Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Do Kids Still Take Interest In Programming For Its Own Sake?
nirgle writes "I have been wondering lately if there are any kids interested in programming for its own sake anymore. When I was my nephew's age, computers were still fascinating: There wasn't a laptop on every table, facebook wasn't splattered on every screen, and you couldn't get any question answered in just a couple seconds with Google. When I was 10, I would have done anything for a close programming mentor instead of the 5-foot high stack of books that I had to read cover-to-cover on my own. So I was happy when my nephew started asking about learning to do what "Uncle Jay does." Does the responsibility now shift to us to kindle early fires in computer science, or is programming now just another profession for the educational system to manage?"
Another reader pointed out a related post on the Invent with Python blog titled "Nobody wants to learn how to program."
I disagree, so instead of modding down I'll reply :-)
I guess there are several kinds of people, those like you (I think I get your point), and those like me : *I* was really fascinated about computers and programming *per se*.
It was not about one or a few particular goals, it is about the idea of an infinity of things that became possible, and being able to bring new kinds of solutions to almost anybody on the planet. In this regard, somehow I'm joining your point, because of course there always are ultimate goals, but they were not my own : they were other people's goals that I thrived to reach using my craft : programming.
When I was an 80s teen with my ZX Spectrum, I could write games that weren't too far behind the earliest commercial games. (back then it was even a novelty to have control over what appeared on your old telly screen!)
I wrote games that gave me as much fun as the coin-op machines back then, when things were primitive.
Now though, how can any kid write a fluid 3D FPS shoot-up? I take my hat off to any who can! Where's the incentive? Where's the novelty?
Little 2D games on the kids' Android phones, maybe. Perhaps.
It is much more motivating to be learning to program with a particular project in mind. I'd argue it also teaches you to program better because you can't avoid the bits of the task that you find difficult or tedious. I'm a scientist but I spend a lot of my time programming experiments, models or analysis code.
I teach a research methods module to undergraduate life sciences students. The vast majority of these people have never programmed and never expect to. This is a bit strange when so much of being a professional scientist in my field involves programming. Recently, we changed the research assignment they have to do so that it now involves some very basic programming. Mostly GUI stuff where they build a timeline and a "flow" out of blocks, but there are a few lines of code they need to write too.
I was expecting there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the content being too difficult, and a rebellion against being made to program. In reality, nobody complained and most of the students seemed to enjoy it. Some of them got very excited about writing a program that made a computer do what they wanted it to do. They also got quite competitive about writing their programs better than their colleagues (to the point of argument, but it was still encouraging to see). These people were not nerds, and talking to them I got the impression some thought computers were just "magic". One student didn't even understand that computer programmers existed who wrote software to make computers do things.
It's funny you should mention boredom and building blocks.
When I was a kid, LEGO was all the rage in the UK (and probably many other places too). They were just simple building blocks. They had all the simplicity of wooden blocks, but the advantage that if a clutzy kid like me jogged the surface they were on they didn't all fall down. As they go more complex, they started including manuals to show you how to build different things with the pieces they'd included. (Mechano did the same thing)
Then I noticed a shift in philosophy and the manual had fewer and fewer designs - until they only had one design in the manual. This may have changed since, but I'd be surprised. Since my son was born, I've noticed how toys these days seem to be single serving. They only have one prescribed function. I'm sure that's not how it used to be when I was 5! I've also noticed how my soon to be 1 year old son is more interested in the boxes toys come in, than the toys themselves.
I still remember my Mum coming back from a night class where someone had demonstrated how to program the BBC Acorn Electron in BASIC (at the time a new machine - there I go showing my age!) to work out the average of two numbers, and she complained that it took longer to program the computer than to do the maths on a piece of paper. She clearly didn't understand the power this machine *could* have. My Dad on the other hand did. Not for working out the averages of numbers, but to do other things.
My question for the audience is this; Are kids these days bored because they only have single use toys? The toys they have only do one thing. This leads back to the original article, because when I learnt to program (on that Acorn Electron no less), I learnt because I was fascinated by how I could get the computer to do stuff, other then the prescribed functions that came with the machine.