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Government Education United States

White House Expected To Announce Big Computer Science Push 161

Posted by timothy from the o-glorious-leader dept.
theodp writes: Politico reports that the White House is talking to groups about a push for computer science education in the coming weeks, possibly in mid-January, which could involve commitments from outside groups or companies. Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi recently credited a 2013 push from the White House for inspiring Code.org to dream up and team up with Big Tech on the wildly-successful Hour of Code, an event that brought teachers, schools, computer scientist volunteers, and other organizations together with the goal of bringing hands-on CS learning to 10 million K-12 students. Coincidentally, the Hour of Code event bears more than a passing similarity to the less-successful and now-abandoned National Lab Day (school flyer), an annual event announced by President Obama in 2009 that brought teachers, schools, computer scientist volunteers, and other organizations together with the goal of bringing hands-on STEM learning to 10 million K-12 students.
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White House Expected To Announce Big Computer Science Push More

White House Expected To Announce Big Computer Science Push

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  • Normally, when you want a distraction from the fact that you've got an ongoing murder program, you make announcements that people will care about as your handwaving tactic. Who gives a shit about this? The existing coders are going wanting for jobs because of the mismanagement of the H1-B program. What benefit is there to kids to going into programming right now? Do we really need more fart apps?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Trepidity ( 597 )

      With recent advances in machine learning, a large number of which have come from American universities and companies, and the amount of telemetry data available via mobile phones, America has a golden opportunity to lead the world in automatically personalized fart apps.

      • With recent advances in machine learning, a large number of which have come from American universities and companies, and the amount of telemetry data available via mobile phones, America has a golden opportunity to lead the world in automatically personalized fart apps.

        Personally, what I'm looking forward to is the ability to bring up an app, fart into my phone, and have it tell me what I need to buy the next time I go to the store to replace what I used to cook dinner. If I just ate at a restaurant, it should also know that because of the phone's GPS, and in addition to adding to my shopping list, it should email me the recipe. Now *that's* a fart app!

      • They could call them "Top Trumps"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Long term planning. It will take 15-20 years for these kids to enter the job market. You have fix things like H1B in the mean time, and have to at least assume the economy will want tech workers in future.

      • You have fix things like H1B in the mean time

        That would be nice. I have no illusions that this will happen. The problem will get worse before it gets better.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KC0A ( 307773 )

      Anyone who can actually code should not be wanting for a job. The market for coders is the best it has ever been. Even old guys like me are getting relocation offers. As hardware costs drop, the problems that can be solved in software multiply. Speech recognition? Image understanding? Auto-stabilized quad-copters? Self-driving cars? None of these systems could be built at reasonable cost twenty years ago.

  • Enough of this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JWW ( 79176 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @08:48AM (#51149715)

    I find it condescending and somewhat cruel the focus the politicians are putting on coding and programming. With ageism rampant in the field and large number of workers being forced out of their jobs while being insulted with the mandate to train their replacements, these actions are a slap in the face to everyone already in the field.

    The powers that be are striving to make everything cheap ass manufacturing style work. That's what they're really getting at here. Big business thinks that all workers are too expensive if they make over minimum wage. This is just an effort to flood the market with cheap (and in the end poorly trained) labor. In addition to that if they don't train enough people to crash the labor market ( and thus the pay ) they'll import as much as is needed to do so.

    Our political class, both sides, doesn't give a single fuck about any citizens in this country. They don't do a single goddammed thing that is good for the people. Every fucking action helps Wall Street or some big corporation or some powerful organization or "charity" that is only really a slush fund for connected wealthy elites.

    This is all just hand waving and bullshit to keep us from realizing we're continually being sold down the river.

    • Re:Enough of this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @09:06AM (#51149761)

      I find it condescending and somewhat cruel the focus the politicians are putting on coding and programming.

      Politicians don't understand what programming is. They think it is a simple skill like reading and writing. Everybody can learn to read an write. Not everyone can learn how to program. But the politicians would like to say that they are doing something about the lack of STEM skills in the US.

      Before I started with BASIC and FORTRAN IV ten thousand years ago . . . do you want to know how I learned programming?

      Playing logic games with my father, in the car on long trips . . . like "Twenty Questions" . . . that's what taught me how to program.

      • Everybody can learn to read an write.

        Nearly everybody.

        • No, everybody. You just need to pay teachers more.

      • Re:Enough of this (Score:4, Interesting)

        by unimacs ( 597299 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @12:38PM (#51150505)
        Kids should absolutely get some exposure to coding in school. Just like they should be taught music, math, reading, and history/social studies. I really don't understand the opposition to it. Most kids that are taught geometry really never get any use out of it in their professions, - should we just stop teaching it? So much of our world runs on software that kids should have some basic understanding of how it's created and what it does even if coding never turns into a career for them.

        Further, we aren't really so special (by we I mean programmers). Just like anything else, some kids who are taught to code will get it right away, others will take longer, and some may never get it all.

        In every profession there are people who excel, others that have some talent, and those that should be doing something else. That is OK. Knowing how to code gives you a leg up in lots of professions even if you're not a programmer.

      • Politicians don't understand what programming is. They think it is a simple skill like reading and writing. Everybody can learn to read an write. Not everyone can learn how to program

        No, I disagree. Everyone can learn to read and write. I have sufficient evidence that everyone can learn to program. Here's the thing though: not everyone can write well enough to be "useful" and not everyone can program well enough to be "useful".

        For various definitions of useful of course. Simple munging in a spreadsheet is p

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        These computer languages and you are over ten thousand years old? How is that possible? :P

      • Programming is relatively easy. Programmers have been around for years and it is mostly a clerical job once the requirements are known.

        Analysts are the people who tell programmers what to write after laying out the requirements and translating management bullshit into actual technical requirements whilst nailing down the goalposts so you don't get specification drift.

        IE: they're there as project managers, translators and to run interference aginst the higher-ups so that the programmers can get on with their

    • With ageism rampant in the field and large number of workers being forced out of their jobs while being insulted with the mandate to train their replacements, these actions are a slap in the face to everyone already in the field.

      We don't use the words "age discrimination" in politics. If we did, we'd have to admit those people were unemployed, instead of cheery "workforce nonparticipants", and then the unemployment numbers would look bad. Honest, granted you, but bad.

    • And more importantly, it educates no one. It only keeps the market a flooded bunch of insecure crap with which to 'work' with.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Lehk228 ( 705449 )
      but these are old white men so it's ok. why don't you want to replace yourself with a biracial transsexual otherkin? are you some kind of racist?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by unimacs ( 597299 )
      Software development is a pretty good field to be in right now. That doesn't mean that things are rosy for everyone and few professions are layoff proof. I certainly understand IT people being upset if they are being replaced by cheaper workers from abroad but at the same time I find it a little hypocritical that they expect the government to protect them.

      Where was your shirt made, or even your computer? Isn't IT and technology in general responsible for the elimination of many many jobs in the last few

    • On ageism, it's not just whether programmers work, it is the quality of the work and the independence of the workers. Where might that matter? Consider the democratic need for programmers to follow ethical standards about privacy and democracy and openness and user empowerment (in their designs) that much centralized proprietary behind-closed-doors big data CS just ignores.

      As I found in academia (for example in the PU CE&OR department in the late 1980s), when half or more of the graduate students in an

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm saddened by what Slashdot has become. Anti eduction, anti women and anti freedom. And usually the excuse is that empowering others will take away our jobs, rather than say grow the economy.

      Increasingly it's just dogma now.

  • What about those companies increasing wages and providing better work conditions to their IT and CS technical workers? Couldn't be a better solution to make the profession more appealing to young people?

    I am sure many people here can tell stories about IT and CS managers who do not have any kind of respect of their knowledgeable workers. They rather than stick on the KFC enterprise model where you want everyone to be able to do everyone else's job in order to pay the minimum wages since everyone is replacea

    • Perhaps life for programmers in Silicon Valley is worse than in other parts of the country. But in my experience, unemployment for programmers is so low that they ARE generally treated and paid well. It's not perfect, what job is? Good programmers can easily make six-figure salaries, even without climbing the management ladder. The is true even outside of Silicon Valley, where six figures is still a lot of money. In my experience, programmers are able to demand better benefits, too, because employers a

  • hoping they'll stick to his legacy. i expect more "executive orders" this month.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teancum ( 67324 )

      Just wait until a year from now, and that legacy initiative stuff is really going to start pouring out. He still has slightly over a year left in office though, so the hurry isn't quite there at the moment.

    • a complete reboot of US healthcare, ending "don't ask don't tell, gay marriage, dream act, killing Bin Laden, normalization of relationships with Cuba, saving the auto industry, net neutrality, new START treaty with Russia, doubling of car efficiency standards, etc.

      I don't think Obama is hurting for accomplishments--he's the most productive president since probably FDR, and there's absolutely nothing you can say on the internet that changes that reality.

  • Absoluely stupid move (Score:4, Informative)

    by Teancum ( 67324 ) <robert_horning@n ... et minus painter> on Saturday December 19, 2015 @08:56AM (#51149739) Homepage Journal

    An initiative like this is a complete waste of resources and being done in the worst of all possible ways to get the task being done, which is to encourage young children to understand how to program computers. I really predict that whole dozens of children will actually learn anything from this effort, and that will be even hard to point at who was helped.

    At best, what might happen is millions of kids will be introduced to something like Scratch or possible receive a Raspberry Pi, and a few very bright kids might on their own start exploring those computers from the ground up to understand those computers. Some really enlightened educators might even go so far as to teach kids some Minecraft redstone wiring concepts (building circuits with NOR-gate technology can be fun) or if funding was to be dumped into a 0x10^c derived game that taught real hacking at the assembly level to blow up virtual spaceships..... perhaps there might be some progress too.

    Then again, I don't think the White House wants a generation of kids knowing how to write driver level software, even though that might be something useful for the future of America and the world in general. My expectation of this initiative is really quite low and teaching materials prepared by these groups are going to be as boring as Army training videos from the 1940's.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hasaf ( 3744357 )

      I actually liked using scratch, to a very limited extent. First, it impresses on the kids that things don't "just happen" they are made to happen. The second is that it is an exercise in structured thinking, almost the only other class that focuses on structured thinking are the traditional geometry classes; and that is being moved up, and out of, the curriculum in favor of creative expression.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Most developers don't know assembler, or at most did a couple of hours of it at university and then forgot about it. It's not a useful skill for them.

      I use assembler every day at work. The other developers use C# and JavaScript, because that's how you build a server API and front end to display data. It all integrates with Google services (mapping) and runs on a managed Azure platform because it's cheaper and less work for us. SQL database.

      By Slashdot standards this should be a disaster. It's running in the

  • Why aren't they pushing for more males in college? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Women’s college enrollment gains leave men behind [pewresearch.org]

    Even though college enrollment rates among young people have risen in recent decades, a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that females outpace males in college enrollment, especially among Hispanics and blacks.

    In 1994, 63% of recent female high school graduates and 61% of male recent high school graduates were enrolled in college in the fall following graduation. By 2012, the share of young women enrolled in college immediately after high school had increased to 71%, but it remained unchanged for young men at 61%.

    A similar pattern is seen among young Hispanics. In 1994, among Hispanics who completed high school, about half of men and women immediately enrolled in college. Nearly two decades later, college enrollments for both groups improved, but women outpaced men by 13 percentage points.

    For black high school graduates, there’s a different story. In 1994, young black men were more likely than young black women to be enrolled in college immediately after high school. By 2012, the pattern had reversed: The share of young black men enrolled in college remained stagnant, while the share of young black women enrolled in college increased to 69% —a 12 percentage point gap with black men.

    • This is called "concern trolling".

      I's predicated on the wrong headded opinion that one shouldn't try to fix one problem if some other problem exists. That is of course an opinion without any merit. There are always other problems and worse problems somewhere else. The fact they exist doesn't mean it's bad to fix a problem which isn't one of them.

      Fixing problems makes the world a better place even if plenty of problems remain.

      Also bonus points for just saying "they" should do it, thereby disclaiming responsi

  • I am the computer teacher at my Middle School (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @09:08AM (#51149771)

    When I think about what the districts really want in the computer program I recall a parable of a king who was walking with a friend and was asked how he kept order. His response was to draw his sword and knocks the top off some wheat growing nearby. He then said “there is your answer, never let one rise above the others.”

    The same rule applies in education. It has been, recently, made clear to me, as a teacher, that it is more important that all of the classes that teach my subject produce consistent “product” than for me to teach my students more.

    As a Computer Science (Computer Science is now a STEM subject) teacher at a middle school I am forbidden to teach any programming. I am also being told to stop teaching computer fundamentals ( . . . whats in the box, why is more RAM [up to a point] going to make the computer work better and how does the internet work. . . material like that)The focus, and the test, is entirely on computer applications.

    All the time that was going into a core understanding of computers is to be switched to more presentations. I am not against presentations; I just feel that there is a limit to how much time we spend on it. We will also take time from spreadsheet fundamentals (understanding what they are doing, instead of just putting stuff in cells . . . for that matter, what is a cell?). The reasoning is that, "kids like making pictures," and, "that other stuff is just too hard."

    There is some truth, I am not getting the target 90% mastery. I am closer to 85%. However, I am getting over 98% improvement of knowledge. The goal, though, is mastery; as such, it is easier to teach less and have the students able to demonstrate "mastery" of less (I have been told, by the district, that my definition of "mastery" is a bit strict). Further, my students measurable increase in the topics called for by the district exceeds that of the other district teachers; so what to do with this? Full stop. Return to a consistent curriculum. That is the district decision, not mine. Part of the problem is that several of the teachers do not have the background to understand what I am teaching, let alone teach it.

    However, the real problem is this; my students are entering the High School with significantly more knowledge than the students from the other district middle schools. I do understand the districts problem, there is a real problem when the student’s get to the High School and get mixed into a class when they “already know this stuff,” and the other students have not been exposed to it. Further, the students from my classes expect to learn, not to review what I already taught them.

    As far as the programming, there is a fear that knowledge of programming could lead to, “Hacking.” As such, it is to completely stop, even in the “after school” extracurricular classes. The same with the computer fundamentals, the district decision is that “kids don’t need to know that anymore.” Fear of knowledge and the need for a consistent curriculum outweigh small, hard to scale, class improvements.

    I was just, as in this week, told that what the teachers before me were doing was sufficient. Okay, of three teachers before me, one handed the kids a typing book and told them they needed to do one typing lesson a day and then they could play games. The second had so many personal problems that she didn't try to teach anything, she just let them play games. The most recent required them to produce something (yes, something was loosely defined), then they could . . . you guessed it, play games.

    As such, I am told "the children don't like lectures and the parents think your class is hard." Here is the reality, the . . . I will say it . . . upper income, education driven, parents are in my corner; but the ones that don't come to meetings, they just cal the district to complain, parents are unhappy because, and I quote "expect him [the student] to study."

    The result is that I have been given, and mandated, a curriculum for next year, as far as daily lesson plans (that don't even fit my class schedule; but that is a different issue). Guess what, work is out, make it fun, make it easy is back in.

    Don't blame the teachers.

    • I blame all those fucking morons focused on violent video games. I have zero 0 sympathy.

    • There is some truth, I am not getting the target 90% mastery. I am closer to 85%.

      Here is your problem, it's why the administrators are starting to micro-manage you. First focus on reaching their goals, hitting mastery for 90% of the students (actually try to do better, and get 95%), and then you will be free to start adding more interesting things to the class.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hasaf ( 3744357 )

        Oh, that is so easy to do. All I have to do is roll back the level of improvement, from the pretest to the post test, to the district permitted 10%, with no minimum score, from the method I use of 25% improvement or over 80% on post test.

        That would immediately put me at 97% mastery. Yes, I have run the numbers; I just consider them to be dishonest.

        • That would immediately put me at 97% mastery. Yes, I have run the numbers; I just consider them to be dishonest.

          Then find an honest way to do it. You're a good teacher, you can do it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ranton ( 36917 )

            That would immediately put me at 97% mastery. Yes, I have run the numbers; I just consider them to be dishonest.

            Then find an honest way to do it. You're a good teacher, you can do it.

            From what I read of Hasaf's post, the way the school is doing it is just as dishonest. Limiting the curriculum to very basic material that is easy to teach, but doesn't expand the minds of the children, allows other teachers to easily hit the 90% mastery. As such, there is no honest way to hit the benchmark. Either make the class meaningless, or game the system. Or try to show management that the system itself is broken, but good luck with that.

            I hope Hasaf chooses gaming the system over teaching a less edu

            • The problem is that getting the lower mastery level is giving administrators an excuse to say he is doing it wrong, and to push him around. If got his numbers up, it would give him the power to say, "no, my way is right."

              And I think he can do it, he actually seems like a really good teacher.

            • "I hope Hasaf chooses gaming the system over teaching a less educational class every time."

              What happens is that Hasaf takes his/her skills someplace they're appreciated and he gets decent pay.

              Meantime the "teachers" who simply show up and rote-teach what they've rote-learned with no actual understanding and who have strong resentment of students who are often smarter than they are, continue to alienate students from wanting to learn.

              When kids starts school they love learning. That love is beaten out of them

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hasaf ( 3744357 )

        The reality of the problem lies in the two things I mentioned: The first, and most important, my students are not arriving at the High School at the same level as the other students. The head computer teacher there feel they are (and yes, he put this in writing) beyond anything he has ever seen in entry level students. Further, the HS is not permitted to class filter the incoming freshmen based on a pretest. They are required to assign classes by random.

        The next problem is that a small number of parents hav

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hasaf ( 3744357 )

          An example of the differences the HS head computer teacher mentioned was when he asked what symbol starts a spreadsheet function and my students not only said an equals sign" but they added "however, you can also use other symbols; but you shouldn't because they may not work in all spreadsheets." He had a problem because the other 2/3'rds of the students not only didn't know to use an identifier; they didn't understand why they needed an identifier.

          On paper, these kids had all been in the came class. They a

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ranton ( 36917 )

            On paper, these kids had all been in the came class. They all came to the High School with one year of 'computer' at the middle school.

            I am not sure our schools can ever be fixed until they stop using age as a proxy for level of knowledge. I would much rather have schools provide 10-20 levels of math / english / computer science / whatever and place each child into the appropriate level each year. No one is held back, and no one is put into a hopeless situation where they are too far back to improve.

            And just checking if a student has a prerequisite class is not even close to good enough to measure competency. A combination of pretests, pre

        • Perhaps ask the parents to hire you for private classes, perhaps you could even reduce your hours at your school and spin of something like 8h / week private classes.

        • At some point the best way forward is to resign and become a private tutor.

          You get lower stress, the kids who _want_ to learn (from all schools once the word spreads) and the oafs can continue to stumble around their intellectually-vacuous playpen unchallenged.

    • See: https://archive.org/details/Th... [archive.org]

      And: http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc... [newciv.org]

      More links on how schooling is not about education, and how schooling is a form of (prison-like) adoption:
      http://p2pfoundation.net/John_... [p2pfoundation.net]
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      Check out John Holt, too. That's all a big reason we homeschool/unschool.

      More links: http://p2pfoundation.net/backu... [p2pfoundation.net]

      Enjoyed your informative post from the trenches, thanks! Especially your point about teacher incentives. You get what you measure -- so, as you im

    • Don't blame the teachers.

      But a lot of the problems you lay out are the fault of the teachers, if the district actually had consistently good CS teachers, they would not be trying to dumb down to such a huge degree. They are forced too by CS teachers who do not even try to teach, and do not even know how to program themselves. The problem is that before university, teachers do not even need to have knowledge of what they are teaching, it is assumed any gym teacher can get themselves up to date with CS and teach a class in it, the re

    • Middle school? *spreadsheets*?

      Not blaming you here but what sort of sick fuck tries to teach 11-13 year olds about spreadsheets? That has to be one of the most soul destroying ways to teach computing it's possible to invent for kids in that age bracket.

      What next? fucking tax software?

      • As bad as it is, I would take spreadsheets over word processing any day of the week. You could even teach Macros and VBA. I would think that there are some useful things that could come out of it.

        • I'm surprised that turtle isn't taught. It's a good way to get started in basic instructions whilst getting instant results.

          As for spreadsheets/WP: ew, nasty horrble shite. This is "office/secretarial skills", not programming.

          And yet, in the UK, high school computing qualifications ARE all about WP/spreadsheets/MS office

          30 years ago one of the computing tasks we were given was a theoretical cpu with 12 instructions (which was 4 less than the original 256-byte CHIPOS system I first learned on a few years pre

    • As a Computer Science (Computer Science is now a STEM subject) teacher at a middle school I am forbidden to teach any programming.
      That is interesting, and a shame.
      In Germany a teacher can teach what ever he wants, as long as s/he covers the mandatory topics for the year. That is usually done in small excursions at points where it makes sense, that actually distinguishes the good from the mediocre or bad teachers.

  • How's that whole ConnectED thing working out?

    We've all got high speed broadband with no data caps in all our houses for our students to use, right?

    • How's that whole ConnectED thing working out?

      Conveniently, its goals are set for 2018, a few years after Obama has been out of office, so he can blame his successor.

      Of course, even if it achieved its goal of "within five years, connect[ing] 99 percent of America’s students to next-generation broadband and high-speed wireless in their schools and libraries", nobody would bother demonstrating that this actually improved educational outcomes.

      • Conveniently, its goals are set for 2018, a few years after Obama has been out of office, so he can blame his successor.

        Yeah fuck the democrats for long term planning. The only possible reason for thinking about the future is to fuck over some upstanding republican president (Trump?) on the off chance he wins.

        Seriously? Is everything so insanely partisan to you?

        • Yeah fuck the democrats for long term planning. The only possible reason for thinking about the future is to fuck over some upstanding republican president

          "Long term planning" wouldn't have prevented the president from setting annual goals leading up to the long term goal; but he didn't want to do that because he knew he wouldn't be able to meet any annual goals.

          President Obama proposed ConnectED to give the impression like he is doing something for America, and to funnel funds to groups that support him p

        • Yeah fuck the democrats for long term planning.

          Since the plan was to take donations and then later to reward those that donated, and we are now discussing the reward part of the plan, yes... FUCK THEM FOR LONG TERM PLANNING.

  • If boys are allowed?

    I wonder - if the trained "coders" will be emigrating to India to get a job?

    I wonder - In a world where a lot of people believe you are a criminal if you are really interested in computing and networking , like Britain's National Crime agency http://www.nationalcrimeagency... [nationalcr...ncy.gov.uk] might just cause some parents to actively steer their children away from computer based careers?

    I wonder - if we merely taught science free of political overtones, and allowed the children to develop an inter

    • I wonder If boys are allowed?

      No you don't. If you took two seconds to RTFA the answer would have been clear. I think I finally understand what a SJW is: it's someone like you who keeps dragging things like gender into absolutely everything in some attempt to score points, right?

      (well either that or just a catch all for shit I don't like on the internet)

      I wonder - In a world where a lot of people believe you are a criminal if you are really interested in computing and networking

      That page says nothing of the

  • The factory workers of the future (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why so much fuzz about teaching kids how to program?? Is it me or does it sound like "we need everybody to know how to code so we can pay low wages to a whole new generation"? so coding becomes as dull a job as putting a brick on top of another. Why not teaching maths so they can resolve maths problems that remain unresolved for more than a century? Cryptography relies heavily on properties of prime numbers, so you never know what's around the corner with maths.

    Or even better, why don't they just let the ki

  • It's to make X that can program.

    In 10 years "programming" is going to be like "keyboarding" or "Microsoft Office" on a resume. They aren't training kids how to be CS majors or IT majors. They're training kids on how to program for what ever job they eventually want to do. 10 years ago when I graduated I was a rarity, a Mechanical Engineer that could program. I automated 80% of my workflow with Python and Matlab, and as a result got to spend my time on the 'hard' stuff. Now when we go recruit engineers if yo

    • "In 10 years "programming" is going to be like "keyboarding" or "Microsoft Office" on a resume."

      In the UK "programming" _IS_ using those programs.

      No actual programming skills taught.

      Couple that with rote-learned qualifications (especially things like CCNA and MSCE), it means we have to actually test people's knowledge during job interviews, which wastes a lot of time. (it's amazing how many people can't answer the exact same problems used in the exams, when the question is simply worded slightly differently

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • How about. Everything we need is already in place. Incl. os software to run hospitals. All the things we could be focusing on to not only enrich ourselves but our very environment, is right in front of us. But instead we have a culture of complete fucking morons who jerkoff with apps on their phones or are busy competing for high dumbfuck score. In his mandate for a supercomputer, he thinks if everyone starts learning computer, somehow he will get a better pc. I feel sorry for kids with no other education t

  • CISA passed and the govt will need a pool of talented young folk to implement the various initiatives it will spawn.

  • Doctors make more money than software developers and there is a shortage. Why doesn't the Obama administration "push" for more medical school graduates to take those high paying medical jobs? Oh, right: the AMA and their lobbyists make sure that regulations remain in place that limit the availability and training of doctors, in order to keep salaries artificially high and unemployment artificially low.

    I think the kind of monopolistic practices that exist in the medical field are wrong. But when the Obama ad

    • It is much simpler than you think it is. The politicians understand that not everyone can be a doctor. They don't understand that not everyone can be a competent programmer.

  • Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding. Yes, many people (many of you here included apparently) do not understand the distinction, but that does not mean that coding is not indeed a teachable skill that will be ever more ubiquitous as a secondary job requirement. As the world fills up with ever more big boy pants software written by real programmers, so shall it need an ever increasing number

    • Anybody can learn to code. Not anybody can learn to program because it is not a skill, but an aptitude that is facilitated by learning the skill of coding.

      Programming and coding are synonyms. Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.

      Not sure if it makes sense to read the rest of your post if you not even knew that ...

      Actually after reading a bit more, I wonder if I just should refrain from hitting "submit"?

      • Hint: that means, they mean the same thing. Coding is just the cooler sounding neologism.

        Oh shit, you seriously think that? So for you, the entire world divides into 2 non-overlapping circles: 'people who can write code' and 'people who interact with software only via UIs' and everybody in the former category is a 'programmer' to you? That must be depressing to think that you do the same thing as a graphic design guy who makes a dynamic web page, an accountant that writes a VBScript in Excel or a PS engineer who writes a power flow in Matlab, which are all coincidentally reasons why learning to

        • I have read farther, hence my last sentence: 'should I refrain from hitting submit?'

          Sorry, your previous post and this again clearly shows: you have no idea what coding/programming is.

          Your statements are wrong, I suggest you go to a college/university and in fact study computer science?

          Hint: all the stuff you are ranting about in the post I answer too: is programming. No idea why you think otherwise.

          Oh, it is coding, too: as there is no difference between coding and programming ... and for starters: it has

  • CS makes sense in high school, but not in grade, middle school.
    In fact, I would rather that they had more PE for elementary school. And if we really want extra CS, then it should be taught at community colleges, along with robotics, and manufacturing.

  • Code.org must die!
    Preferably in a fire!
    It's all politics
    And graft for the supplier

    Don't let your kids
    Be sucked into it
    Because their "curriculum"
    Is really just sh*t.

    Burma Shave

    (yes, I know it's not Tuesday yet, but it will be ...)

  • The easiest way to succeed is to repeal the 1965 Immigration Act alongside the removal of all guest worker capable programs.

    Not only does this code push not want to put all citizens forward, it would only end up being of benefit to diversity candidates (like prior efforts). Individuals that fall outside of some form of "diversity" would largely be locked out.

  • If the IT industry was being made worthwhile to do into, I would think it would sell itself. I feel somewhat cheated because when I was going into post secondary education it was supposed to be *the* thing to go into and now they have to drag people into it like this.

  • So... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Will this event be open for boys or will they discriminate and make it girls only like they have been recently?

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