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Learning To Program Is Getting Harder (slashdot.org)
theodp writes: While Google suggests that parents and educators are to blame for why kids can't code, Allen Downey, Professor at Olin College argues that learning to program is getting harder . Downey writes: The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers:
1. Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE -- and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first.
2. User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first.
3. Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder. theodp continues: So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?
1. Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE -- and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first.
2. User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first.
3. Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder. theodp continues: So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?
If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first.
I disagree with that. Being able navigate your hard drive and install programs is more important than being able to code, and should come first.
Ironically, the hardest thing I can think of for a _total_ newbie is drilling down through all the layers of abstraction to show what actually happens. I'm in IT and infrastructure-as-code is the same way. We have a nice easy way to program things, but it's so divorced from something that actually happens. Everything new lately has been a layer on top of another layer with the hope that it will make things easier.
An example from my world is Azure Resource Manager. At the core, it's a RESTful API that takes in JSON configuration files and tells Microsoft's cloud back-end what needs to be configured. ARM is almost a language in its own right, and it's nearly impossible to write configuration files without some guidance. So, someone at Microsoft wrote a Node.js wrapper on top of ARM that I found out about the other day (Azure Building Blocks.) So, you have an ARM framework, written in a JavaScript framework, sending commands via insert-your-language's SDK to a RESTful interface that hides unfathomable levels of complexity behind it!
The push to wrapperize everything is going to get to a point where some levels of complexity are permanently locked away. People who are totally new and starting out at Node.js or a similar framework will be able to make things work, but they won't know _how_ they work.
I'll make one "get off my lawn" statement -- we've overloaded HTTPS to perform way more duties than it was ever designed to do, and chosen to write applications in browsers running JavaScript, which was also never meant to do anything nearly as complex as it does. This is why you have the endless parade of new frameworks, wrappers, etc.
I had an Apple ][+ and I ended up in the computer industry. I don't really agree with this article. I had many friends at the time who know how to CATALOG and BRUN but I'm the only one who went on to be a developer. The reason why I got interested in developing is because my dad would buy Byte magazine and we would enter machine code programs together. This got me interested in 6502 and later C (when I got an IBM XT). It was only one or two years after the Apple ][+ came out that disks started to get formatted with the 'HELLO' menu-based entry screen anyway, I guess later when IBM XTs came out it was command line again but again that period was relatively short before windows took over.
I guess the point here is that making technology easier to use is nothing new. It has always been just the people who want to know more who look under the hood and learn.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
...which hides the framework, and lets the user use simple calls or commands to do advanced things like outputting text or graphics to almost any TFT/OLED/LCD screen you can imagine (small form factors usually, we're not talking HDMI screens here).
And it's almost like having a Commodore-64 on a chip, lots of I/O ports, way more forgiving on the inputs/outputs than the 6526 ever was (touch this one and you'd literally say goodbye to an expensive I/O chip), the interface is ugly...but easy to use, it's free aka gratis, it's open, it's got a huge community with tons of drivers for basically any hardware you want drive/throw at it/use with it. I put a complete weather station together in 2 hours, didn't even have to find software for that, as drivers and libraries are available for almost every sensor/screen out there. It's almost like combining a commodore 64 with lego.
I won't count Raspberry PI into this "easy" category, because albeit the raspberry is cheap, it's far from easy for kids to get started with, and if they do - the learning curve is hideous as it's almost as complex (hardware wise/programming) as a PC. With the Arduino range (especially the Nano V3 one's that can be had on ebay for a couple of dollars) are so ridiculously easy to use that your kid (or you) will be up and coding in minutes with actual real life results instead of having to learn endless libraries and code just to actually make an executable that will actually do something useful or meaningful.
And if we look at how many gazillion Arduinos are sold on ebay by random (often totally clueless sellers that have no clue what an arduino actually is), it's literally selling like it's hot - all the time. That's gotta count for something.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Javascript has really low barrier of entry thanks to the modern browsers with built-in debugging capabilities.
Though the problems of javascript start to raise their head once you use something as innocent as "String.startsWith" for string handling and watch "some" browsers to choke on it immediately. After that point comes the realization that you really cannot trust the browser tools to help you code cross browser compatible code.
Start with an arduino and a couple of LEDs.
The c/c++ is simple.
I would imagine JavaScript closures are probably the hardest thing to grasp for someone who has never even written a for loop.
The money and the sale of educational software, support needs a reason to keep selling.
Governments and the private sector are sold on the idea that everyone has to do "computers".
The sale of the needed new better computer systems, support, robot kits, GUI, networking is then offered state and nation wide for every generation.
People who won't and cant study are put in front of computers provided. The more they fail tests, the more new support is needed.
The test results don't show any improvement over decades and generations.
Political correctness and virtue signaling then provide a nice way of saying the "computer" was wrong for the people.
So the tax payers and a private partnership invest in more and better "computers". It has to be something with the computers, the code, the teachers, the amount of funding.
Same failed tests. Buy more advanced computers, new GUI code, robot kits, laptops, tablets.
More failed tests.
Fast internet. Cloud. More GUI, different code. Better teachers?
The funding numbers per person per city and state grow with no better test results.
Re 'Like this will miraculously improve their life later on"
That could be seen with the spending in the UK in the 1980's. That most people would get to use a computer and be educated on a new generation of UK computers. Computers designed in the UK with new jobs building and supporting computers from fully imported low cost computer parts.
Education and new computer jobs wins elections. Production lines and computer support jobs.
Did it turn the UK in to some computer super power?
People played computer games and later imported the best and most advanced US tech. US computers as needed for their work, games.
Now the "computer" is some virtue signaling opportunity to show "everyone" is getting a free computer.
The brand and the political leaders all get to show the funding and their private sector support for free computers for "everyone". Their brands computers, networks, software.
The results are great for the brands and the gov. The failed test results every decade never improve so more support is always needed and sold.
Its not the below average people that cant be educated, its the bad computers. Buy new computers, new code tech and the results will be better.
By selling new computer to people who will never learn, more new computers will always be needed to get better results. Thats more education funding for that city, state.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"