Jeff Atwood NY Daily News Op-Ed: Learning To Code Is Overrated

theodp writes: Responding to New York City's much-ballyhooed $81 million initiative to require all of the city's public schools to offer CS to all students, Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood has penned a guest column for the NY Daily News which cautions that learning to code isn't all it's cracked up to be. Atwood begins, "Mayor de Blasio is winning widespread praise for his recent promise that, within 10 years, all of New York City's public schoolchildren will take computer science classes. But as a career programmer who founded two successful software startups, I am deeply skeptical about teaching all kids to code." Why? "If someone tells you 'coding is the new literacy' because 'computers are everywhere today,' ask them how fuel injection works. By teaching low-level coding, I worry that we are effectively teaching our children the art of automobile repair. A valuable skill — but if automobile manufacturers and engineers are doing their jobs correctly, one that shouldn't be much concern for average people, who happily use their cars as tools to get things done without ever needing to worry about rebuilding the transmission or even change the oil." Atwood adds, "There's nothing wrong with basic exposure to computer science. But it should not come at the expense of fundamental skills such as reading, writing and mathematics...I've known so many programmers who would have been much more successful in their careers if they had only been better writers, better critical thinkers, better back-of-the-envelope estimators, better communicators. And aside from success in careers, we have to ask the broader question: What kinds of people do we want children to grow up to be?"

Comments

Not everyone becomes scientists... but

[tomxor]

it's good to teach kids science...

Not everyone should or should want to become "programming literate", but it's not supposed to be like learning how to read and write. There is more to learning to code than coding itself. There is plenty of science at school that people never use in their adult life, but it's useful to have some understanding of how the world works, how others work, and each subject bring a new way of thinking - a different way of thinking is brought with coding and that's useful to everyone.

school sport

[jblues]

I disagree. Today, nearly all kids are given the opportunity to participate in school sport. Not all will go on to be famous athletes, but most will benefit from the experience. Personally, I was an introvert and lousy at sports, but the school sports program instilled in me the importance of physical fitness and a love for nature and the outdoors. The program also taught me about personal limitations, strengths and weaknesses: I was smart, but certainly not good at some things! Didn't feel like it at the time, but that was a healthy too, I think.

Precisely as intended

[DRJlaw]

By teaching low-level coding, I worry that we are effectively teaching our children the art of automobile repair.

And aside from success in careers, we have to ask the broader question: What kinds of people do we want children to grow up to be?"

[Not that I'm actually that guy, but...]

I want your children to grow up to be automobile mechanics so that repairs are dirt cheap and mechanics become entirely interchangable cogs.

I want my children to grow up to be upper level executives at Firestone, Midas, Monroe, NAPA, etc.

Re:Catch the rounded ones early

[AmiMoJo]

Logical thinking absolutely can be taught. Before computers were widespread it was often done by the teaching of Latin, which like a good programming language is very regular and well structured.

If find that self-taught programmers often lack the ability to think logically and methodically, especially when debugging, so I teach them. It's a method, you start from first principals and validate your assumptions, and then check each possible cause of the problem in turn. You make changes and observe the results, updating your assumptions and redefining the problem space as you go.

This can all be taught in class. I think it would be of great benefit to most students, along with some philosophy, comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Re:Catch the rounded ones early

[mrchaotica]

What's with all this bullshit "I can't take time off" astroturfing? It's blatantly a lie -- the idea that someone is somehow in such high demand that he can't take a vacation yet doesn't have enough power to tell his employer to fuck off and go anyway violates basic logic -- but I'm trying to figure out the angle. What's the motivation for posting it? It's as if the poster is trying to create the public perception of a shortage in order to justify H1Bs or something, but it's too stupid to be persuasive.

At any rate, I'm a software engineer and have always worked a normal 40 hours/week and used all my vacation. If you can't do the same, that's your problem!