More Students Learn CS In 3 Days Than Past 100 Years

theodp writes "Code.org, backed by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, boasts in a blog post that thanks to this week's Hour of Code, which featured a Blockly tutorial narrated by Gates and Zuckerberg, 'More students have participated in computer science in U.S. schools in the last three days than in the last 100 years.' Taking note of the impressive numbers being put up on the Hour of Code Leaderboards ('12,522,015 students have done the Hour of Code and written 406,022,512 lines of code'), the Seattle Times adds that 'More African American and Hispanic kids learned about the subject in two days than in the entire history of computer science,' and reports that the cities of Chicago and New York have engaged Code.org to offer CS classes in their schools. So, isn't it a tad hyperbolic to get so excited over kids programming with blocks? 'Yes, we can all agree that this week's big Hour of Code initiative is a publicity stunt,' writes the Mercury News' Mike Cassidy, 'but you know what? A publicity stunt is exactly what we need.'"

Comments

Grammatical oversight

[i kan reed]

I'm pretty sure that the last 3 days are contained within the last 100 years.

Re:Grammatical oversight

[davester666]

Since they are all trained up, we can cancel all the H1B's for programmers/IT.

Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[NeverWorker1]

Hour of code is not a bad thing, but this didn't create 12M programmers, much less 12M people who know computer science. They averaged 32.4 lines each.

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[yahwotqa]

Indeed, but what it _did_ do is expose them to the idea that computers can be tools that do what we tell them to do, and not just magic black boxes for mindless content consumption. Even though 90% of the kids will completely forget about it tomorrow.

Re:Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[Anonymous Coward]

'More African American and Hispanic kids learned about the subject in two days than in the entire history of computer science.'

So all it takes is 3 days to learn all of computer science? The universities and colleges have been forcing a 4-year curriculum upon students and employers have been demanding applicants have a doctorate degree plus 100 years experience for years. By the standards set by Hour od Code I would have learned everything there is to know about computer science after a month programming my Commodore VIC-20 (Commodore PET BASIC and 6502 machine language - there was no assembler at the time so every instruction had to be POKEd into memory). Zuckerberg and Gates want to commoditize computer programming, software enigeering, and software development so wages drop to less than minimum wage.

Re:Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[QilessQi]

Thank you. The BS quotient in that headline was alarmingly high. Or are we now just publishing Microsoft and Facebook press releases verbatim?

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[ebno-10db]

computers can be tools that do what we tell them to do

How long have you been programming?

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[i kan reed]

Long enough to recognize that they do what we say, not what we want.

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[CodeBuster]

the idea that computers can be tools that do what we tell them to do, and not just magic black boxes for mindless content consumption.

Unfortunately, this new interest comes at a time when the big players in the industry, like Apple, are well along in the process of doing away with the general purpose computer and replacing it with walled garden tablet like devices who's primary purpose is mindless consumption. In very real ways programming is becoming ever less accessible to the average person or at least less open to the sorts of spontaneous discovery and experimentation that attract new people into the field. For example, it's difficult now to have the sort of VIC-20, Commodore-64 or Apple II experience that inspired well know programmers like Linus Torvalds and many others to become interested in computing and programming at an early age.

Re:Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[RogueWarrior65]

The unintended consequence of this is the creation of as many as 12 million people who now THINK they know something about computer science. Those people may be likely to engage in policy-making or support policies created by other low-information people. It's no different than someone watching Dr. Oz suddenly declaring themselves to be experts on healthcare.

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Not only that, but:

> "and written 406,022,512 lines of code"

Sounds like a bad 5 weeks I had once 15 years ago.

Re: Writing 32 lines is not "Learning CS"

[necro81]

In very real ways programming is becoming ever less accessible to the average person or at least less open to the sorts of spontaneous discovery and experimentation that attract new people into the field. For example, it's difficult now to have the sort of VIC-20, Commodore-64 or Apple II experience that inspired well know programmers like Linus Torvalds and many others to become interested in computing and programming at an early age.

Bollocks. There are still plenty of ways a person can tinker with general-purpose computing on their home PC, and what novices are able to do blows my mind. You can get free BASIC environments for all major computer platforms out there. There are browser-based IDEs for all kinds of languages. Hell, you can even get emulators for a C-64 or Apple II. Even better: pick up an Arduino for $25 and start coding an embedded system. Want more power, connectivity, and GUIs? Try RaspPI or BeagleBone. What makes the current age awesome for those that want to start learning and tinkering is that, unlike 30 years ago, everything you need - IDEs, libraries, reference docs, user communities, example projects with source code - are just an internet search away, and free.

Is it even possible anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work on web apps, with DB back ends. I need to be able to set up the DB structure, create the queries, set the indexes, schedule the DB backups, then set up the web server, code the back end to get the data, write a frontend in javascript using knockout and ajax to make it responsive and usable. Since we have a small development team each of the three of us has to be able to do all of these steps. This is in addition to the ERP programming and interfaces I also do for this.

Is it even possible for new people to come along and learn all of this? I am able just because I learned as it came out piece by piece, but I keep wondering if new people will ever be able to do the full range of things. With a larger team you can split it up, but rarely do you get a team were each person is fully competent and unless there is someone who can call BS on any part of it there is potential for problems.

I also wonder if anyone in their right mind would bother learning all of this. When we interview people under 30 they are saying stuff like "I do Apple IOS programming and nothing else". I know there is a lot of ageism anti-old people sentiment expressed here on /., but when you actually need something done and can't hire 10 people to do it you can't hire these younger people.

Re:Is it even possible anymore?

[Sarten-X]

I work on automated servers, doing various things with Windows and Powershell that Microsoft doesn't even think are possible. I could bore you with the list of components I have detailed knowledge of, but that'd make this post too long to bother reading.

I knew none of it when I started this job. In a few weeks, I'd picked up enough of the system knowledge to start leading my own projects, and within six months I was teaching my almost-boss how the components work.

Nobody else has your exact skill set, that's true, but ultimately your skill set doesn't actually matter when looking for a replacement. What matters is whether the person you bring in can do the job. That might mean they have to learn your skills quickly, or maybe they just have to learn how to copy an existing setup, or perhaps they just have to learn how to properly panic when a status light turns red.

As business changes, the required skill set will change, as well. The people who will survive are the ones who learn, not the ones who know.

Wow....

[blackbeak]

That's an awful lot of "Hello World"!

Yeah, no ...

[gstoddart]

Learning a little about programming and computers is not "CS".

A high-level tutorial is just that, and this is just marketing spin on teaching some computer literacy. It's admirable, but it isn't what they're claiming it is.