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Programming is a tool like maths. There are many people who whose life would be greatly enriched by a simple knowledge of ratios and estimation. Yet most claim they have no need of maths.

Programming need not be taught for its own sake. It could be an enabler together with maths. A tool for exploring concepts. A lot of maths is difficult because it is so far from everyday concepts. So it takes a great deal of effort to supply the materials needed to build the supporting mental models. von Nuemann said "In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them". One way is to drill lots of problems but this is boring and only a few people are disciplined enough to do it. Another way is to program the concept (all the maths an average person needs is finite, algorithmic and constructive), explore lots of variations, improve intuition, give a basis of attachment to motivate short quick drills to be able to then improve the model.

The power of programming is that it gives you a way to concretize abstract concepts in a virtual setting. Lessening the distance, hence making it more approachable. I have only a little doubt that I can teach a random 10 year old the basics of special relativity up to accounting for acceleration, using programming. And I am certain they would be able to learn Bayesian probability by playing with a programmable model designed to teach it.

There is also the added benefit of strengthened analytical thinking. You cannot know how a simple scripting knowledge can help a person without being them. My suspicion is it would help most people in some way. But no one can make use of something whose existence they are unaware of.

> But no one can make use of something whose existence they are unaware of.

Exactly. Like you mentioned about ratios or estimation, imagine someone who had no idea what algebra was. If society let them claim it was useless to them, even if they never sit down and solve equations as part of their job, having a slightly deeper understanding of mathematics would influence how they interact with the world.

Even just knowing that a computer can be programmed, understanding data structures when working with office programs, understanding security when using passwords, automating things like personal finance, or understanding what they're being sold, would be a big step up. Understanding more than just mystical flickering 1s and 0s from some Hollywood movie would enable so much.

The word programming is distorting the real value of the subject, I think. It's easy to think of programming as something that is done with and to computers exclusively, but that's a sort of guilt by association.

Programming, at its base, is really a method for understanding and defining a process. It's about breaking a big task down into its component pieces. It's about turning one large, nearly intractable problem into a series of easily understood and fundamentally soluable problems.

If programming is taught in this context, with an emphasis on methods for problem-solving in general rather than language syntax in particular, its utility in the everyday life of the average person becomes a lot more obvious. I used simple programming as a part of a worker re-education program that included basic literacy and numeracy, and it proved to be very effective in the overall success of the students -- even with no expectation that programming would play a part in their later lives. It made other things easier for them to do, and if that's the only value that the "average" student gets out of a programming course, it seems like enough, doesn't it?

> If you took a random person you passed on a busy London street at lunch time, how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program?

How many would benefit from learning more physics, microbiology, or reading more Shakspeare? I would say it is about the same.

For example a specific example from the article is Excel. I might not like and would never use it personally but it is useful to teach it to kids. They can just use it to track their personal finances to start with. A lot of businesses use it. Knowing how to automate things in can be a great timesaver. Heck, just knowing that it is possible to automate things in it using scripting would be good to know.

There is game programming, and that can be used to attract kids to go and study programming in depth. I think we would benefit as a society from kids wanting to go into CS more than wanting to go into Communications or English majors. Then there is the whole web aspect of it.

Then just basic literacy of using the web & the privacy implications are very important to know. Network privacy and security is one of those things along law, personal finance & propaganda techniques that should be taught first and foremost in schools because those are probably going to be important in anyone's lives -- more so than ancient history or even learning Visual Basic programming. But it seems important & practical subjects like that are excluded from our (American) education system, not sure about the British one...

>Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? //

>adding an extra topic that will only be useful to a small number of people would be wasteful. //

Just as a comparison. In Wales, Welsh language is taught throughout school and in every lesson. Yet English language is understood and used by nearly everyone in Wales and Welsh language is used by less than 20% of people. In addition Wales is the only country where it has any significant use. Welsh language is taught as the most important subject.

Clearly UK curricula don't look at utility or life application as the most important aspects of subjects taught.

Yes, it's a bit of a bête noire for me.

>how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program //

A little? How much better can they do their job if they know how to do algebra, or order a sandwich in France?

I'm not sure I agree with jgrahamc but I'm not sure I'm with you either ...

Yes, Welsh is pretty much useless, but we're talking about introducing a new subject.

Maths is useful in a lot more situations than programming would be, I bet most people don't realize how often they use maths without realizing. Things like algebra are about logic, deducing things, figuring things out. French is, again, a subject that can be dropped at 16 and not a core subject. I didn't study French at school (Technically I should have done Spanish but that was the same time I had my SLS instead)

In my primary school we had a basic computing class. We'd use different programs to familiarise ourselves with both the hardware and software. It would arise in other classes too, where it made sense - I remember typing my short story up into (whatever word processor the BBC Micro had). We even used LOGO - although with little success for most of the class. When you have to ask one of your students to help and fix problems on the computer, it's not a good sign, and the teachers often leant on me. So for a start that is the main problem in schools IMO. No point having a subject if people can't teach it properly.

Programming is _also_ about logic, deducing things, figuring things out!

My inclination is probably towards teaching logic, probably as part of the maths curriculum, and by extension teaching a little programming as part of that logic.

Math is much more pervasive than programming, but it is also true that people often do or could use the basic ideas of programming without realizing. For example: understanding data structures when using a word processor or spreadsheet, understanding security when using passwords, understanding data representation when using any kind of digital tool, etc.

And we justify mandatory schooling by saying society is complicated and there are some things people need to learn to be able to live reasonably.

How does Wales justify locking up young humans and forcing them to learn something which isn't in their best interests, something which isn't in their society's best interests, something which cannot survive on its own out of interested people keeping it alive by choice? It's abusive and should be stopped.

How much better can they do their job if they know how to do algebra, or order a sandwich in France?

Arguing that programming skills wouldn't help... have you not worked in an office and seen first-hand the dreadful computer literacy? Even among IT and technical people? Skill in bulk manipulating information would help a lot of people, if they realised it was possible and something they could potentially do, I think.

My view is that the average Londoner would benefit more from having been taught the basics of programming at a young age than where to find the font choices in Word.

> My view is that the average Londoner would benefit more from having been taught the basics of programming at a young age than where to find the font choices in Word.

Yes, but what are the odds that a school that teaches where to find the font choices in Word as part of an English class wouldn't find something similarly bad to teach as "programming basics"?

Small tweaks don't make big changes. Instead, they just give said organization more opportunities to demonstrate its essential nature.

> a school that teaches where to find the font choices in Word as part of an English class

That's taught in an IT lesson, not English!

My view is the average teacher is just about competent enough to teach the average Londoner where to find the fonts on Word but would probably do more harm than good when it came to teaching the theory behind programming.

It doesn't have to be theory. Very basic python scripting could help anybody. For example, my sister wanted to reformat the naming of 500 or so photos.

Time to do this by hand: 30 soul crushing minutes

Time to write a python script to do this: 5 minutes

Because computer literacy is much like the ability to read and write these days.

A computer is a very powerful tool that is available to pretty much everybody in the developed world. Computer literacy translates into a workforce that is able to compete internationally from a position of strength rather than weakness. Think about the industrial age, one group gets to use all the powertools, the other work with their hands and hand tools, which do you think is more productive and will result in a stronger nation economically?

I concur about what you say (although it's not exactly an argument for teaching programming).

How different would the online world be if knowledge were universal about:

- copy/paste

- cmd/ctl +/- for resizing

- why password mgmt matters - and its basic principles

Self-educated web-surfers out there have amazing gaps in their knowledge - for things that are practically spinal reflexes to even a low-grade hacker like myself.

Nothing before in the history of man has had so much potential to change lives as programming does. And at little more cost than time. Incredible advances in every conceivable field are enabled by computers which must be driven by programmers.

We need more people to understand programming from a young age so they can intuitively understand and more effectively use their devices' capabilities, and also so there are more people in more fields equipped to identify + communicate positions where software could provide automation or assistance.

I think programming is less essential than literacy and numeracy, agreed. But there are plenty of subjects that do not lead directly to jobs, drama and history being obvious examples. The point I would make is that the more people who get taught programming at school, the more people who are available in the workforce who can program. Programming is better paid than most other jobs. The skills attract foreign investment. Why would this be a bad thing?

Yes there are many subjects that do not lead to jobs, but it was suggested that programming should be taught as a fundimental subject, allongside english and maths. Most subjects you can drop when you're 16 and take the things that not only intrest you, but should be relevant to your job. When I was 15, we did 1 hour a week of history, and 3 hours a week of maths.

Being a lawer is well payed, I'd never do it and it isn't getting taught in school. And they only attract jobs now because not many people can do it, if every graduate could program to a reasonable level, salleries would go down and the number of people unemployed with these skills would go up.

In this age, computers are everywhere and it looks like they will be even more in the foreseeable future. Even if you're not going to be a programmer, having an idea about what a computer (in the general sense of the word) really is and how it works can only be useful. At least as much as knowing how photosynthesis works, and probably more.

Add to this that programming can really help kids develop their problem solving abilities AND their creativity, and that it can be done in a fun way, and I would argue that the introduction of programming could be very beneficial to the development of kids.

> While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going into computing as a career, learning specifically programming will be absolutely no help. [...] how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program?

Education is -- or should be -- about drawing out a learner's latent talents so they can achieve their full potential. It shouldn't merely be a narrow, Gradgrindian, process aimed solely at turning someone into an obedient wage-slave for corporations.

I think learning programming can help someone achieve their full potential in three ways:

1. programming forces someone to think very clearly and logically about a problem. This is a very useful skill, even if you never write code ever again.

2. introducing someone to programming helps them to understand computers. We are rapidly becoming a society where computers are ubiquitous, so thins will be important to them throughout their lives -- as an individual using technology, as a citizen, as a voter, as a parent, and yes, as an employee.

3. an introduction to programming will inspire some people to take it further, as a career or as a hobby.

At the risk of making this point to death:

> If you took a random person you passed on a busy London street at lunch time, how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program?

A while back I was in a meeting being given a presentation that had previously been given to the CEO of our company (they were giving it to us to keep us up to date). In it, there was a quite obvious problem with the numbers where the reported percentage increase was nowhere near what the numbers suggested. I raised my hand to point it out and was mildly surprised when the manager giving the presentation told me that he didn't want to report numbers that were too high. I decided not to point out that mathematics doesn't care about what he wants to report.

So anyway, this guy who is paid lots of money at a reasonably sized company doesn't even have a passing knowledge of statistics, something that every school child was supposed to learn. Would he have been better able to do his job if he knew math? Probably. But he doesn't know math. All those years in school didn't really rub off on him.

In any case, if you were to ask how many people use literary analysis, math, art, history or science in their work the answer is going to be close to zero. It's true that lots of people write as part of their job, but most people write poorly and most writing classes focus on analyzing Shakespeare, not writing reports on employee efficiency.

Another argument for programming in schools is the same as the argument for literature in schools. Even if you never need to program in the real world being able to program implies that you have certain cognitive and logical abilities that many jobs require. For example, it is important to be logical if you are a lawyer, even though you needn't program.

I would not be prepared to dismiss coding out of hand because not many people are programmers. I bet it is more pertinent then most of the things I learned in high school.

Honestly, school time is not that scarce. An adult can learn to read and write in a couple of days of intensive practice. Maths can take longer, but have the same issues as programming - how many cruise directors use more than arithmetic?

Learning programming can be easily misconstrued. Lets call it logic, algorithms and applied maths. Now is it a good idea? Sure, and its something a hypothetical cruise director could actually use.

Okay, so, funny story: one of my programmer buddies worked for a cruise line. He's an almost-autistic free-radical type of programmer. After fixing up their website, he wrote a new application for the onboard ship customer management system. (The current one is atrocious and a decade old.)

But the project never got the green light and was killed.

If a cruise director had some experience in programming, and realized that the system could be better, then the project could have been pushed for more! Maybe it would actually be on the 30-ish ships in their fleet!

>school time is not that scarce

For students, no, for teachers, yes. And for the budgets? Picture yourself as a financer at a school, you have to fund more teachers, introduce a new subject and overall you're getting less money per student.

Hm. Logic, algorithms can be taught by existing teachers. The subject isn't entirely new, and especially in a primary-school context could be taught by any number of subject-teachers.

As for budget the letter was trying to address that, and got ignored - the cheap computer project. Part of the issue I think.

Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects.

This is a false dichotomy. In High School I took classes on Weightlifting (twice), Drama, Art, French 1, Spanish 1, and was a teacher's assistant twice (what a waste that was...). There were also classes available in tractor repair, farming, ROTC, track and field, etc. Our high school was able to fit more classes in than other schools because each year was split into fall and spring with 4 classes each half.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that there's room for more and for modification. Also how about tying math into programming? Or combining reading/writing/language in beneficial ways, etc.