Sat Jan 23, 2016
Tiger Mom’s daughters talk about their happy childhood
Parents fear or embrace or fear technology
Parents - getting started with Minecraft
http://coolmomtech.com/2016/01/how-to-get-started-on-minecraft-pe/
Unrelated topic - Bullying?
Women code better than men - analytics done on Github
http://www.bustle.com/articles/141667-github-users-find-womens-code-better-than-mens-until-they-know-who-wrote-it http://www.themarysue.com/study-women-on-github/
Why Python - interesting blog post
http://blog.codeschool.io/2016/01/27/why-python/
today’s computer science students need to know more about professional coding
So the question was asking should everyone learn coding?
Not everyone should be a developer, but with appropriate education and training, the net will spread to capture more journeymen and elite programmers alike. Yes, good university programs exist today, and at the other end of the scale, highly motivated people can teach themselves with O’Reilly books or Codeacademy or an exploding variety of MOOCs. But we also need a broader array of innovative new training programs such as Hack Reactor or Starter League and – to give young developers real-world experience – residency programs such as that offered by Code for America.
Meanwhile, rather than merely beat the drum for STEM, we need to bring programming back to high school. According to Code.org, nine out of 10 U.S. high schools don’t even offer programming classes, and in 36 of 50 states, computer science doesn’t even count toward high school graduation math or science requirements.
Again, this doesn’t mean everyone should learn to program, and I realize there’s a gulf between supersmart coders who see the big picture and those who fill in the gaps. But we’re supposed to live in a land of opportunity. Given the opportunity to see how the software that powers the world is built, more young people – and even some homeless people – will find a profession they want to pursue. Some of you talented, successful developers out there might want to think about ways to lend them a hand.
Prediction No. 8: Everyone will know how to program – but few will write “real code”
Education projects have everyone teaching everyone how to write software. On Dec. 8, 2014, President Obama took time out from fixing the Middle East and fighting terrorism to spend an hour learning how to write a single line of code. Did his hack fest make the roll out of the next generation of the Obamacare website any smoother?
The obsession with teaching everyone, including maybe someday our dogs and parakeets, to program will continue for years to come. The best strategy for real programmers is to smile and encourage them. The more the general population tries programming, the more they’ll realize how hard it is to juggle all of those numbers, APIs, and whatnot. It’s one thing to write a line of code as President Obama did. It’s another to build out an entire system with thousands if not millions of lines of code.
There will be some who pick up a language and soar, but many will pull out their hair and silently scream. Anyone can write a loop, but only a few can choose the right loop. Everyone learned how to cut wood as a kid, but they still call carpenters to build houses.
And at the same time, there’s a question of Diversity: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-12/the-silicon-valley-diversity-numbers-nobody-is-proud-of.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-howard-university-coders/
Returning to campus for junior year, Foreman, Lomax, Alston, and Holt found that Burge’s vision for his department was changing. He’d come to feel that Silicon Valley companies cared little about computer science theories. Recruiters wanted efficient, creative, experienced workers. So Burge developed new courses on creating apps and launching startups, while also assigning more coding projects and making his students more aware of hackathons and other extracurricular opportunities. It was “a cultural transformation of our department,” he says.
Dropping out of Harvard to launch a startup is one thing; leaving Howard to get a traditional position, it seems, is another.