Coding is not ‘fun’, it’s technically and ethically complex

This article is not only wrong, it's the opposite of the truth. Putting to one side the blatant false dichotomizing, let's look at the central argument:

> Insisting on the glamour and fun of coding is the wrong way to acquaint kids with computer science.

I'm not convinced that:

A) This is happening very much,

B) or would work even if it was happening,

C) or would be particular bad if it happened and somehow also worked.

Messaging in the vein of the author's examples is innocuous. Nobody is going to see Tim Cook say "coding is fun" in a news clip and then conclude that a four year computer science degree is easy, or that their friend who works in software is an idiot and gets paid simply to have fun. With regards to more intentional examples, let's be realistic: how many kids are going to see a presentation in class entitled "coding is fun" and respond differently than "this blows, what's for lunch?"

And what if they did? They might learn something about it on wikipedia; they might try writing a script; they might choose a major they would otherwise have overlooked. Which is, frankly, the best thing we could hope for. The problems facing engineering in 2019 aren't the result of too many people being interested in computer science, they are the result of too few.

> In just a few years, understanding programming will be an indispensable part of active citizenship

This is clearly untrue, unless you interpret it more broadly as "having a general understanding of technology and the role it plays in the economy." And along with statistics and logic, it already is, and we have failed utterly to proselytize it. Do you think that our society would be improved by a push to make statistics more boring to students?

> In just a few years, understanding programming will be an indispensable part of active citizenship.

This seems to contradict the article's earlier point about "jobs that demand intense focus", like brain surgery and structural engineering.

No-one would claim that "In just a few years, understanding brain surgery will be an indispensable part of active citizenship."

Since programming is "complicated" and "exquisitely technical," why would we expect it to be "an indispensable part of active citizenship," as opposed to a specialty like any other, and how is that going to change in "just a few years"?

Well coding and software engineering are two different things anyway, so the article begins with conflating the context. Coding is just syntax awareness, good at coding is one thing but to start engineering software(And hence where the ethics issue mostly lies, say with bias inheriting algorithms) requires that gap of discipline that you don't necessarily have if you just play in code in a rudimentary fashion.

> being ‘in the flow’

that is by definition a fun place to be

I don't like the author's attitude but I find the article at least tangential to something worth considering. Flawed communications as a social issue are larger in scope than technology alone. False equivalence is dangerous. If I was going to make an argument to support anything positive that I find in the article, I would frame it like this..

Popular presentations: coding=hacking=glamour hacking=crime=glamour

Less popular presentations: work=money=glamour creativity+work=glamour+money

Never mind the assumption that glamour is desirable. I'll just pretend that glamour represents any positive outcome, but be very strict about that being a local declaration on its' way to the garbage collector real fast.

False dichotomy. It is both fun and technically complex.

"If you have to ask, you'll never know." -- Louis Armstrong when asked what was so great about Jazz music.

What a shite article