I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018) | Hacker News Reader

I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

getpocket.com

60 pointsdijit84 comments

I would, were I going to have kids.

"while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually have very little to do with the work of creating software."

Yes, and learning to read has little to do with the dramatic structures of high literature, but without the one you're going to struggle to express the other.

This article comes across as attention-seeking contrarianism.

That’s a good point. It also shows that those who are worried about everyone learning to code, and our job market subsequently becoming saturated, is rather a needless worry.

Sure some saturation will occur, but furthering your point, just because most can read and write doesn’t mean they’ll all become professional writers.

what worries me is the code-monkey idea behind everyone can/need to code. I don't want coding to become the blue-collar skill of the next decade.

I hope you didn't mean this as elitist as it comes across. There's nothing wrong with blue-collar coding

I meant it in a way that if coding becomes a blue-collar job salaries will go lower, people who have ambition will move into another field, work life will get harder.

Yes there is. As a craft, it dies.

It is already a blue-collar skill for 3/4 of people who code.

I think the author is pointing at the crop of "learn programming" classes offered for elementary kids under the guise of STEM. And I have seen parents spending sleepless nights because their kid cannot and the neigbor kid can program in Python in Grade 4. Which I believe, is utterly pointless, and does not define how good/bad your kid will be at programming in adult-life. I think some this myth stems of the stories of great programmers whose parents got them an Atari at the age of 4 and so on. I think they are a rare exception, than the norm.

I can relate to this article -- my daughter went through programming courses in school (Bay Area public schools are full of these crazy STEM courses), but she did not understand a thing of constructing software. All they learnt was a bunch of syntax, and a bunch of solved problems. I think they will do much better if the STEM courses focus less on a "programming language" and more on "problem solving and thinking software" (I just made this up now). :-)

Very true. That being said though, you need to also show and teach them the fun in exploring programming, as the article touches on. The same can be said about math. It is important to take the time and get fluent in basic arithmetic to go further in your studies, but that can't come at the cost of the child hating math because it is so boring, or the child thinking it is only a "repeat what is written as the answer" subject.

Similarly, children learn fluency in arithmetic first before they introspect more deeply into their mathematical activity.

My brother asked me when and how I though I could teach my baby niece so that she could make "a lot of money as a developper".

My answer was "when she asks for it".

There are many things a kid should learn, and among them, a huge number are more important than programming (plus sometimes a pre-requisite for it):

- reading

- writing

- basic maths

- critical analysis

- building your own idea

- defending yourself verbally, mentally and physically

- expressing yourself

- chosing ingredients and preparing food

- proper life hygiene

- understanding the current society, the medias, the political system, etc

- learning a second language

I recall that when I was a freshman, some kids were still not be able to read out loud correctly.

Programming can come later. Way, way later.

In fact, she may even not enjoy programming at all, or even consider it.

I think the best bet is like with music. If it's something you want to share: demo a lot of it in regular life, associate it with joy, and the kid may just show an interest in it.

Then foster than.

Then setup lessons, discipline, etc.

But don't make it a requirement.

I think programming should enter a kids learning environment around the same time and priority as a second language.

How would someone know whether to consider it, if not exposed to it at all?

Most people in the English-speaking western world won't make a vast amount of use of that second language. Some will though, and the rest of us will appreciate that the training we did get helps us see things from a different perspective and maybe lets us interact a little easier on vacation. Most won't use their Chemistry or Physics education in day to day life, but it will help them understand the world better.

As our world becomes dominated by software, training in it becomes similar - even those who aren't going to go all in and follow a career in it, can conceivably benefit from some training.

Languages can start very young though. Locally I'm familiar with a lot of families of mixed-nationality. In my own case my partner's native language is Finnish and mine English; our child grew up hearing/understanding both, and now speaks both of them to the appropriate parent.

(It's quite fascinating to see that play out, we were walking in the street recently and somebody stopped to ask me a question. He butted in and said "Daddy speaks English", in Finnish, to the stranger.)

True, I meant at about the time languages are often introduced in schools, which tends to be a little later.

> I think programming should enter a kids learning environment around the same time and priority as a second language.

For a lot of people, than means learning programming before learning english.

Which is incredibly counter productive. It's like learning maths without pen and paper. Sure you can do it, but I wouldn't want to.

Besides, there are only a limited number of hours in the day. Energy and motivation are also in short supply. You can't do everything at once, and even if you manage a bit of parallelism, you'll end up doing a lot supperficially.

Better be sequencial. And prioritize.

> How would someone know whether to consider it, if not exposed to it at all?

Like I said, just like with music, you put it everywhere, and you associate it with joy.

Play with robots, make beautiful programmable lights shows in the kid room, use games like turing tumble, program openly and talk proudly about the result, create bots to annoy the kid in social media, make your own "alexa" system that the whole family can abuse, lay around bare raspi you can fiddle with, etc.

The idea is that you feel like the house in "honey I shrunk the kids". It calls for experimenting.

> Most people in the English-speaking western world won't make a vast amount of use of that second language.

First, that's not most of the world. Second, of course they would. It opens an entire different culture that make you think differently, grow differently. Sure, you can put a number on it, but it's huge, and it must happen soon, or it will unlikely happen at all.

It's hard to learn a language by yourself unless you travel abroad, while learning programming alone is easy.

In fact, if you have the money, sending your kid abroad in hight school or college is fantastic.

> Most won't use their Chemistry or Physics education in day to day life, but it will help them understand the world better.

And because you had to learn all that at the same time, most people don't understand basic physics, chemistry or maths. They don't speak a second language either. They lost everything, trying to do all the things.

> As our world becomes dominated by software, training in it becomes similar - even those who aren't going to go all in and follow a career in it, can conceivably benefit from some training.

Software is just regular life, automated and faster.

Learn real life first.

> Better be sequencial. And prioritize.

This appears to run counter to all educational programs, everywhere.

I'll listen to your theories on why programming is unimportant after the world has accepted your theories on only learning one thing at a time, I guess.

> Like I said ...

That's introductory teaching right there. You're simply quibbling about methods.

> It's hard to learn a language by yourself unless you travel abroad, while learning programming alone is easy.

Not really, not if nobody ever introduced you to the fact that programming exists, and held your hand as you dipped your toes in.

Maybe it was easy for you, as a self-motivated hacker type, that doesn't mean everyone is like that (even those who end up in the industry, doing perfectly well).

> Software is just regular life, automated and faster.

Nope.

> when she asks for it

Or, better yet, when she seeks it out on her own. But yeah, I agree 100% with the spirit of this comment.

Of course. Notice interest, whatever the clue is, and be part of the process.

my nephews asked for it. it was Minecraft that got them into it. unfortunately that also meant that they wanted to learn Java, so they will probably be put off for life.

Yep, same with my son. Minecraft just might be the most singularly influential phenomenon in an entire generation of budding software engineers.

My son, who is not yet 6, will watch YouTube videos about creating something in Minecraft and then build it almost exactly to spec later, not while watching the video. This includes some redstone contraptions. It’s pretty mind-blowing to watch him.

I always believed that minecraft had a plugin system allowing the use of many programming language. Did MS remove that when buying it?

You can bridge scripting from any programming language into minecraft through the use of plugins.

The educational versions of minecraft (e.g. the raspi version) integrate python scripting directly.

Microsoft forked a "bedrock" version of minecraft that I'm not as familiar with and that has a different plugin ecosystem. The Java-based version still has all the same plugin capabilities it always has.

if you want to make a lot of money, become a lawyer

lets add drawing, painting and music to that list.

I gotta say, I had this same thought twenty years ago when my kiddos were pre-teens. Be creative! Make beautiful things! Don't haul up the data on the Xerox line like your old man! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsDkmVo2fg4

Man, was I WRONG! What a MISTAKE. My spouse and I fouled up some lives by teaching that attitude.

My youngest wanted to do game dev. So she got Masters of Fine Art from an A school concentrating in 3D animation and motion capture. Now she doesn't make enough money to afford to live in a tiny apartment in the Bay Area exurbs working a full-time temp job for a big game dev outfit.

My oldest also went to a A art school for an MFA. Now she's an office administrator, almost forty, raising a family.

We're super-proud they don't have any debt. That took hard work. Still, there's no way they're going to have the opportunities my spouse and I had.

Who has the labor market power to earn enough to feed their families in the overpriced coastal areas? Engineers, lawyers, executives.

My mom was a classicist and really wanted me to spend a lot of time learning to read the ancient greats in Latin and Greek. But she didn't push me too hard; she let me make my own choices. That was good for me.

Please, please, young parents, be careful about how your ideologies affect the small people in your care. Don't let your ideologies make them think their choices are limited.

Seriously.

I think I might be losing something, but why would you put your kids into art school if you want to develop games?

Even thinking about the aspirational reason, game artists don't make the money you might be thinking. That's engineering and engineering only.

It's like a tower of mistakes.

> This gives the impression that not teaching kids to code is somehow equivalent to not teaching them to read. That is, of course, ridiculous. Coding is not the new literacy.

Except coding is like literacy. Not everybody needs to be a professional writer, but there are few jobs today where reading and writing isn't a necessity and even fewer where it isn't a useful skill. Outside of work, reading and writing can be sources of pleasure and applied in many different hobbies and disciplines.

Coding is the same way. If you know how to do it, you may see ways to make your life easier by programming that someone who doesn't know how to could never even imagine. sure, lots of people do fine without the skill, but when reading wasn't taught to everybody, those people also got by without that skill.

There was a time when using a computer and programming one were much more tightly coupled than they are today, but with computers more powerful than ever and users less savvy than ever, their magic is lost on many.

My (already born) children will learn to code, not because I want them to be developers, but because I want whatever job they have to be simpler and easier and more fun.

The entire argument seems to be around how painful and pointless it is to teach kids syntax. However most of the tools and courses I have seen that introduce programming to kids do away with syntax, by using visual programming and similar. Does the author think no improvement was done to programming tutorials in the last 40 years?

Yep. I was a CS prof for 18 years and I now work as CS R&D engineer and I am not teaching my kids to program. Teach them math. Teach them to solve problems. They can learn to stare at a screen later in life.

My son is almost 6 and I can say with near certainty that he will learn to code regardless of what I have to say about it. He is absolutely mesmerized by computers and as soon as he discovers that he can tell them exactly what to do he will most likely teach himself. It’s exactly what I did—my father worked at IBM and we always had a fairly capable PC at home but he was a mechanical engineer so I was on my own for learning to code.

I really hope we don’t add coding to the laundry list of rote skills that kids are evaluated on in school. Sure, make it available for those who are interested, but let’s be honest—most kids will have little interest in coding, and forcing them to learn it anyways will not provide any lasting benefit.

"I really hope we don’t add coding to the laundry list of rote skills that kids are evaluated on in school."

Why?

Seriously.

> Sure, make it available for those who are interested, but let’s be honest—most kids will have little interest in coding, and forcing them to learn it anyways will not provide any lasting benefit.

This could apply to mathematically skills also. Personally, I would never raise any kids under this ideology. It seems to foster ignorance and conformism.

you can't tell. my kid was like that at 6 and now he's 14 and he's only interested in gaming, marginally hacking (rooting his console and playing pirate games) but not writing code. I feel he finds it boring, too tedious, error prone, repetitive process.

> One day, my son was concerned that a chair of his was wobbly. We looked at it and he helped me isolate the problem: One of the screws was loose. I found one of our many leftover hex wrenches and showed him how to screw it back in. After that, he was curious what would happen if he screwed the other way, which he did until the screw came out. We ended up taking the chair all the way apart and putting it back together a couple of times, often mismatching pieces, before he was satisfied the job was finished. Try something. See how it works. Try again.

My dad and I did this too! Not the chair, but things like it.

One time he gave me a sock full of shaver parts and said "I took my shaver apart and can't figure out how to put it back together. Can you see what you can do with all these parts?" It took a lot of experimenting and trial and error, but I managed to get a working shaver put together.

TVs had tubes in those days (not just the picture tube, but a couple dozen tubes in the circuit). As the tubes burned out, the TV would "go on the fritz". So I got to pull all the tubes out, and we drove down to the corner grocery where I plugged them into the tube tester, set the dials and checked the meter readings to find the bad one. We went home with the replacement, put the tubes back in, and the TV worked again! For a while.

Mom liked to sew, so I got to be the sewing machine repairman, cleaning and oiling, untangling and threading the bobbin.

Then I went to kindergarten where I had fun pranking the other kids and the teacher. For show and tell I brought a big fat electrolytic capacitor that I'd charged up at home, and a screwdriver. I told them what capacitors were and how dangerous they could be unless they were discharged. Then I "accidentally" touched the two terminals, one with each hand, and pretended I was getting electrocuted.

I somehow managed to break free, and then shorted the screwdriver across the terminals with a big spark and a loud and scary pop. I put my hands on the terminals again, smiled, and said, "It's discharged. It's safe now. You can try it." And a few brave ones did.

What I didn't tell them was I'd only charged it up to six volts!

I learned programming in elementary school using C-16 and Commodore plus 4 machines in 80s Hungary. It was amazing that we could type in some BASIC command and the computer did what we told it to do. We learned to manage files on disks, I/O, various conditions, etc. It was crazy how a few lines of LOGO could draw a flower on the screen. I was amazed to see it demonstrated that pseudorandom numbers generate the same number on different machines.

Then I got my C64 a bit later since I guess I was enthusiastic about the subject. My problem was not being able to learn fast enough, I couldn't ask from anybody, there was no internet and books were limited in my language. I wanted to learn machine code, but just couldn't, it was an impenetrable wall without a mentor. So I stuck with BASIC and transitioned gaming. I still remember encoding sprites by hand in my workbook instead of paying attention to the class I was at :)

It was all good for discovering that I actually like dealing with computers and I would be interested in going deeper. It was also good to remember that when I got my first Pentium machine that programming is actually approachable and you don't have to be a superhuman genius to write programs.

> But while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually have very little to do with the work of creating software.

You have to start _somewhere_, it doesn't really matter where and how kids learn what a variable, loop, function call is.

I'm generally in agreement with this, but as I grew up programming and have 3 kids now will provide my $0.02 commentary-

* kids are shaped by what you share and demonstrate with them and what others share and demonstrate, and what takes root and grows in their hearts and minds is what you should encourage and support

* following the taking root metaphor, all kids have different soil and growth patterns and acquire different knowledge domains at different rates. A great deal of the domain acquisition is due tho not to IQ, however one defines it, but by EQ. That is, my observation is that feelings of safety, explorability, curiosity, satisfaction, and competition/conformance are what drive acquisition, and those are mostly or all EQ.

* programming as an activity is horrendously dumb, with stupid incantations and magical abstractions, and a complete disrespect of the human's time and engagement tempo. When it comes to kids, this is absolutely worst case.

* I have seen two very small, narrow exceptions to the above- some robotics kits, and Scratch. My son is 8 and found in Scratch a vehicle for exploration, curiosity and satisfaction, and has done some absolutely amazing things. It is a matter of curiosity for me that problems I found interesting in 6502 assembly when I was 13 and 14 he is tackling at 8 in Scratch.

* we don't have a voice interface tool in our house but I can definitely see voice-first being an engaging "programming" platform for kids, especially for girls.

Want to share my first hand experience as a kid of a programmer.

My father was a programmer in 70' to mid 90'. He would had loved for me getting into the topic as well and showed me various things like early VESA programming and simple games in the 80' (in Germany GDR on a self made computer wired to a color TV). But programming and how it works didn't caught my interest at all - zero. I was completely hooked by the graphics and games though.

In the early 90' after the fall of Berlin wall, a friend of my dad gave me 3D Studio for DOS on 14 floppy discs, and oh' boy this changed my life.

Started a career in the 3D film industry and it was 20 years after my childhood that I caught interest in programming. I was blown away by what the programmers could do with the 3D software Maya and slowly was dragged into it and the curiosity never ended.

Nowadays I'm mostly a programmer who's also interested in graphics. Have worked on various commercial products with embedded firmware, C++ GUIs and Web/JS projects.

I'm a programmer not because my dad showed me that stuff in my childhood, I got here out of an coincidence of getting 3D Studio for DOS.

Anyway, my dad is glad how it turned out in the end :)

I can relate to some of that. My dad, who was a programmer amongst other things, tried to get me interested in electronics, but it just never really caught on for me. Whereas programming I was pretty hooked from the start. I did lots of BASIC and Pascal. He tried to get me onto C, but I was reluctant, although I do remember him explaining pointers (I was maybe 10?) and it finally making sense. Most of the learning I did along the way was driven by me though, going to him when I got stuck.

Now I'm approaching 40 and a full time web developer.

Coding is just the means to an end... I bought my daughter (4 yr) a microscope (kid's version) and she is putting almost everything under it's lenses

Of course, being a biologist is much more than playing with a microscope, but it's just a way to get kids excited about science and inspire them to be curious and inquisitive.

Coding is just like this microscope. It enables children to discover the world of computer science and software.

I just was thinking about this the other day and I concluded that I will teach my kids TO THINK, but no display or programming language is required for that. You can teach the basics on paper or drawings, teaching a programming language syntax and features can come when they are interested in programming at all. Otherwise, they can apply thought processes in other areas of life.

If you don’t want to teach your kids to code, ok. I actually think the sugar cookie example is analogous to web development, especially styling/CSS.

As someone who has taught children how to do html/css/ basic JS it’s amazing to see how they progress; the creativity a child can have is unpredictable but usually inspiring.

Also, why is pocket acting like amp with the url? :/ :/ :/

The real URL, had to search to find it as there's no way to access it from the linked Pocket version

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-ki...

So the post should be linked here instead and have a [2018] suffix added to it, then.

Any mods care to fix?

Pocket shows up on the startup page for Firefox. They reprint old articles under their web site.

This sounds like not teaching grammar because your child might not be as goos if a poet. Not every developer is solving interesting problems with creative out of the box thinking.. most just write boring code.

The argument seems to mostly boil down to this one part: "Coding books for kids present coding as a set of problems with “correct” solutions. And if your children can just master the syntax, they’ll be able to make things quickly and easily. But that is not the way programming works. Programming is messy. Programming is a mix of creativity and determination. Being a developer is about more than syntax, and certain skills can only be taught to the very young."

Isn't that true of most "adult" things taught to young children? Says you want to teach a sport, basketball. At a young age, all the kid is going to do at best is "master the syntax". That doesn't mean it isn't useful to start at an early age.

The author's argument can be applied to anything complex. You don't think kids "master the syntax first" learning math? Should we not start teaching math at a young age?

It seems the author is really just upset that anyone thinks coding is something simplistic to any degree.

As a developer, my personal competitive advantage is that I understand humans quite well. Most of the devs I've seen were limited by their soft skills. Learning Javascript is trivial compared to acquiring soft skills that are necessary to be successful in most domains.

I don't have kids but I never understood why some parents think that their kids have to learn about their passion, specially at such young ages. I understand this in countries where prospects are poor and your best option is stick to the family business but this is something else with different ramifications.

I'd let my kid learn about coding if he/she asks for it and is curious, otherwise I'd never try to shove it. Let kids be kids and if they become interested then be happy to be their personal teacher.

Agreed, and you could say the same of mathematics. If we teach coding as we teach math, devoid of creativity and reduced to a set of rules, coding will be hated by most, just like math.

I completely disagree. I've been programming since 1977, when I was 7 years old. My kids, now in their teens, have been coding since they were able to bang on one of my 8-bit machines, having a blast all the way to comprehension and understanding.

Oh, wait, yeah. Sorry. I have every computer I've ever hacked on, going back to '77.

Yeah, now I get it. DEFINITELY don't try to teach your kids to program computers with, say, a modern web stack or whatever..

The article is spot on. Teaching kids to code so they learn skills like problem solving and dealing with ambiguity is a good reason to teach them. Teaching them to code because tech jobs pay well today is a lot less likely to be useful in 20 years when they're entering a job market that's very different to what we have right now.

I’ve been in the job market since 1996. While it didn’t pay the astronomical salaries that it does now, it consistently has paid a nice wage. What trends do you see that would lessen the need for software development in the next 20 years?

I see a trend thats pushing away older experienced programmers just to replace them with young ones.

I’m 45. I haven’t seen it. I’m getting just as many offers and doors open now as I have since 1996. I’m very focused on keeping a network warm and keeping my resume buzzword compliant.

Im happy for you. I personally lost my patience to keep up with the buzz-world, I update my knowledge on a need basis, but never pursue shiny stuff. This is a reason for which being 40 and knowledgable of a mixed bag of technologies but a lot of it older makes me quite unattractive to many companies. When I was in my 20s I was always keeping up but lately I don’t care as much. My family’s more important and it suits me more to have some tech-unrelated hobbies.

Then its a really good reason to teach them Racket! It comes with batteries included, has a lot of learning libraries and is extremely easy to program.

I hate when people tell other people how to raise their children. It’s the most useless advice. Let children do what they want. It doesn’t have to be so serious. If the kids enjoy it then great. They don’t have to write operating systems or SAAS at age 10. Syntax, coding style etc doesn’t matter at that age, it’s better just to learn something.

To code or to work with computers (for example doing system administration or testing) is a work skill, and children and teenagers are much, much better at learning them than the essential theoretical subjects at school.

So, instead of turning programming in yet another rigorous and testable school subject, I think kids should be encouraged to make things regardless how bad they seem to be. Maybe not using BASIC, but some web design, but also how to fix common computing issues. Ideally they should be able to do an entry level IT job.

Historically teenagers and bigger children worked as apprentices or helped in the fields. In some communities, this is still essential to their survivor, but people who can afford for their kids not to work discount the boost to self-worth and the practicality of doing some work.

I'm also thinking of those kids I've seen who can solve textbook programming problems at an early age, but cannot even setup their IDE.

I agree (at least from personal experience w/classes my son has taken) that most "programming" courses, especially those using Scratch-like and gamified environments, have taught him absolutely nothing -- they'll get a sprite to move or whatever through trial-and-error or copy/paste, but I don't think there's much learning -- they just get "games" that look like total crap compared to what they're used to without the slightest clue how to get from here to there. (Whereas when we programmed text games in Z80 asm or Basic, our result was pretty much on-par with what you'd expect to get from somewhere else.)

OTOH, as a developer, teaching your own kid programming, if you are passionate about it, certainly beats teaching them nothing.

I think there is a set of skills that are really worth learning early. When it actually makes a difference to be "native". Like learning a language, playing an instrument or technical sport like let's say skiing or swimming. I'm fluent in English now but will never sound like a native. I swim several time per week but I'll never be as efficient as if I started at 6. On another hand I started skiing at 4 and I've been doing great in this sport.

For coding, I think the author wants to emphazise the fact that the code syntax and the logic are different things. Syntax is easy to pick up at any age with a bit of perseverance. Kids can practice their analysis skills and logic at a young age but that doesn't require any coding.

I got interested in coding when I started high school in 2001. When I discovered that several students were already somewhat proficient programmers, ostensibly because of parents who introduced it while they were young, it was a rude shock. It left me feeling behind some kind of curve.

I did become a software engineer later in life after a career change, but I wonder how a home environment where I could learn the basics would have changed my trajectory.

I take the author's point that the problem solving and creativity are more important than syntax. But you need comfort with syntax to get deeper into the ecosystem to stretch those muscles.

There are many things that can help you learn programming. Problem solving is one of them. Language/syntax is one. I don't think it's wrong to teach kids one of them, but yes, we should not forget the other ones.

I think it's usually easier to learn one thing if you already know related things. It might be easier to understand a problem if you know a programming language. It might be easier to learn more about programming if you already know the syntax of a language.

I went through an attempt to teach my son (10 at the time) some basic programming principles and he was completely disinterested. I am of the opinion that I am not going to force the topic on him, so I left it alone and didn't pressure him. In the last couple years since then, he has completely blown me away with his programming (mostly logic) capabilities that he has learned from games like Scrap Mechanic and StormWorks.

Each generation will have its own bias.

In the analog world, "jack of all trades" is an inefficient model to develop, but in the digital world, knowing something exists (and having working knowledge) makes planning and execution of innovation that much easier.

They just call it smart and dynamic in the tech world instead of "master of none".

How times change.

Pushing things to children to be learned is not efficient.

You can try but what goes into one ear leaves the other ear.

My approach: wake the curiosity (for example by playing games on itch.io and showing a tiny glimpse of the possibility to change a game). Then carefully steer. Let yourself be pulled by the curiosity of the child.

Link should be changed to: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-ki...

Source article: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/against-teaching-ki...

the reason there is a push to teach more people to code, who would otherwise not, is that it increases supply which then brings the cost down for large companies who need lots of cheap coders.

tl;dr: "Instead of teaching syntax, you should actually teach kids to problem solve, be curious, and care about quality! Because those are underlying skills with more value to programming and to life in general.

But, also, most people should not become programmers. No comment on why."

I'm torn between anger at the clickbaity title, agreement with and enjoyment of the majority of the article's valid work and spirit, and acute annoyance at that last bit that shamelessly, sans evidence, recalls the clickbait premise that I originally wanted. The author pulled me slowly out of my disdain, and then shoved me back into it again right before leaving.

I often hear this idea echoed around my social network that most people should actually not learn to program. That it is not a literacy. That it isn't useful for your kids' minds or long term status or for society. But then I often find people slyly avoiding explanations as to why, like here, or merely asserting that the arts also have value (which isn't an exclusive claim!), or mumbling over some hoakum about learning styles and not everyone being capable of being a programmer.

Occasionally there's someone saying, "of course many people will program, but they won't be programmers. But the other things they do will require them to do programming", which is exactly how literacy works. I'm ready to agree with that idea, but it's often similarly wrapped in a "don't teach your kids to code!" label, which it seems antithetical to.

Does anyone seriously feel that developing the skills involved in writing code (and learning to be comfortable using code and computer tools to solve problems) isn't broadly applicable to people's lives at this point? I'd love to hear and discuss a qualified explanation for that belief, and I've been looking, but (as with this article) it seems not to be found where advertised.

this isn’t really an explanation but some of the most talented programmers i knew at one of the top engineering schools in the world didn’t start programming until college. in contrast i have known some mediocre programmers who have been doing it a long time.

let’s contrast this to say classical music, if you don’t start before the age of 8, it is physicslly impossible to become a professional. your fingers will never move quickly enough. what about soccer? could you be a pro level player starting the sport in college? probably not.

this tells me that the skills to be a good programmer have less to do with programming and more to do with other stuff like being able to think clearly and reason about complicated things like math, problem solving and logic. those are things that don’t have to be taught using code and in many ways it feels to me like you need to learn syntax as a prerequisite to begin the intellectually challenging parts whereas you could just do it by studying math directly or building something with legos.

anecdotally most developers i know are not interested in teaching their young kids coding. the ones i see most interested in it are non technical parents. but of course this is not true across the board

I have a feeling this was posted a couple months ago here...

> and Neither Should You

Don’t get the point of this part

clickbait is the point ;)

Click-bait title, but many good points.

While I have no interest in breeding, if I did have kids I would let them choose their own interests rather than forcing mine onto them.

Kids find what they like and don't like by being exposed to things. Giving your kid a book is not forcing your interests on them, its okay if they don't like it. I think the author is expressing concern over feeling pressured to teach his young child coding. I don't think its probably that helpful to teach young kids syntax. My 10 year old recently started playing with Scratch on her own, bought herself a book about it at a book fair. I think the Scratch approach of putting together the steps you need to accomplish something is much better training than learning specific functions or where to put a semicolon.

I agree with this. My family didn't have money to buy me things, but I found ways to get into computers and programming myself. In the 7th grade I started helping the school computer teacher run the IT systems because the school didn't know how to do it themselves. In exchange for helping the school manage the computers, they let me play on the computers after school and install BSD and Linux on an older machine that became my toy.

You’re right, they should find their own interests. However, kids are preyed upon and lots of trivial things are competing for their attention. As a parent you might help then decide when they can’t. Also as a parent one might expose them to different things and build projects together and programming may be one of those. Others may be musical instruments, books, math, sports and other things that put them on a good path. But yes, forcing ones kids to program is not likely to be fruitful.

Kids need to learn things themselves and walk their own path. Sure you can guide them away from bad things, but there is too much hand holding and coddling of young people these days. One example is lining playgrounds with rubberized material, resulting in an increase in injuries. Another example is keeping kids away from peanuts which causes an increase in peanut allergies.

Ruberizing playgrounds leads to more injuries? Interesting, I didnt know that. Keeping kids who are not alergic to peanuts away from peanuts is stupid. I let mine eat everything but sugary things and junk foods. My nephew however is alergic to peanuts and was about to die once if it wasnt for an epipen at hand

The rubberizing thing is similar to the helmet effect with bicycles: injuries tend to increase when people wear helmets while riding bicycles, likely because they're more willing to take risks.

As far as peanuts go, it's out of my area of expertise but as I understand it there's an autoimmune response to the proteins in peanuts, and there's a link to people who don't have exposure to those proteins in their infancy.

Breeding? Was that really necessary? :-)

That's the correct term for what happens when animals get together and create copies of themselves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com