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Microsoft Brings Its Embrace-Extend-Extinguish Game To K-12 Schools?
theodp writes: A year after it paid $2.5 billion to buy Minecraft, Microsoft has announced a partnership with Code.org that makes a Minecraft-themed introduction to programming a signature tutorial of this year's Hour of Code, which hopes to reach 200 million schoolchildren next month in what the Microsoft-funded nonprofit is billing as the largest learning event in history. "A core part of our mission to empower every person on the planet is equipping youth with computational thinking and problem-solving skills to succeed in an increasingly digital world," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a press release, which also notes that "Microsoft is gifting Windows Store credit to every educator who organizes an Hour of Code event worldwide." Of the Minecraft tutorial, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi gushed, "Compared to what you would otherwise be doing for school, this is, like, the best thing ever."
Well the sooner we can destroy the fallacy that coding is something beyond the ken of most mere mortals, the sooner we can get salaries down to what they should be. Technology advanced so fast in the 90's and 00's that we saw a shortage of programmers not because it was something that was terribly difficult to do, but because there was such a rapid increase in the demand for people with these skills. Now that the supply curve is catching up, people who previously were coddled in the job market are finding that they have to compete for good jobs just like the other 98% of the population. Welcome to the real world my friend. We've been waiting for you.
Well the sooner we can destroy the fallacy that coding is something beyond the ken of most mere mortals, the sooner we can get salaries down to what they should be.
Holy shit - who let the MBAs in here?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?