some might code for the fun of it, others with the aim of writing the best damn game out there. Regardless, it must necessarily start with knowing that they can. Once they know they can, the world is the mollusk of their choosing.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Gifted students are being dragged down to the level of everyone else, and normal classes are slowed down to accomodate for slower learners due to NCLB.
Gifted students are dragged down to lower levels for two major (and horrific) reasons.
1) The general view in the eyes of "educators*" is that group work is A Good Thing. By putting smart kids with not so smart kids, educators think that this helps out the slower kids academically, while lets the smarter kids benefit from the "social interaction with those not as quick". They might also throw in some jargon about how letting smarter students work with slower students, they get to re-enforce what they've learned by teaching it to someone else.
What happens in practice is much more shady. Educators use groups to help divy out the workload of the class. By enlisting the (un)voluntary aid of these students, they can focus more of their attention on someone else or rather, less on everyone.
2) In a similar vein, educators seem to have a wretched philosophy of "the smart kids will get it anyway" along with "we should focus our attention on the slowest students, not the fastest" which equals bright students trudging along, waiting for everyone else. What this means is that bright students are almost never challenged and quite usually left to "get it" on their own.
How many slashdotters spent time sitting in a class, where the teacher knew you were more capable than the rest of the class, having seen you master a concept quickly, then just made you wait, doing nothing, while she brought the rest of the class up to speed? I think this is probably the primary reason we see so many very bright students (and adults) who are incredibly listless, unfocused, and fail to achieve later in life.
The other thing I'd like to mention is that NCLB is not the exact cause of this problem. NCLB deals with accountability through standardized testing. That means that if schools can't get a certain percentage of their students to pass fairly basic skills tests, they are in danger of losing federal funding. Educators object to this because of other laws that have passed for mandatory inclusion. This is where special needs students are required to have time in regular classrooms. Because of this inclusion, test scores will drop slightly. (The real reason scores are so low however, is because there is very little challenging content being taught.)
Sadly, although inclusion sounds very humanitarian and swell, for a vast majority of these students, it's a very bad situation. Many special needs students operate best in very small, focused environments and with practically no benefit to being around normal children. Horror stories abound with educators being forced to run a class of 25 students plus "one" that is completely unable to participate. This inclusion disrupts the class, halts academics and really is not mostly beneficial for everyone involved.
As for programming in the schools, I think there is another reason it has changed to Word and PowerPoint. Educators seem to be the least technologically competent people I have met, but inversely, also seem to be the loudest proponents for "including technology in the classroom because it is a skill required in the 21st century".
I know this because my mother has been in education for over 30 years and believes there is a major problem with her computer when AIM starts up accidentally. She's not an unintelligent person. She just knows nothing vaguely important about technology. She has little concept of very basic functions, like being able to copy and paste information from one program to another. She can use one or two programs with some efficiency, but beyond that, it's a mystery. When she talks about having technology in the classroom, she's not talking about programming... even remotely. She's talking about Word and PowerPoint and maybe even a web page the students had to find.
On the other hand, I'm about to s
An explanation of my choices for friends
That's what kids today think is programming.
/drupal/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 291 /community/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 294 /blogs/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 290 /blogs/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 297 /blog/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 296 /blogtest/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 300 /b2/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 294 /b2evo/xmlsrv/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 297 /wordpress/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 294 /phpgroupware/xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.0" 404 297
Example 1 of 1000000
console.log
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:06 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:06 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:06 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:06 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:06 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:07 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:07 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:07 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:07 -0400] "GET
207.210.74.100 - - [23/Apr/2006:13:24:07 -0400] "GET
But what if you want to be this person or this person or this person? These people did very wonderful things, but those wonderful things require that they have the education to do them.
My advice to smart people; don't drop out. It is possible to do wonderful things without a degree, but a degree will open much more doors, which makes doing those wonderful things much easier than without a degree.
So if I write something in Perl it is a script ?
When I write the same functionality in Common Lisp and run it using clisp, it is a script ?
When I compile it with CMUCL or SBCL, then it suddenly becomes a program ?
I hate this bloody artificial division between 'programs' and 'scripts'. They are all a way of automating things, be it for embedded applications or data processing, and I use Perl daily for data processing, from starting up external applications, gathering data, process results, store and retrieve data from a database and generate reports.
I recommend Python to kids wanting to learn programming. It's free, it's very easy to get started with command-line stuff and simple programs, and it doesn't take some rediculously complex installation process just to get it working. (Although creating a shortcut to IDLE is an unadvertised Useful Thing To Do.) There's also Pygame, a library for graphics/sound/other game stuff, and I'm just starting to play with Panda3D, a Python 3D engine (that includes a copy of Python itself). I found that C/C++ gave me headaches, as did attempting to get other 3D engines working with Python bindings, while Python simplifies a lot of tasks (variable declarations, memory management) without sacrificing functionality. So, Python is a relatively easy way to get into programming.
Revive the Constitution.
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.
Let's see... been programming ever since I got my first copy of HTML for Dummies when I was eight, and now I'm fifteen, and what have I written? To name just a few:
PyWord, a text editor coded in Python
(Used to be my most popular, I even had a guy in the Bereau of Labor and Statistics e-mail me once to say he liked it enough that he wanted to use it in his own program!)
pyprime, a program to find prime numbers
I actually came up with the entire algorithm for it during theatre class in eighth grade. I've also ported it to my TI-83
Überpage, a PHP-based Web site engine
Among other features, it uses a MySQL backend, generates completely valid XHTML 1.1, and if you're wondering, yes, I even designed the CSS theme myself
These days, though, I tend to spend most of my time developing Ultima Linux, which has become – I may as well brag – a very popular distribution. Most of that stuff isn't so much writing programs as compiling them, although I frequently do have to make some major changes to shell scripts, etc., which I've also become somewhat good at.
I've also become fairly decent at writing sed scripts, the occassional bit of JavaScript, and now I'm gradually trying to teach myself C. (Although with all the other stuff, and not to mention my actual life, I never have the time...) And then I also tend to like playing with CSS designs – I've got a Slashdot design I did, as well as a CSS Zen Garden entry and my hand-coded WordPress theme, which I'm rather proud of.
I used to waste endless hours with QBASIC, and then later Visual Basic. I've never really forgiven myself for it until now, but I no longer remember a single line of it so I guess I've repented enough :-)
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
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?
When I discovered programming, it was because the coding environment was easily accessible - you turned your computer on and the basic compiler was there inviting you to try soemthing (this was true for the commodore, atari and trs-80 I had when I was a kid). You typed in source code from magazines - it was great.
As far as I know, Windows does not provide a free and easily accessible programming environemnt. Apple does (xcode) as well as a number of open source tools like Perl, PHP, Python, etc.
I have a Mac, so let's see what it would take for my son to start tinkering around as I did when I was his age. Let's say he wanted to start in on Python. He has to first know that he has to go find a shell, which is found in Applications->Utilities->Terminal and then type "python" to bring up the interpreter. This assumes he already knows that python is a language and is one he wants to tinker around in. This is not intuitive.
What about XCode? He has to have a basic understanding of the Unix filesystem and go back to the root directory to find a directory called "Developer". Within the developer directory are the subdirectories ADC Reference Library, Applications, Documentation, Examples, Extras, Headers, Java, Makefiles, Palettes, Private, Tools. He's bright - he chooses Applications. He is then faced with Audio, Graphics Tools, Java Tools, Performance Tools, Utilities, Interface Builder.app and xcode.app. Again, he's smart (or lucky) and doesn't go deeper and follow the subdirectories and chooses xcode.app. He's now faced with a series of screens. First being building with the options "Put build projects in project directory", "Separate location for build projects", "Put intermediate build files with build projects", "Separate location for intermediate build files". At this point, he gives up and moves on never reaching the screen asking him if he wanted to build on of 53(!) types of programs. God knows what other screens are after that.
Anyway, you get the point. A free IDE does not inspire a kid to jump in and make 10 print "my name is Colin" 20 goto 10. Python, Perl and PHP require knowledge that they exist, what they do and how to invoke them before you can even begin to write your first line of code.
It doesn't surprise me that kid don't take up programming as readily these days.
When I was 13-14 (around 1999), I used to like to program in BASIC, I had a Macintosh Performa 6200, but no, I wasn't programming on it, although I used to spend much time on it, no, I was using my little sister's V-Tech Genius 2000.
Why? Well, the Macintosh Performa 6200 didn't come bundled with a compiler, not a damn compiler, as the V-Tech had a big BASIC button that would take me to a simple programming environnement where I just had to type 10 ? "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10 RUN to get started with programming.
Most kids don't program because they don't have a compiler on their computer, and even if they do, they don't know where it is/how to use it, and if they don't, they don't know what to get/where to get it.
Kids won't play dodgeball if they don't have a ball in the first place, and they won't buy a ball to play it not knowing what kind of ball to get and if it's even worth it. Same here.
You just got troll'd!
Speaking as one who currently teaches computer science in high school classrooms, I can offer my own anecdotal evidence to the contrary: students do still program computers. That said, I agree with much of what others have said here. These days there are usually several different courses that tend to be lumped together as 'computing', although some of them have nothing to do with one another save that they involve a computer:
- keyboarding, aka typing
- computer literacy, aka word processing, productivity applications, etc.
- introductory programming,
- intermediate programming,
- AP computer science
The first two in the list have little if any programming component. I say little, though the second course may cover a number of use of spreadsheets and through that the use of formulae, conditional expressions, etc. [ I should note that there is a online journal dedicated to documenting the various ways in which spreadsheets can be used to teach various concepts - see http://www.sie.bond.edu.au/ for more details. ]
The introductory and intermediate courses may have widely differing names depending upon when they were introduced into the school system; a local public system calls the second course "Data Structures", most likely because it was introduced during the Pascal heyday. Even though these two course sound like a close-knit progression of coursework, they actually may be quite different. Two of the local systems teach a different language (Java) in the second course than is used in the first course (VB.Net). The reasons for this choice are not entirely clear. Pascal was introduced into high school classrooms largely via the Apple II series; even the emergence of the IBM PC and its clone still gave access to Turbo Pascal. Not to imply that VB.Net is a step backwards, but the return in the high school classroom to QBasic, VB 6, and then VB.Net seems driven more by the availability of textbooks than other factors. I welcome a more informed explanation.
Originally Pascal was chosen as the AP Computer Science language of choice. { Here A.P. means Advanced Placement, high school courses with an associated standardized exam; many colleges and universities recognize exam scores and award credit towards degree programs. } For whatever reason, though, that choice was relatively short lived - perhaps driven by a 'pragmatic' crowd that wanted a 'real programming language' to be taught in the high school? At any rate, Java is now the language used in the the AP Computer Science exam. There is talk of changing the exams again to use a more language agnostic format.
A great many other tools and languages are taught in addition to or besides these, obviously. A smattering of ones that I know of or have used:
- The TeachScheme project http://www.teach-scheme.org/ exists to provide resources for those who wish to use Scheme in introductory high school and college courses. { And DrScheme rocks.... } I personally know one high school instructor who went through their workshop and adopted their approach and who had good things to say about it. { In fairness, though, he is currently teaching Java due to his participation in an NSF-funded grant. } For those looking for a natural follow-on to Java or more 'traditional' OOP programming, might I suggest having a look at Proulx and Gray's work in
How To Design Classes and ProfessorJ
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/vkp/HtDCH/ http://www.drscheme.org/.
- Alice http://www.alice.org/ is getting a lot of well deserved buzz, especially in light of the recent announcement that EA will be funding the development of their next major version (3.0), which will include features from the popular Sims game series. Caitlin Kelleher's work in extending Alice into a storytelling environment has also produced good results, esp
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Ed., Vol 2
Kids 20 years ago switched on their machine, and after a few seconds they typed:
and the program run.
Today's kids switch on their machines, wait for Windows or Linux to boot, log in, open their IDE and write:
then hit the compile & run key.
In other words, programming was then much more fun (even in its primitive form) and much less 'serious' than it is today. Getting a few sprites to run on the screen was a few lines of code (mostly sprite data) and a few instructions to generate those sprites on the screen, whereas todays it involves a huge effort of device contexts, video card drivers, DirectX, C++/Java, pointer handling, class hierarchies, interface design etc.
There are LOTS of computer-programming languages for kids. And a few don't even lose expressive power in comparison with traditional languages. And lots of kids use them. It's just that previously (80's) programming a computer was a requirement for using them at all. Check out ToonTalk (www.toontalk.com). In this animated language, you can program while the program runs, and all your programs are by language design concurrent and distributed - you get a program to run on various computers simply by copying and pasting parts of the code into and from an e-mail. Also, see the Squeak project (http://www.squeakland.org/) or the WebLabs project (http://www.weblabs.eu.com/).
Erm... And where is this, exactly? I'm certain the Visual Basic runtime's there, but under what menu in WinXP will I find the Visual Basic compiler?
Program Intellivision!
I think I got my first programming book for my 5th birthday.
Back then it was BASIC and I'm sure I wrote some pretty crappy code. The good thing was that by the time I hit university i had 12 years of learning syntax and programming in basic, C, pascal and assembly. That meant I could focus on algorithms and not be dragged down by the dull stuff like making code actually compile.
I think, from observing my classmates, that those who learned syntax + algorithms at the same time performed significantly worse than those of us who had syntax figured out. It remains to be seen how that will play our in careers - but i'm not doing too badly.
Maybe the reason why learning how to write programs has dwindled because there are no easy, out of the box programming languages to learn. When I was a kid, I turned on my Commodore 64 and voila! It booted directly into a BASIC interpreter.
Furthermore, there were interesting things to program on early computers. It was fun to learn how to write programs to display sprites, move said sprites around the screen, and maybe play some bad music on the SID chip. There is no easy way to do this on Windows. Hell, I have no idea where to even start! It's not documented well enough for a kid to get to want to take a stab at such a thing.
HTML is bad, bad, bad for a kid to learn to program with. It's waaaay too forgiving. You can write crappy code and it will still render in browsers. That teaches kids to be sloppy.
maybe your language was designed by committee. Has the C++ committe ever said "no" to a feature?
C can be mastered.
FYI, I'm 14, and I've begun to see an inherent tendency towards ignorance in computers in schools. Not only that, but they've been taught apparently, to shy away from knowledge.
At the slightest mention of a technical sounding term, a torrent of insults, "Shut up", and "What the hell is he talking about?" comes at me. The point is that it's not that these kids haven't been exposed enough to computers, it's just that they're not willing to accept teaching. A kid will gladly spend 4 hours playing piddly flash games and browsing MTV.com, but if you ask that same student to take 15 minutes to read a tutorial on HTML, they'll blatantly refuse, and say how that's too geeky.
Now, I'm not going to deny that computers haven't been made boring in schools, because they have. This is due to the fact that the computer teachers and network admins at the schools are ignorant dumbasses. I once asked the admin at my school why they didn't use Linux on the school's servers, to which she replied "What is Linux?". At that point I almost lost all hope for humanity.
And, don't even get me started on so called "Computer" class. All you do in there is either a) do math games, or b) play childish typing games. No where in that class do you learn anything about actually making use of a computer.
Not only dot he students refuse to make use of any technical knowledge, the teachers won't let them. I once had a project I had done, and I had no blank CDs, so, I did the smart thing and emailed it to myself, only to find out the next day that you're not allowed to download any files, at all. So, that was fine, I went home the next day, went out and bought some CD-Rs, only to find out the next day, that you aren't allowed to put any discs into the school computers.
So, in a nutsheel, kids these days are ignorant,and resist learning, the computer classes in schools are only acceptable for "special" children, and teachers refuse to let students exhibit their technical ability.
All your reading ability are belong to me.
Those are all good languages, but the most important language to learn is the one you use to communicate with your fellow man. It appears to be english.
Please attempt to increase your vocabulary and knowledge of literary references. In that way, you can avoid using vulgar, overused expletives to express your emotion. Cuss words certainly do have an impact, and are quite "edgy," but they are used as a substitute for learning a variety of strong vocabulary. I think in the coming years, you'll probably begin to notice more and more how ignorant it often makes the speaker sound, especially coming from your so-called peers.
Anyway, I urge you to learn other ways to express your emotion, not because the "seven words" are vulgar or inappropriate, but because they indicate so many feelings at once that should really be expounded upon in prose rather than blasted in sharp unspecific staccato.
I, unfortunately, concur.
Our school prides itself on being one of the best public schools in the state, and we have no notable programming/computer science classes. I believe our school had one when I entered in the 7th grade, as I seem to remember being excited about it, but it's since been dropped. We offer a class called "IMS", but, despite it being in the course description, I don't believe they've done any real programming.
And people still aren't any better off - I've fooled people into thinking I've hacked into the FBI with a really cheesy any-real-computer-nerd-would-die-laughing web page. On a laptop with no internet connection. You have people ask you, "You mean you want to sit in front of a computer the rest of your life?", or they'll ask you how to do something with a computer that's way out their (or my) ability - people don't understand that programming isn't just about typing code, that it's a certain way of thinking, a way of wrapping your mind around a problem and being able to describe it to a machine in such detail that it can solve it. As I exquisitely tried to put it one very late night: "People simply misunderstand the type of person a programmer isn't."
It is a shame. I browse and answer questions on programming forums during my spare time, and people post their homework questions in hopes of an answer. What I would give to be able to have homework in programming - they have no idea how lucky they are.
Everything I know, however, I taught myself. (Sort of a neat thing to say, really.) I have little in the way of peers, and no teachers or guidance - any holes in my abilities will surface later. I pronounced "integer" with a hard g until I heard someone say it. I spelled out GUI, whereas most other's I've heard pronouce it ("gooy"), and I pronounce AVI, where I've always heard people spell it out.
Though one unintended consequence of bad schooling: TI-83+s. Our school requires them, and their native ability to use TI-BASIC seems to flush out some programmers. (Though some people who have no desire to program still use it.) Those who do generally start trying to make games, or things to solve various equations. (As opposed to those who merely type them in.)
Teachers tend to trust a student(s) more than the IT department. Some years the IT department was a student. (Ah, the golden years.)
Perhaps this lack of education will cause a shortage of programmers, a spike in demand, and raised salaries for those of us who know what we're doing. Then again, perhaps all our work will be outsourced.
But today the answer is still the same. I will not fix your computer. (I mean, I'm a programmer. I break things. ^_^)
Nowdays, there are so few places in Silicon Valley to buy new components it's criminal. Nobody seems to be interested in electronics anymore. There used to be a place that was the size of a Circut City or Best Buy, but it's been out of business for at least 20 years.
It makes me wonder where the next breakthroughs are going to come from on the hardware side.