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Telegraph Contributor Says Coding Is For Exceptionally Dull Weirdos
mikejuk writes "The UK Government is trying to figure out how to teach children to code by changing what is taught in schools. The Telegraph, a leading UK newspaper, has put the other side of the case: Coding is for 'exceptionally dull weirdo(s).' The recent blog post by Willard Foxton is an amazing insight into the world of the non-programming mind. He goes on to say: 'Coding is a niche, mechanical skill, a bit like plumbing or car repair.' So coding is a mechanical skill — I guess he must be thinking of copy typing. 'As a subject, it only appeals to a limited set of people — the aforementioned dull weirdos. There's a reason most startup co-founders are "the charming ideas guy" paired with "the tech genius". It's because if you leave the tech genius on his own he'll start muttering to himself.' Why is it I feel a bout of muttering coming on? 'If a school subject is to be taught to everyone, it needs to have a vital application in everyday life — and that's just not true of coding.' Of course it all depends on what you mean by 'vital application.' The article is reactionary and designed to get people annoyed and posting comments — just over 600 at the moment — but what is worrying is that the viewpoint will ring true with anyone dumb enough not to be able to see the bigger picture. The same attitude extends to all STEM subjects. The next step in the argument is — why teach physics, chemistry, biology, and math (as distinct from arithmetic) to anyone but exceptionally dumb weirdos."
C'mon slashdot, aren't you better than this?
I imagine writing news editorials all day is only for exceptionally dull weirdo's as well. At least when my work is done there is something useful to come out of it.
I resemble that!
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I would venture to say newspapers like the Telegraph are for exceptionally dull weirdos. Everyone else uses twitter & the web.
brace yourself for 1000+ angry comments
No doubt.
Thing is, everybody does not need to be taught coding, but they really should be at least shown how to use a computer. In the same manner that everybody does not need a mandatory engine building class, though driver's education would be nice along with the basics on how to maintain an automobile. Even that is not mandatory in these parts.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
Change gthe oil in my car, add radiator fluid, fix a tire. I also know how to unclog a drain.
So if coding is so routine, then everyone should know how to do.
PS: A lot of effort has been made to allow the masses to code. COBOL, VB/VBA come to mind. If it is so mechanical why the effort?
The article is reactionary and designed to get people annoyed and posting comments
So it's flamebait and clickbait? So why post it here? There are plenty of dolts like him and we don't have to respond to them all. Don't feed the troll.
--
BMO
...should be left to self-absorbed narcissists?
In any case, RTFA, I think I'd need to see the policy he is critizing to judge it, but it does sound a bit ambitious especially for the age group he claims it's for.
Nonetheless, he's a ignorant ingrate.
The criticism applies to any field. In order to get good at something, most people need to work on it to acquire skills and knowledge.History? Dull and weirdos. Philosophy? Dull and weirdos. Sport? Dull and weirdos. And so on.
sinking millions into teaching every kid to code is a waste. Better to focus on math, which is the hard part of programming. Stringing together for loops isn't rocket science. That said, it does require a certain amount of skill, and I'm sure companies are tired of paying for that skill. This new push to get everyone coding is really just a bunch of rich $@$#s trying to get cheaper programmers on the public dime :(.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There are a lot of names people can use to describe programmers ( I am one ) but exceptionally dull weirdos made me smile because of its obvious trolling. It is amazing how many people will get angry at him when really it is more comical than anything.
Listen, the guy who wrote this blog piece for the Telegraph didn't grow up to become a doctor,engineer, astronaut, scientist or programmer. He writes op-ed pieces for a newspaper. According to LinkedIn, he holds an LLB in law, then pursued an MSc in Business Entrepreneurship and followed up with a brief tenure as a music festival coordinator, PR agency account exec and finally became a freelance TV presenter and magazine editor. It might just be that he considers technically gifted individuals to be "exceptionally dull weirdos" simply because he doesn't understand what they're saying.
Coming from a professional panty-sniffer.
Interestingly he mentions:
There's a reason most startup co-founders are "the charming ideas guy" paired with "the tech genius".
Of course, there is a reason for that. And it's not that programmers are dull weirdo's. That one statement totally undermines anything negative he has to say about coders. The guy with charming ideas is nothing without a genius coder to implement them. And the coder indeed needs the ideas guy to suggest what he's going to code, and how it's going to look like. One can't do without the other, and so it goes in so many fields of work.
Of course there is no need to make just everyone a skilled coder. I'd like to see schools teach at least the basics of coding, so kids know the existence of the field and what it's used for, but no need for more than that, unless the kid wants it.
And for being "dull weirdo's"? Well one thing what makes a good coder is the ability to concentrate deeply and focus on single subjects for a prolonged period of time. And that's exactly the quality that makes those people "dull" (thinking of just a single subject) and "weirdo" (being able to close one off from the outside world) in the eyes of people that do not have that specific quality.
I find many people who have an "artistic" background simply don't understand us technical types. This lack of understanding seems to frustrate them. I think that technically minded people don't mind not knowing the details of other technical areas, as they know that they could learn them if they cared to. But for artistic types they see technical stuff as a dark art. This leads to a huge source of frustration when they have to step into our area such as working a ticket kiosk, their laptops, their home router, the dashboard in their cars, or write articles about things like thorium reactors.
After a while they start to think that the various bad interface designs are a conspiracy against them; this is only compounded when a technical type reaches over and helps them with a flick of a single switch, and when asked why couldn't it have been designed better it becomes obvious that the technical person is hunting for a way to not say, "They assumed that you had at least a double digit IQ." and then it becomes hatred.
Another source of frustration is the implied knowledge that the world could get by with far far fewer artists but not with far fewer engineers. It might be a less colourful world but the engines of civilization need engineers.
Hmm. Journalism Degree. Work for minimum wage (or less) for your entire career. Waiters make more money than you. CS degree, sixty grand a year right out of school, most of them will be making at least six digits long before the end of their career. I enjoy being an exceptionally dull weirdo. How's journalism treating you?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
This would be the perfect example where articles could by moderated as "Troll"
Not really angry. More disappointed.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don't get any kind of respect in management. Because that's what they see in us: The computerized equivalent of plumbers and bricklayers. The fact that they couldn't wrap their feeble minds around a tenth of what we have to understand intimately doesn't matter. What matters is that we're notoriously bad at marketing. Self-marketing, too.
I guess I'm not the only one who is amazed again and again how simple, trivial concepts can be impossible to grasp for allegedly intelligent people. And of course I consider what I can do fairly trivial because, well, let's be honest, it is. Still, there is an amazingly small subset of the human species that can even begin to understand what I'm actually doing. My move to management was quite an eye opener, and it showed me just HOW much people at the C-Level don't really understand about their company.
But they're good at self marketing. They're great at selling their ability that parallels the feat of being able to eat your lunch without spilling half of it on your tie as the biggest achievement in human history. Because, well, in a nutshell, "management skills" are trivial, at best. I was at first very intimidated by the idea that I should now "manage". Turns out it's not that much different from what you have to do anyway while you actually should be programming, just leave out doing some sensible work and you got it.
And that's simply what it boils down to: Techs are really bad at self marketing. We still mostly rely on getting the job done and getting it done well and hoping that people will notice. Bullshit, people don't care. People only listen to the loudmouth who keeps tooting his own horn.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is the state of Slashdot in 2013. Posting troll articles for ad impressions and clickbait.
... the only reason said asshole has a job is because someone coded the [infrastructure] that he's posting from to claim this.
Actually, the Telegraph is an old line newspaper.
Granted it's one of the few that has established a strong Web presence. But, like other old-line papers, it's having serious business model problems, as the readership abandons mainstream "news is really infotainment-like art product" operations for actual reporting of information on the Internet.
So those coders have created the juggernaut that is crashing his opportunities for employment.
I read his posting as sour grapes, taking a swipe at the people he sees as a threat.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I would settle for people learning some more respect for the blue collar jobs amongst us. I suspect the countries with a higher proportion of "dull weirdos" in relation to "idea guys" will be the more prosperous ones in the future. As the old saying goes, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Idea guys are great, but they're like the 1% inspiration. Too many of them around, and you have the "too many chiefs, not enough indians" problem rather quickly.
Back in the day, well at lest up to the mid 1970 our schools taught wood working and metal working in grades 6,7, and 8 because these were life skills. You learned how to build and fix things.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
That sort of idiocy is why they only taught the girls how to type when I went to school.
Trying to pretend that coding is the right skill for everyone is utter nonsense – for most people, it’s exponentially less useful than the basic level of IT literacy most people still lack. As far as I’m concerned, this is the real IT crisis that needs addressing.
I expected this year's school leavers, born in 1995, and having never lived without the internet, to be brilliant with computers. Now I know better. Working with them, I've found that the opposite is often true. Many lack basic computer literacy – the “have you tried turning it off and on again?” stuff – because the education system has let them down so badly.
Considering how many programmers fail FizzBuzz, his point about the education system failing people on basic IT literacy is relevant.
Not really angry. More disappointed.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don't get any kind of respect in engineering. Because that's what they see in us: glorified self marketers. The fact that they couldn't wrap their feeble minds around a tenth of what we have to understand intimately doesn't matter. What matters is that we're notoriously bad at coding. Self-marketing, too.
I guess I'm not the only one who is amazed again and again how simple, trivial concepts can be impossible to grasp for allegedly intelligent people. And of course I consider what I can do fairly trivial because, well, let's be honest, it is. Still, there is an amazingly small subset of the human species that can even begin to understand what I'm actually doing. My move to engineering was quite an eye opener, and it showed me just HOW much people in development don't really understand about their company.
But they're good at coding. They're great at selling their ability that parallels the feat of being able to write out a couple lines of gibberish as the biggest achievement in human history. Because, well, in a nutshell, "computer programming skills" are trivial, at best. I was at first very intimidated by the idea that I should now "program". Turns out it's not that much different from what you have to do anyway while you actually should be doing the normal day-to-day work, just leave out communicating that work to others and you got it.
And that's simply what it boils down to: management is really bad at writing code. We still mostly rely on getting the job done and getting it done well and hoping that people will notice. Bullshit, people don't care. People only listen to the loudmouth who keeps tooting his own horn.
If you don't make any effort to appreciate how difficult and important skillful management is, how can you expect understanding from the other side of the aisle? Just because someone is over a team or has the word "manager" in their title doesn't mean they know what they are doing any more than a half of the coders out there -- be honest, at least half the code you read is garbage. It doesn't mean that coding is a trivial skill any more than management is a trivial skill. If anything, it proves the opposite.
I play guitar in a rock band named Toehider - we supported Devin Townsend last month. It rocked.
I've interviewed the guys in Dream Theater, Trivium, Machine Head & Megadeth.
I've found over 300 geocaches, quite a few of them in other countries (Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, China).
I mix sound at my church, lead one of the bands and play drums in another band. I'm teaching myself piano at the moment.
I've produced video clips for my own music and had them shown on TV. I've performed my own compositions on TV (thanks "Guitar Gods"!)
I've had a few of my songs featured on "The angry video game nerd" episodes and released an album of them on iTunes. I'm working on a second album.
I was interviewed for ABC TV's "Good Game" last year.
I'm writing a few iphone apps at the moment.
I've worked for tiny non-for-profits, huge corporations, energy companies, travel companies, entertainment companies & beer companies (man that one was goooood, free beer thursday and fridays!!).
I regularly drive my wife nuts by constantly picking up a new hobby every 6 months and then moving onto the next one.
I'm still trying to work out how I can live with myself, being so boring. In fact I think I'll just fall asleeeeeeeeep.
And BTW, all of my programming friends are just as interesting. Just like you guys on slashdot. You're ace too. Stay cool, your pal, LB.
I have to tell a story... yeah... I'm old. My little bother was hot. He couldn't help it, girls just couldn't leave him alone. Someone convinced him to do modeling as a career for a while, but after missing shoots to enter skateboard contests, his modeling career was over. Still, Hallmark's "Hunk" calendar ran him as Mr April two years running.
Anyway, while he was screwing every girl who ever wanted a hot guy, I got my engineering degree. I dated the president of the math club, and spent a night in jail for hacking phone systems. One night during summer break, my brother had something to say to me. He said, "I respect what you're doing." I knew he meant he respects what I'm doing even though any reasonable person would not. I couldn't argue with the guy living every hormone driven teenager's dream, but I thought it was funny. I was preparing to make the world a better place, but I suppose being a girl's dream date counts.
We are geeks. There's something wrong in our minds that makes us happy spending time typing on a keyboard rather than chasing women. When I change the world in concrete measurable ways, the feeling is euphoric, and programming is the way I help change the world.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
We are geeks. There's something wrong in our minds that makes us happy spending time typing on a keyboard rather than chasing women.
What a ridiculous negative stereotype. Just because you spent your teens and early 20's behind a keyboard doesn't mean that the rest of us were socially awkward introverted weirdos.
I found plenty of time for girls. I suspect many other "geeks" did as well. It was not an either-or scenario.
What you really want to say is "I had a crummy adolescence, but it's only because I was super-smart!" Which is ... very sad.
Stop spreading that ridiculous myth! Back to your parents basement with you!
Required reading for internet skeptics
The computerized equivalent of plumbers and bricklayers.
Plumbing and masonry are skilled trades. An apprenticeship in either of those trades is a few years, easily the equivalent of a college degree. And that's just to get a journeyman ticket. So, yeah. Programmers are about in line with that.
But ... but ... it's the only thing that soothes the crushing existential pain. ;-)
And, for the record, I think it could be a generational thing -- because up through high-school, interest in computers was a very rare thing for all but the highly nerdy, and in university my comp. sci classes to begin with were pretty much made up of the socially awkward introverted weirdos across the board, at least the ones who passed; the rest some how ended up not continuing on. But over the span of a few years I could see differences and see that the classes had a slightly different makeup of people.
But in the early 80s, the people who were geeks, pretty much were the stereotypical archetypes. They hadn't yet invented the jock-geek subspecies I saw come a long much later, and the rocker-geek subspecies was a cultural impossibility at the time.
Believe it or not, for some of us (to varying degrees), that myth wasn't as far from the truth as one might think. Of course, the nerd umbrella also included that one autistic kid in the school, the music geeks, and the fat guy with adenoids. Not all the nerds were into computers -- but the egregious social awkwardness was unmistakable from orbit. ;-)
So, show some care -- for some of us, Breakfast Club is a surprisingly accurate depiction of the social strata in schools in the 80s. Some of us related to that 'myth' more than anything else, even if it is a little cliche. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm doing and programming computers well does require a lot of skill that's borderline autistic in the real world. I'm sure your teachers too did some kind of "How dumb can a computer be?" exercise where you tried instructing the teacher to put jam on a piece of bread and he tried acting as dumb as possible making you Lay. Out. Each. Step. Exactly. Computers are like that and we accept that, you've got nobody to blame but yourself because it did exactly what you told it to. But the rest of the world isn't like that, if coworkers or a dog or a three year old showed the same utter inability to work out the details we'd start wondering if there was something wrong with their intelligence, not ours. If the recipe says a cup of sugar, you don't throw the cup itself in the mix.
The same goes for the ability to anticipate every possible unexpected and improbable circumstance that might occur, normal people might think ahead on what they'd do in a few common or anticipated situations but a computer expects you to Lay. Out. Every. Exception. Exactly. In real life for one you'd never get out get door but even if you did it'd be in full survival gear in case you fell into a sinkhole and you'd still fail because the road was blocked and you didn't plan any alternative routes. For most people most of the time they'll simply cross that bridge when they get to it, there's no need to go all OCD and plan out everything in excruciating detail ahead of time. Yet that's what we have to do because the computer is utterly unable to deal with any situation on its own without instructions.
Finally normal people don't manage resources like programmers do, if they're cooking dinner they collect the pots and pans and other utensils they need from where ever they were put last and clean them if necessary. Even with managed languages where you don't have to free the memory used, you still need to destroy the objects you create, close the connections you opened, release the locks you've gotten and Manage. Every. Resource. Exactly. Everything must be kept track on in detail and put back in exactly the same place in exactly the same state as you found it. If you had a kitchen managed like a computer I'd say you were suffering from massive OCD, not just having it tidy and keeping things in the usual places. A cooking process doesn't die because one thing is out of place, a computer process does.
Of course you could say that's two different settings that you turn on when you get to work and turn off when you go home, but we're not machines and we can stop caring and be a slob at home but it still changes how we think. A lot of it is simply mental training, because you need to plan out so far ahead in such detail it naturally translates to every other situation you come across in life too. Personally I'd like the ability to live a bit more in the moment, to lose that "big picture" and just live in the here and now and not care so much about tomorrow. There is such a thing as overthinking it and it tends to be a bit of a party pooper, have fun today and worry about the hangover tomorrow. Too much rationality is dull.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Are you serious?
In a software company (in opposite to company where the IT department mostly keeps the software running) I'm really the one who's "work makes the company work" and it is really my work that the company is selling and turning into profit.
Betty does not have to do that much thinking when it comes to taxes. Some bureaucrat comes up with a maze or rules and she is good at navigating that maze. And adapt to a change in that maze every few year/months. So what if she went to college and has a degree? Does it prove anything? Most programmers have that too. What she, and many others, can't, in opposite to programmers, is to think for herself. Analyze a problem and come up with a solution. I don't fix the printer by going to a training program for a week and learning how to fix that particular model. I solve it by looking up the blink codes, verifying the connectivity, understanding how a printer works, etc.
Sure "companies have worked without computers for centuries". Go tell a company that it can exist without cars for a week. They can go back to horses if they need some transportation. Let us know how well that works.
My boss did not work his ass off to work up from the bottom. He comes from a family that supplied him with the investment money for the startup and he got lucky by being at the right place at the right time and making the connections. He was able to do that because he is better at self-marketing. On the other hand why would I have to aim for owning the company? Is that a holly grail or something?
I don't claim that I'm a better then a bricklayer or a plumber. I'm not that elitist. I've also seen a number of bricklayers and plumbers that produce a shoddy work. And those that don't are comparatively expensive to me. That's why I fix my own faucet too. Without having any schooling on that. And it does not drip.
Management? I do have their respect. I got unusually lucky. But be sure that mostly they do not "want it to work when you present it to them" and they do not want me to "do my work right". They want it to "sort of work". Yesterday. Under the budget. They don't care how well the code is structured because they can't "sell" that to a customer and they don't get to maintain it 10 years down the road. You don't get to put that in a marketing presentation.
In my opinion, GP is absolutely right. We suck at self-marketing. That's also why the OS made by the programmers for the programmers does not have double digit desktop market penetration.
Indeed. I saw the same thing at MSU in East Lansing during the mid to late '60s, then watched the shifts you mentioned over the next few decades.
At the time I attended, the geeks were lumped as "the math-dorm-ADS-crowd". ADS - Alumni Distinguished Scholar scholarship competition and award, dorms because in those years of _in loco parentis_ the first two years had to be lived on campus unless you were married - the geeks mostly didn't object much; math is obvious (no degree yet in computer science), and crowd used ironically. Outward signs include glasses, pocket protectors, and slide rules - oft-times hanging from a belt clip.
And your observation on 'the big lumping together' is spot on. There are some sub-species of geek these days but I expect overall there's still the big lumping to achieve efficiency of disdain.
----
Back then, the distinction we had in our own minds, when it needed to be used, was between computer scientists and data-processing professionals (it was all D.P. then), and maybe hacker - the guys and gals at three in the morning between floors pulling cable as readily as coding over a hiccup in the batch scheduler. Today, it's more by level of abstraction when you get to the programming portion. I think most use it in their own heads even if unawares. (many liberties taken, below...)
There's the program designer - the software architect, project lead, whathaveyou. Takes goal or task and limns it. The big picture part. Goals, tests, milestones, org chart, flow chart, etc. Interfaces management.
The programmer - breaks it on down to modules, subs, the 'what has to happen here' and 'how this fits into'. Points out gotchas.
The coder - yeah. Nuts and bolts. We'd like to presume he can test and validate input and double-check with programmer to avoid gaping barn doors of security problems. He's often the lucky fellow who gets to do the documentation because the programmer can't be bothered with things that are beneath him.
And all three layers of abstraction and in-group societal roles are often right between our own ears. Can be distracting but makes it easy to say, "hey, we could move this over here and save a bunch on inter-process comms" or "y'know, if we took this other approach, we could eliminate this whole section and also streamline the alternative."
Of course, that only works in the old days or for small projects. Anything else can be a right charley-foxtrot no matter what.
Now, for the guy who regards the whole thing the same as plumbing or carpentry... point to the weather app on his phone.
"See this? Tap, and you get a weather report and forecast?"
Yeah.
"Wanna know how they do that?", glance at watch, "In three and a half minutes; impress your friends?"
Yeah, ok.
Then show him - languages, stuff that can be grabbed from sources and tables, what has to be written from scratch, how it all fits in a program on phone, on a server somewhere, a bit on how it's displayed, call up a page of code from anything so he can see how weird and arcane it is... and you're done. [Warning: it really should all be done in the three and a half minutes. Because you said so, and it's also impressive as all get out.]
"Hey, I'm dry, ready for a brew?" get him one, maybe he gets you one, talk about other stuff or move on. Either way, you've done your part to pass on some stuff, get some cred, make _him_ feel in the know and that's huge - and he's a bit more aware and maybe not so ready to be so easily dismissive in future.
Congrats - you've made cross-species contact. And a friendly-wave-in-passing acquaintance down at the local. Networking, man, and good human fun also.
People who had a crummy adolescence for the reasons you're stating aren't really that smart. If they were, they would have had a much better adolescence.
yeah, because being smart makes it easy to not get depressed from being marginalized for just being too different to be socially lovable or even acceptable by your peers.
after all it's adolescents especially, who are very reasonable, empathetical beings, which are rarely biased towards trends and who never practice prejudice based on those.
ah, but I think I see your point: If they were smart, they could easily *pretend* to be a better social fit. They could easily just deny who they really are, follow the masses. That suure must make them happy eventually, doesn't it?
You're an idiot!
Question: Why do we try to make software development a widely available skill? Clearly many people don't want to learn it, and forcing them to learn it anyway just creates negative associations. Later on, these people who don't want to program will still be available to do the job, badly, reducing the quality of software for everybody and lowering the pay for those who want to program and can actually do a good job of it.
I can see the benefit of being able to analyze and structure problems in most non-programming situations, but there are other strategies too and some people simply prefer paying someone else, trial-and-error, hammering away at problems in futility or living with the unsolved problem. To quote Dr. Lexus: "There are plenty 'tards out there living really kick-ass lives." And they like it that way. They think we're the dull ones.
For this, I had an old brass oil lamp on my desk. Usually when someone came with an idea like that I handed it to him with the suggestion to rub it and hope for the best.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The main thing is that there's a difference between the plumber who fixes your faucet or unclogs your drain and the one who designs the wet wall in a skyscraper, just like there's a difference between the IT guy who fixes the printers and installs drivers and the computer scientist who designs new and interesting algorithms. Most of us -- in any field -- think of ourselves as the "skyscraper" or "interesting algorithm" guy, but think of everybody else as the "fix your faucet" or "install drivers" guy.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not a myth. I see very smart kids get bullied pretty regularly simply becasue they are interested in things above the heads of most the people in their class.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on