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'The Problem With Programming and How To Fix It' (alarmingdevelopment.org)
Jonathan Edwards has been programming since 1969 (starting on a PDP-11/20). "Programming today," he writes, "is exactly what you'd expect to get by paying an isolated subculture of nerdy young men to entertain themselves for fifty years. You get a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Rubik's Cube, elaborated a thousand-fold."
theodp summarizes the rest: To be a 'full stack' developer, Edwards laments, one must master the content of something like a hundred thousand pages of documentation. "Isn't the solution to design technology that doesn't require a PhD...?" he asks. "What of the #CSForAll movement? I have mixed feelings. The name itself betrays confusion -- what we really want is #ProgrammingForAll. Computer science is not a prerequisite for most programming, and may in fact be more of a barrier to many. The confusion of computer science with programming is actually part of the problem, which seems invisible to this movement."
It wasn't always this way, Edwards notes, citing spreadsheets, HyperCard, and the many incarnations of Basic as examples of how programming technology can be vastly easier and more accessible. "Unfortunately application programming got trampled in the internet gold rush," Edwards explains. "Suddenly all that mattered was building large-scale systems as fast as possible, and money was no object, so the focus shifted to 'rock star' programmers and the sophisticated high-powered tools they preferred. As a result the internet age has seen an exponential increase in the complexity of programming, as well as its exclusivity."
"It is long past time to return to designing tools not just for rock stars at Google but the vast majority of programmers and laypeople with simple small-scale problems," the essay concludes, arguing we need new institutions to fund changes in both the technology and culture of programming.
"We've done it before so we can do it again, even better this time."
theodp summarizes the rest: To be a 'full stack' developer, Edwards laments, one must master the content of something like a hundred thousand pages of documentation. "Isn't the solution to design technology that doesn't require a PhD...?" he asks. "What of the #CSForAll movement? I have mixed feelings. The name itself betrays confusion -- what we really want is #ProgrammingForAll. Computer science is not a prerequisite for most programming, and may in fact be more of a barrier to many. The confusion of computer science with programming is actually part of the problem, which seems invisible to this movement."
It wasn't always this way, Edwards notes, citing spreadsheets, HyperCard, and the many incarnations of Basic as examples of how programming technology can be vastly easier and more accessible. "Unfortunately application programming got trampled in the internet gold rush," Edwards explains. "Suddenly all that mattered was building large-scale systems as fast as possible, and money was no object, so the focus shifted to 'rock star' programmers and the sophisticated high-powered tools they preferred. As a result the internet age has seen an exponential increase in the complexity of programming, as well as its exclusivity."
"It is long past time to return to designing tools not just for rock stars at Google but the vast majority of programmers and laypeople with simple small-scale problems," the essay concludes, arguing we need new institutions to fund changes in both the technology and culture of programming.
"We've done it before so we can do it again, even better this time."
I see that many professionals might be able to use basic programming skills to be more efficient and productive. But most programming tasks require basic logic, math, reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. The very skills many entities in our education system are failing in their attempts to teach. Not to mention the drift away from the 3 R's and the moves to gender and social focus points of our educational curriculum
;)
I wonder what percentage of individuals have the core foundation to even absorb how to write code.
Just my 2 cents
He seems a lot smarter than I am and so I do not want to dismiss what he is saying... but I cannot possibly see how programming is harder than it used to be.
It seems like he is looking at the languages and tool chains used in the enterprise, and complaining that they are not suitable to get Joe Sixpack programming, while ignoring all the incredibly easy ways for somebody to make something useful at home. And, I'm sorry to say it, but the most obvious counter-example to what he is saying is... Python.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
"'let's dumb down computer programming".
What's wrong with that? The trick would be HOW to dumb down computer programming without ending up with an intractable shambles like the last 50000 attempts to do so.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey