My main point was, I think a lot of people are trying to get their kids into certain things and they overlook some of the requirements in life.
I'm not trying to discourage anybody from doing things, I just don't like to see kids get picked on and have low self-esteem because they are considered "geeks".
I had 2 things going for me when I was younger. I grew up with the popular jock kids, but I was friends with the geeks. The best thing that happened to me was moving in with my dad. I had to change schools and instantly I had a great social life, got more involved with sports, and found out that jocks really aren't dumb. I didn't really get picked on beforehand because I grew up with the right kids, but when I switched schools, got into sports, and broke out of my shell, the world opened up and things have been great since.
Now, I have met some engineers and programmers who knew nothing about their vocation until they were an adult and decided to get into it. Some of them are better than the lifers.
Well, I don't know why I posted here, I don't have enough time to post, read, reply on here. I think it was just a pet peeve when I read something about getting kids into computers.
I remember getting off the bus when I was a sophmore in High School. Everybody started throwing gum at this kid from my programming class. He just put his head down and kept walking while being pelted with gum. I yelled at everybody to knock it off, and said it wasn't cool. If I didn't grow up knowing what it was like not being the "cool" kids because I was more of the geek, then I probably wouldn't have done that. I can't say enough about developing social skills. Some of the greatest minds in the world, are working for a loud mouth or micro-manager no-nothing, and it's a sad thing.
Thanks for the prompt reply, see my previous follow-up to my post.
Mr. I have nothing creative and better to do, meet Mr. Escape Character.
It's always funny when somebody wants to be smart and correct somebody, but goofs their own correction up.
I think I'm being reminded why I don't participate in geek convsersations now. Ah that's right, 5th grade, I asked the class geek what time he had, his reply "It's exactly 11:43 and 47 seconds!". Get real man, unless you work for NASA, it's quarter til. Oh, and what's he do now? Well, Mr. 4.0 works for a guy who doesn't know half of what he does because he's lacking social abilities! Wow, what a concept that society (GASP!) requires one to be social.
Really, thanks for the kind reply where one graciuously encourags and assists someobdy else with such helpful tact. It was a great display of your keen abilities to get along with others. I have the strangest feeling I'm surrounded by people with this same attitude.
Funny thing is, if you saw me you'd think I was an all out pretty boy jock, yet if you met me at the gym and I saw you incorrectly trying to lift weights, I'd walk over introduce myself and show you the ropes. I'm glad to see the geek world has the meat head equivilants of the jock world. Ironic, isn't it?
Sorry about that, it was my first post and I didn't know it 'needed' to be HTML formatted.:)
Anyway, this is all just IMHO, I'm sure there are examples of the opposite. But hey, Linus didn't get Linux going by not being able to effectively communicate now did he?
This is just my 2 cents.
I started on a TI-99 back in 83 I think. I was 5. I played a few basic ANSI graphic games but I remember one Sunday morning I came into the family room as saw my dad typing in BASIC from a computer magazine. I remember having a radio shack tape recorder to save the program too. Well, after about 2 hours of typing either he or I tripped over the power supply and I remember him cussing about losing everything he just typed. Next thing you know I'm retyping everything from the computer magazine, later that day I was playing an ANSI game flying a helicopter to save people from a burning building.
Then in the late 80's my Dad regained his interest and picked up an Amiga 500 with a Star Color printer and 1200BPS modem. I spent a lot of time on BBS's, they didn't seem to have a purpose but I was fascinated with what an E-mail was and that I could talk to another computer. The modem went in a box for a couple years. Fast forward to High School, the 500 was still kicking and pretty well. I met a couple kids who asked if I had a modem once they learned I had a 500, they showed me what BBS's has become.
I took a programming course in High School. I was on the football team, we all took it. We went through GW Basic, but a lot of us couldn't wait to show off and see if we could learn C.
Fast forward passed building computers and all that junk.
In 96 I walked into Best Buy, asked for a job, they asked me what I knew about. I looked around, not really sure and said computers. So they interviewed me, one question was "What is a Pentium Processor?" I remember saying "It's a dual 32 bit processor which has [whatever the raw processing power was]". I was hired, then I found out I knew a lot more about computers than I thought. Back in 96 was when all the kids who grew up learning on the computers were just entering the part-time workforce, we were good, a lot better than kids you run into at these box shops now.
Fast forward again, I landed a career with a Fortune 100 company, still working with computers. I thought the way to go was networking, as of right now, I'm a consultant and do a TON of intergrating and programming. I also started my own consulting business scripting in CGI/PHP to coding in Java/VB/C++.
So what is my answer?
Well, it's simple. When I was 13 my dad bought me an RC plane. I flew it a few times and crashed it, I wasn't interested in it again. I'm 27, 2 months ago I suddenly started buying RC planes again because it was something I did when I was younger and I have some great memories.
So, I say expose a kid to computers at an early age. They might not to take it, but there is a good chance as they get older they might really want to learn exactly what it was they experienced at a younger age.
Also, tell them not to do it, when you tell a kid not to do something, they automatically are interested in it.
I remember that anytime I was told something if for High School or College kids, I instantly wanted to do it. So tell them it's for the big kids, all little kids want to be like the big kids.
So, if you want them to learn programming, who cares where they start, it's where they end up that matters, you can't force a person to become a person, they have to do it on their own. I would suggest if you want to get them into programming, have them write a basic program in your language of choice that actually accomplishes something.
I interview people all the time who took programming in college but didn't have practical use for it. They had no interest in learning what a class was, or proper syntax. They need to program something where they can directly see not only a result, but a use. I can teach a kid 'Hello World!' in any language, but the gratification of that doesn't last very long and just gives us web sites that popup annoying practicaly joke alerts over and over. Find something your kid is interested in and have them write a program for that.
Learning to change a tire, now that's practical. Kids don't want to learn it? Weird, how'd this tire go flat
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My main point was, I think a lot of people are trying to get their kids into certain things and they overlook some of the requirements in life.
I'm not trying to discourage anybody from doing things, I just don't like to see kids get picked on and have low self-esteem because they are considered "geeks".
I had 2 things going for me when I was younger. I grew up with the popular jock kids, but I was friends with the geeks. The best thing that happened to me was moving in with my dad. I had to change schools and instantly I had a great social life, got more involved with sports, and found out that jocks really aren't dumb. I didn't really get picked on beforehand because I grew up with the right kids, but when I switched schools, got into sports, and broke out of my shell, the world opened up and things have been great since.
Now, I have met some engineers and programmers who knew nothing about their vocation until they were an adult and decided to get into it. Some of them are better than the lifers.
Well, I don't know why I posted here, I don't have enough time to post, read, reply on here. I think it was just a pet peeve when I read something about getting kids into computers.
I remember getting off the bus when I was a sophmore in High School. Everybody started throwing gum at this kid from my programming class. He just put his head down and kept walking while being pelted with gum. I yelled at everybody to knock it off, and said it wasn't cool. If I didn't grow up knowing what it was like not being the "cool" kids because I was more of the geek, then I probably wouldn't have done that. I can't say enough about developing social skills. Some of the greatest minds in the world, are working for a loud mouth or micro-manager no-nothing, and it's a sad thing.
Mr. I have nothing creative and better to do, meet Mr. Escape Character.
It's always funny when somebody wants to be smart and correct somebody, but goofs their own correction up.
I think I'm being reminded why I don't participate in geek convsersations now. Ah that's right, 5th grade, I asked the class geek what time he had, his reply "It's exactly 11:43 and 47 seconds!". Get real man, unless you work for NASA, it's quarter til. Oh, and what's he do now? Well, Mr. 4.0 works for a guy who doesn't know half of what he does because he's lacking social abilities! Wow, what a concept that society (GASP!) requires one to be social.
Really, thanks for the kind reply where one graciuously encourags and assists someobdy else with such helpful tact. It was a great display of your keen abilities to get along with others. I have the strangest feeling I'm surrounded by people with this same attitude.
Funny thing is, if you saw me you'd think I was an all out pretty boy jock, yet if you met me at the gym and I saw you incorrectly trying to lift weights, I'd walk over introduce myself and show you the ropes. I'm glad to see the geek world has the meat head equivilants of the jock world. Ironic, isn't it?
Anyway, this is all just IMHO, I'm sure there are examples of the opposite. But hey, Linus didn't get Linux going by not being able to effectively communicate now did he?
This is just my 2 cents. I started on a TI-99 back in 83 I think. I was 5. I played a few basic ANSI graphic games but I remember one Sunday morning I came into the family room as saw my dad typing in BASIC from a computer magazine. I remember having a radio shack tape recorder to save the program too. Well, after about 2 hours of typing either he or I tripped over the power supply and I remember him cussing about losing everything he just typed. Next thing you know I'm retyping everything from the computer magazine, later that day I was playing an ANSI game flying a helicopter to save people from a burning building. Then in the late 80's my Dad regained his interest and picked up an Amiga 500 with a Star Color printer and 1200BPS modem. I spent a lot of time on BBS's, they didn't seem to have a purpose but I was fascinated with what an E-mail was and that I could talk to another computer. The modem went in a box for a couple years. Fast forward to High School, the 500 was still kicking and pretty well. I met a couple kids who asked if I had a modem once they learned I had a 500, they showed me what BBS's has become. I took a programming course in High School. I was on the football team, we all took it. We went through GW Basic, but a lot of us couldn't wait to show off and see if we could learn C. Fast forward passed building computers and all that junk. In 96 I walked into Best Buy, asked for a job, they asked me what I knew about. I looked around, not really sure and said computers. So they interviewed me, one question was "What is a Pentium Processor?" I remember saying "It's a dual 32 bit processor which has [whatever the raw processing power was]". I was hired, then I found out I knew a lot more about computers than I thought. Back in 96 was when all the kids who grew up learning on the computers were just entering the part-time workforce, we were good, a lot better than kids you run into at these box shops now. Fast forward again, I landed a career with a Fortune 100 company, still working with computers. I thought the way to go was networking, as of right now, I'm a consultant and do a TON of intergrating and programming. I also started my own consulting business scripting in CGI/PHP to coding in Java/VB/C++. So what is my answer? Well, it's simple. When I was 13 my dad bought me an RC plane. I flew it a few times and crashed it, I wasn't interested in it again. I'm 27, 2 months ago I suddenly started buying RC planes again because it was something I did when I was younger and I have some great memories. So, I say expose a kid to computers at an early age. They might not to take it, but there is a good chance as they get older they might really want to learn exactly what it was they experienced at a younger age. Also, tell them not to do it, when you tell a kid not to do something, they automatically are interested in it. I remember that anytime I was told something if for High School or College kids, I instantly wanted to do it. So tell them it's for the big kids, all little kids want to be like the big kids. So, if you want them to learn programming, who cares where they start, it's where they end up that matters, you can't force a person to become a person, they have to do it on their own. I would suggest if you want to get them into programming, have them write a basic program in your language of choice that actually accomplishes something. I interview people all the time who took programming in college but didn't have practical use for it. They had no interest in learning what a class was, or proper syntax. They need to program something where they can directly see not only a result, but a use. I can teach a kid 'Hello World!' in any language, but the gratification of that doesn't last very long and just gives us web sites that popup annoying practicaly joke alerts over and over. Find something your kid is interested in and have them write a program for that. Learning to change a tire, now that's practical. Kids don't want to learn it? Weird, how'd this tire go flat