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Apple TV+ Includes A Muppet Who Codes (deadline.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: While Apple CEO Tim Cook may not be able to force schoolchildren to code, there's no law against Cook and Apple using Sesame Street to make preschoolers want to code. Among the original Apple TV+ shows Cook announced at Apple's March Event was Helpsters, an "incredible new preschool show" about coding from "the peeps at Sesame Workshop and Apple."
In a skit on stage at the Steve Jobs Theater [available on YouTube], a Helpster monster from the new show named "Cody" (get it!) explains to Big Bird, "See, coding fosters collaboration, critical-thinking skills, and is an essential language that every child can learn. By teaching preschoolers about coding, we are giving them the opportunity to change the world."
One site described Cody as "a sociopathic tech recruiter muppet," complaining that "Teaching kids about technology is fine. But this is just creepy." They also objected to the show's targeting of pre-schoolers.
"From a developmental point of view, most experts agree very young children should be working on figuring out how to share their toys, not thinking about how to program them."
In a skit on stage at the Steve Jobs Theater [available on YouTube], a Helpster monster from the new show named "Cody" (get it!) explains to Big Bird, "See, coding fosters collaboration, critical-thinking skills, and is an essential language that every child can learn. By teaching preschoolers about coding, we are giving them the opportunity to change the world."
One site described Cody as "a sociopathic tech recruiter muppet," complaining that "Teaching kids about technology is fine. But this is just creepy." They also objected to the show's targeting of pre-schoolers.
"From a developmental point of view, most experts agree very young children should be working on figuring out how to share their toys, not thinking about how to program them."
And if you want to share something that's potentially unsafe, it better be easy to make new otherwise sharing it is going to be real hard.
For example, if I were to say... "I'll share my Model T with you" and you ended up breaking your legs when the frame broke in half. You'd probably not be so open to sharing.
That is a simple vehicle!
So there ARE experts that say you ought to expose your children to being able to configure and manipulate their stuff.
My dad tried teaching me how to code when I was really young, but it wasn't until I was in 3rd grade that I could finally understand how to code. I tried teaching my two younger brothers (3 years younger than myself) how to code, but no matter how much I tried, they could not understand it either until several years later.
I have a strong feeling that this pre-school propaganda will fall on deaf ears. Kids that young are just not wired up well enough yet to comprehend coding. At that age, they're still discovering things like, hey, candy tastes good while broccoli sucks ass.
The biggest problem with coding is it's inherent lack of logic. The pattern of orientating coding language to the most logical extrapolation of language and maths is simply not there. The chosen method for coding design, 'We Choose to do it That Way", why, because we choose to do it that way, no logic, not direct correlation to language and math, just borrowing some of that stuff and the often implementing in a way counter logically to math and language. Biggest driver for languages, not to infringe copyright and patents, which totally cripple the development of a single core learning programming language. The biggest impediment to that, psychopathic greed and ego.
Before these fucking companies can push their fucking coding ideas on education, the cunts need to fucking sit down and work out a uniform open coding language which is a logically derivative of English and maths, not because it is more profitable to force their proprietary coding language on schools, greed first. These people are outrageously disgusting, all just as fucked in the head as each other.
Get you coding shite togethor before trying to force it on children, you arse holes.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In my long career, I've found that most muppets prefer to code in Visual Basic or Perl.
Given the quality of firmware on most TVs, I'm pretty sure they all feature a muppet that codes.
This everybody should code fad is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. There's no evidence every Jane and Joey will have to bang out manually crafted linked lists and pointer structures in their jobs. People do things and will continue to do things by finished increasingly consolidated applications. And most programming is being subsumed by increasingly simple languages.
It's ok to tell people to learn to code, again? Im confused.
In my long career, I've found that most muppets prefer to code in Visual Basic or Perl.
I have found that old school apple eating muppets that code also have a tendency to lisp after a while.
waiting for the punchline
The pattern of orientating coding language to the most logical extrapolation of language and maths is simply not there.
I totally agree, although it's kind of theoretically possible that is not done...
sit down and work out a uniform open coding language which is a logically derivative of English and maths
Hasn't this been tried in a lot of different ways? Yet none of them seem to take hold.
So I think it's not enough to say we need something like a language that is "logically derivative of English and maths". We have to really think about the previous attempts to do things like that and understand why they have failed to move forward.
I agree though, that as a profession we all seem to be kind of stuck, not sure what moves us truly forward.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This everybody should code fad is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
I don't think it's dumb at all, because the idea is not "everybody SHOULD code", it's "everybody should try to LEARN to code".
Absolutely not everyone is going to be coding. But I feel like a ton of kids that would be good at and enjoy coding miss out because they are never exposed.
Coding in the modern world, being able to manipulate computers is such a valuable skill that feel humanity loses out on a great deal of advancement but not identifying everyone who is skilled at it. Being able to code is a power that amplifies the human mind, yours and those around you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Desktop computers for education was to narrow the IQ and math gap.
Still got students who can't and won't learn to code?
More time with a computer? A laptop to code with. Access to a computer was what was missing.
Nothing altered to generations of test results?
A tablet computer with a GUI for education. Thats will narrow the education gap for well below average people.
IQ not going well? No change in results after decades of computers and code?
A GUI robot kit with more GUI and less math. It was the difficult math that was holding back generations.
Is the math wrong in some way? A new code of conduct to ensure the math used is always correct.
Still not testing to expected national levels?
Make the GUI and code part of education. Years of extra code more often has to be the method for great results.
The laptop failed to educate as it did not have a good GUI and the education software needed.
How much tax payers and charity money has got used over decades to try and educate people who cant learn?
IQ cant be educated. People who wont and cant learn don't suddenly become math aware with more and more math, GUI, robots, software, a code CoC.
Think about what people want to be. An artist, a musician, a vet, a carpenter, a plumber, to get into architecture, run a farm, work on a farm, do sports, become a teacher, nurse, astronomer.
People with skills with find their own way to math and code. Taking the advanced math and computer work when needed.
They will have the ability to learn and recall math they learn.
Sort on merit and help people who can study who need a full scholarship.
Move the money to the few percent in every generation who are really smart and who will advance their nation and the company they work for.
The rest of the population will slowly get educated into the bespoke and industrial computer/math they will need every day.
People need to understand time management and keep to appointments. Not to be able to learn to code the device/machine/computer they have to use everyday.
That should all be done by the experts who designed the device/machine/computer so the worker/technician/doctor/artist can get on with their productive for profit work.
Not learn to code at work on a device/machine/computer that is waiting for the next paying project/person.
Use a nations wealth and education to focus on people who will create new math, new code.
Not average people who cannot take in the complex math and who will never recall the math needed.
Stop redistributing wealth and charity downwards to people who cant and wont study.
Test people many times and see who can do math, who can code.
Advance the very best into the best math and computer education a nation can offer.
Ensure the average and well below average students get access to great vocational education and the type of courses they will do well in.
That allows people to find the work they want and for the very best in every generation to have access to money for the best new tech.
Everyone has the freedom to find their own role and what makes them happy. That might not need a lot of money used code and math.
That money could be used on real things they actually need to learn about their selected education.
Not a room full of new robot kits, math software and a CoC that used all their money for that year.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A basic tenet of economics is that when there is a shortage, the price goes up; and when there is a surplus, the price goes down. We tend to think of this in terms of products available to buy or sell, but it applies to any commodity.
Programmers, and employees in general, are a commodity. Employers have to 'buy' them, so to speak, and for many employers, the employees are by far the greatest expense. Companies want to lower those costs and raise their profits.
The goal with all this 'everyone a coder' nonsense is to create a surplus of programmers worldwide. Programmers used to be expensive but not in the future. They'll compete hard to get a bare subsistence job. There will be programmers standing on street corners begging for alms.
This means your children. If you think they'll follow your footsteps and make good money in programming, think again.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I "code" with my daughters, aged 3 and 5. I stand them in the room with their eyes closed and tell them "Walk forwards two paces. Turn Right. Walk forward two paces". I call this code because it's exactly the same as LOGO turtle graphics that those of us born in the 70s are familiar with and did in school. They have fun, and they're developing a sense of algorithms. (Likewise, when a toy's batteries run out, I have them come with me to the workshop and "repair" it by unscrewing the case and installing new batteries. When a toy breaks in other ways, I have them glue it back or help me solder it. Again they have fun, and they're developing technical affinity.)
I was a volunteer teacher in India back in 1992. Again I taught LOGO, this time to academically low-performing 8th through 10th graders. None of them particularly cared to become tech workers. Some used it to create beautiful art. Some coded up a teen magazine style personality quiz. They all loved it. They also found a subject that they were good at, and for once felt mastery over. I think it developed their minds and their analytical skills in ways that will help many of their future (non-tech) jobs.
There's always a kneejerk slashdot reaction about "learn to code is bad because there won't be good jobs in tech". This misses the point. Coding at school isn't about training up a workforce of coders. It's about empowering people (in all walks of life) to become active citizens in a world that needs at least a little tech-savviness...
The kids who do "learn to code" today... Maybe they'll be constructing spreadsheets to figure out their mortgage payments and sticking in a few formulas. Maybe they'll be able to automate a small process with VBA macros in their job as a dental office receptionist. Maybe they'll put together an "If-This-Then-That" script that helps their ailing grandmother remember her appointment. Maybe they'll scrape some data off the web and discover local government embezzlement. Maybe they'll just be able to write a small LUA mod for their favorite game or D&D group. There are a zillion ways that an elementary level of coding competence will help people function as members of tomorrow's society, and only few of them involve jobs in tech.
Separately: at school up to the 80s and 90s, kids were taught a few formal algorithms for long multiplication, long division and the like. The formal algorithms have largely been replaced by "new maths" that gives children a better intuitive understanding of numbers, but unfortunately means that folks don't get a good training in algorithmic thinking.
Why is algorithmic thinking valuable? Someone who's brain is accustomed to how algorithms work will just be able to interact better with all the autonomous systems they interact with in their life. They won't view their car's self-driving skills as magic. They won't treat a website as if there's really a human behind it who intuitively understands them. You know how you as a coder are just somehow magically able to interact with computers and websites more fluently than non-coders? That's what learn-to-code will help people with.
Selfishly, I also hope that algorithmic thinking will lead to an internet of better recipe websites :) that no longer have pages of waffle about the person's life history.
...just not fix one. *grumble*
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Meh, Slashdot has plenty of Muppets that code already.
This nurse would be so much more efficient if she knew a bit of c++.
Why on earth do you not believe this to be true?
The reality is, wouldn't the nurse be more efficient if she knew how to use computers well?
Have you seriously not seen non-technical people trying to navigate the very byzantine forms that are inevitable for complex internal systems? If she had learned some coding as a kid she might well have a much more intuitive sense for the logic that drove the structure of those screens. If she had done programming maybe she'd have a more innate understanding of "this part is requesting something from the server, which is why it's taking so long, maybe a connectivity error..." instead of just wishing and praying the screen stops being "locked up" for reasons incomprehensible.
Such a nurse could in fact be way, way more helpful in giving technical feedback to the developers of the hospital systems, about why a system does not work in practice - so they could clear up UX issues maybe months earlier than the developers would otherwise trying to glean feedback through a million beuroratic layers. That in turn would mean a better system for EVERY OTHER NURSE.
So in fact, if you cannot fathom the ten billion ways in which the world would be better off by even a single nurse attempting to learn to code and gaining at least computer competence as a result - if you cannot imagine that I would claim it is you that is broken, not the idea of teaching everyone the concepts of how computers work, which is really what you teach them when you try to teach them how to code.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... is strongly typed.
#DeleteChrome
unless you click to opt in.
Table-ized A.I.
Don't forget about python! An actual Muppet who is also a renowned and highly respected Slashdot contributor and moderator uses exclusively python for his long tail revenue streams.
They want people with limited critical thinking skills who are also fully capable of the mental doublespeak required to ignore the arbitrary rules presented right to their faces.
I'm not perfect, but I've held on to a lot of my questioning of the 'whys of the world' that I had in childhood. I finally have come to an age where the excuse 'You will understand when you are older' no longer holds water. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy, and if you are unable to lead by example (whether that example is positive or negative) and dare to preach that others should follow arbitrary rules that you yourself don't, there is something wrong with YOU, or the society you live in that fosters it.
The same holds true for PBS and all the 'nice, rosy' long term shows/institutions built up for it that are all for-profit (Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, etc.) Once you wake up to it, you start to realize even if the content itself was good, the hypocrisy and IP surrounding it, isn't.
Apple sees "coders" as "helpers". Helpers of people who really call the shots. So if you become a software engineer, you are used as the "helper" to be used by your managers, like a assistant or secretary. That will be your career. I'd advise youngsters to consider using that brain to become that manager or to become a financial specialist.
30 years ago my school system taught programming as an equivalent to foreign language, I was one of a handful of students that went through our high school with a foreign language requirement fulfilled by Pascal (our maths teacher knew it, so that was all that was offered)
At the time I think it was simply a way to enable it to be taught without disrupting a rigid structure of classes which didn't permit free time or flexible schedules... but in time I've decided that it makes sense to teach programming to kids like a foreign language--
French lessons teach you to understand French people -- their language, culture, values, etc...
Programming lessons teach you to understand computers in a similar way. If you truly want to be able to "converse" and live in computer development culture you need to know the languages, syntax, and the motivations.
I don't see any issues at all w/ starting kids on this early in life, just like I don't see any issue with teaching second languages at an early stage. IMO one of the greatest weakness in US education is that in most public schools a second language (and culture) option isn't even usually available until high school.
As with everything in life, moderation is key... as is understanding when a child has an aptitude and when they do not, then adjusting their education plan accordingly to enable them to succeed at what they're good at, while still receiving the basics and a rounded education.
Are common over most of the world. What's special about this particular muppet?
If you think Cody is creepy, wait until season 2 when they introduce the new character Leaderboi, who lasciviously stares at things, licks his lips and whispers, "thinner."
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
...is to think about why this is being done. It's converting coding into a professional sport, not a profession.
If you want your kid to be competitive for the varsity in HS and college, and pro sports of some kind afterward, you start early. Kids have to be in soccer, baseball, football, etc. at 3 or so, then work upward through the "recreational" leagues until school-based teams become available (usually middle school). The kid can't really get into the school athletic program unless they already have the resume, starting in preschool. So Helpsters will generate pre-school and after-school coding programs starting at a similar age, as a farm league for bigger things later in school life and ultimately work life.
And like pro sports, retirement age will be in the 30s, 40s at the latest, with people being discarded after that - wait isn't that how it works now? OK, just making it official ...
My impression is that they're teaching little kids about coding, meaning the concepts of how computers work and how to tell them what to do, not that they're teaching little kids actual coding. Think of it more like "what is a CPU" and "what is RAM", numerical concepts, logic, instruction sequences, etc., rather than textually writing code. That being said, it'd feed pretty naturally into something more interactive than a TV show, such as Swift Playgrounds or Squeak Etoys - a kid-friendly interactive environment for actually coding.
I think that teaching kids a bit about computers and how to program them is a good idea, since computers are a common thing for people to deal with in modern life, and understanding them, at least conceptually, will help people be more effective with them. Of course, people would also learn to read, write, do math, understand how the country works, etc. - computers aren't the only skill needed in life. But it's a good one...
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
You code to learn.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Pre-school kids do not need to learn to code.
They need to learn how to interact socially. Including sharing, teamwork, etc. Remember back to your days in pre-school and kindergarten. It wasn't just play it was focused on getting you to interact with others. To share your toys. To learn manners. To not throw a tantrum when asked to do something you don't want to do, like pick up that toy you just hurled across the room.
Hell, kids in primary school shouldn't even be taught to code. They shouldn't even be introduced to computers. They need to learn music, arts, languages, math, etc.
Computers come later, not earlier.
"By teaching preschoolers about coding, we are giving them the opportunity to change the world."
only a very limit amount of programmers actually are/were able to change the world.
besides you have the possibility to change the world in almost any profession you choose to do.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.