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Kids Can Now Learn To Code With Pocky, the Delicious Japanese Snack (theverge.com)
Dami Lee, writing for The Verge: Even if you didn't grow up in Asia, chances are you've had this ubiquitous Japanese snack before. Walk into most grocery stores in America and you'll find a box of Pocky, and in multiple flavors like strawberry and green tea if your supermarket is fancy. With over dozens of flavors and variations, there's a Pocky for all occasions! There's a Pocky for Men. Now, there's Pocky for kids, with an educational aspect. Pocky's maker, Glico, has made a game called Glicode (Like if Wilco made a coding game called Wilcode) that gets kids coding by having them arrange actual cookies and snacks, then snapping a photo to translate them into digital commands. Glico's other products like Almond Peak chocolates and Biscuit Cream Sands are also featured in the game, representing "if" and "sequence" commands, respectively. It's a lot like Apple's Swift Playgrounds, with simple programming tasks commanding a funny-looking blob to walk around on platform blocks. The app is only available on Android for now.
I just don't get it. Is it the shape? Certainly can't be the taste. There are far, far, FAR better chocolate covered cookies around. Pocky is more like a cheap, flavorless bread stick barely covered in chocolate.
Like all skills, you get better with practice.
Any idiot can build a cabinet. The second will bet better than the first, and so on.
Any idiot can paint a house. Again, you get better as you go along.
Any idiot can cook a steak. The first few might be a bit rough, but it won't be long before their preparation is near expert.
Any idiot can code, this is true. Programming is ridiculously simple. Children can, and often do, teach themselves. You probably taught yourself when you were a preteen, like millions of other kids. If you kept at it, you got better. Like all skills, you improve with practice.
Now, ask yourself, do you really want any asshole to code for you?
Well, I wouldn't hire you, for reasons completely unrelated to your skill as a developer.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I know. Teaching people arithmetic has destroyed the careers of so many mathematicians, and don't get me started about the ill-conceived notion of mass literacy.