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posted by martyb on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the Programming-Jobs dept.

Commentary from The Guardian

The rationale for this rapid curricular renovation is economic. Teaching kids how to code will help them land good jobs, the argument goes. In an era of flat and falling incomes, programming provides a new path to the middle class – a skill so widely demanded that anyone who acquires it can command a livable, even lucrative, wage.

This narrative pervades policymaking at every level, from school boards to the government. Yet it rests on a fundamentally flawed premise. Contrary to public perception, the economy doesn't actually need that many more programmers. As a result, teaching millions of kids to code won't make them all middle-class. Rather, it will proletarianize the profession by flooding the market and forcing wages down – and that's precisely the point.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by lx on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:43AM (15 children)

    by lx (1915) on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:43AM (#572282)

    Society doesn't *need* many accountants, but everyone at school is taught arithmetic.
    Learning to program is a life skill. At the very least it partly demystifies the Magical Self Thinking Internet Machines for the masses even if they don't get any further than changing Hello World to printing out rude words.

    These days teaching life skills is seen as a lefty-hobby on the order of theater and expressive dance so to get a budget approved you have to propose it in terms of job creation and a direct boost for the economy.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:01PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:01PM (#572285)

    They are generally teaching specific programming skills rather than the fundamentals of it.

    I had this same problem as a kind in the early 90s. The few classes on programming were mostly wrote programming exercises without either explanation of the theory of operation, order of operation, or details about the computer architecture which could interfere with implemented our expected operations. This hasn't changed almost 30 years later with the modern push to teach programming.

    They are in fact trying to push out coding monkeys who won't really understand enough to become real programmers, assuming they have the drive and desire, but will act as a way to push down expected salaries by flooding the market with a glut of underperforming programmers they can use to show that supply outstrips demand when they go about hiring the qualified programmers for their jobs.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:56PM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:56PM (#572301)

      This hasn't changed almost 30 years later with the modern push to teach programming.

      I can verify this, having kids gone thru this kind of stuff, the worst stuff tends toward obscure data entry, the best stuff is pretty facile.

      I'd theorize that programming is a sport. There's rules to follow and motivation and random chance plays a big but not primary role, but the distribution of untrainable uneducable skills is very non-linear. You can, and should, train up a 98% programmer to a 99% programmer at extreme effort. And a 98% programmer has a hell of a lot to learn before maxing out at 98% much less leveling up to being a 99% programmer. But your average bubba who maxes out in programming skill somewhat below fizzbuzz is never going to benefit.

      Something like no matter how much you pimp ultra marathon running in the media and how closely you tie it to progressive beliefs and no matter how much you signal about it, only a vanishingly small fraction of the population is ever going to be any good at the 100 mile track event. Personally I'm not sure I could ride a bicycle 100 miles in a mere 12 hours, but apparently people run it. The ultra marathon is something people can scale down to normal experience, I hiked a couple miles yesterday and I don't think I could have made it another 95 miles, so I can think rationally about ultramarathons. The closest analogy to programming is probably low to mid level home cooking (like, based solely on following recipes) or car mechanic work, or maybe electronic hobbies, which are not culturally cool nor respected (by dominant prog culture anyway) nor is most of the population skilled at performing.

      Most "everybody must program" that I've observed my kids participating in, would be analogous to an ultra marathon kids day camp where its more a theme than an activity, lets crayon some coloring books, talk about it a lot, maybe pretend to run an ultra marathon by walking one lap on the track, maybe get the kids to recite some BS they probably don't understand and will forget in a week anyway... its more about making the parents feel good when they tweet about it on facebook than doing anything for the kids.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @08:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @08:35AM (#572588)

        jeez the political hatred oozes out of every pore with this prick, don't it?

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:03PM (4 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:03PM (#572286) Journal

    Ahhh...mmm... yes, I can see how coding may fall on the same level as another "...eracy" alongside literacy and numeracy.

    Beat me if I understand, though the next part:

    teaching life skills is seen as a lefty-hobby on the order of theater and expressive dance so to get a budget approved you have to propose it in terms of job creation and a direct boost for the economy.

    How sees it this way? Who should approve a budget?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by lx on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:35PM (3 children)

      by lx (1915) on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:35PM (#572293)

      Governments, school boards. In large parts of the world schooling is being subsidised. Those providing the money get to set the curriculum and want to see a direct return of investment. Having kids thrive and becoming informed well adjusted adults is seen as too vague a goal by those in power.

      The result is another generation of alienated burn-outs which is a social as well as an economic problem, but by that time those responsible are retired and it's somebody else's problem.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:50PM (2 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:50PM (#572300) Journal

        Governments, school boards. In large parts of the world schooling is being subsidised.

        Did you mean "socialized through taxes"?
        If so, who is the actual "investor"?

        Having kids thrive and becoming informed well adjusted adults is seen as too vague a goal by those in power.

        Ah, "those in power". Now, this explains the confusion.
        Thanks.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @05:51PM (#572389)

          Did you mean "socialized through taxes"?
          If so, who is the actual "investor"?

          I am, as are many others who know that an educated population is better for everyone.

          • (Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday September 25 2017, @06:30AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 25 2017, @06:30AM (#572562) Journal

            I am, as are many others who know that an educated population is better for everyone.

            We are taught that.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:08PM (4 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 24 2017, @12:08PM (#572288) Journal

    The premise is mostly bullshit. In order to put it in context you have to remember that The Guardian [startpage.com] receives a lot of money every year from Bill Gates as part of his reputation laudering. That's been going on for many years now. As a result anything they might try to publish regarding technology can be ignored or at best taken with a large grain of salt.

    The point of having kids learn proper coding is so that they become technologically literate and can actually use the computers to do something, whether that something is be an accountant, a mechanic, a scientist, or whatever. That's fully at odds with a helpless and uninformed public which will blindly buy M$ products without question.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 24 2017, @06:52PM (3 children)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday September 24 2017, @06:52PM (#572404) Homepage

      You are wrong. This is about corporate lobbying to drive wages down. I've been saying this for literally fucking years but you all dismissed me as a racist sexist.

      Knowing how to code alone is not a reliable indicator of intelligence. As I posted in a more recent discussion, I used to love programming until I started doing it for a living and saw all the autistic retardism in the field.

      I would say that being intelligent would go hand-in-hand with being well-rounded, and to have more well-rounded people we need to keep teaching art, music, history, political science, government, foreign languages -- all that stuff that Zuckerjew and his ilk would call a waste of time, because people like him only care about cheap labor. They want a China-style workforce consisting of soulless insectoid automatons who lack the critical thinking skills to realize that they are underpaid and their bosses are assholes.

      Goddammit, I hate big software and everything about it. Cocksucking Jew-bastards!

      • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:20PM (#572410) Journal

        I did not mention intelligence because it has little to do with coding in the context of technological literacy. Most jobs can still be done without coding -- for now. But if you can code at least a little, you can really use the computer as a multiplier for what intelligence and experience you actually do have. It's an extension but not a mechanical one rather one of intellect -- however little or much you start with, a computer when used correctly will effectively give you more. As the late Steve Jobs put it the computer is like a bicycle for the mind. Or at least it coud be...

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
        • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday September 25 2017, @02:01PM

          by DECbot (832) on Monday September 25 2017, @02:01PM (#572657) Journal

          That isn't enough. I have a few colleagues that can bang a couple bits together to make their own version of solitaire, but they don't have the creativity to apply that to their daily tasks to make their job easier. I once proposed taking a couple of weeks to make a database, GUI, and PDF generation to do 90% of the spare part & maintenance activity lookup stuff we have to do for our customers and salesmen (mostly data entry and relationship modeling). I was told no, because somebody from marketing might do that in a year to two--but no guaranties. But if I do decide to make it, build it as an excel macro. Okay, so I'm dealing with not only a lack of creativity at work, but also unfounded optimism, willful ignorance, and benign spite.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by srobert on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:42PM

        by srobert (4803) on Sunday September 24 2017, @07:42PM (#572423)

        "...you all dismissed me as a racist sexist."
        I don't remember ever dismissing you as either racist or sexist. But based on your last line, I can dismiss you as being anti-semitic.

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @05:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @05:49PM (#572386)

    Society doesn't *need* many accountants, but everyone at school is taught arithmetic.

    If you can't count then the chances of you earning enough to afford an accountant to count things for you are slim.

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:53AM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday September 26 2017, @12:53AM (#572864) Journal

    Society doesn't *need* many accountants, but everyone at school is taught arithmetic.
    Learning to program is a life skill. At the very least it partly demystifies the Magical Self Thinking Internet Machines for the masses even if they don't get any further than changing Hello World to printing out rude words.

    Yup. Although I'd go a bit further and say that, while not being able to code might not lose you a job, knowing to code can certainly get and keep you one. No matter what that job is.

    I've got one friend whose job literally involves counting the fish in a stream. Back when I was still on Facebook, she was always on there posting about some Python script or VB macro or whatever that she was using for her job. She had no formal education in coding, wasn't hired to do coding, but it sounds like she ended up coding for the whole damn office and became absolutely essential for their work.

    Got another friend who got a second job doing bar trivia...and uses little Javascript functions to help come up with questions! Saves her a lot of prep time, which lets her questions be a bit more varied and complex than they would otherwise.

    And a third friend works for an organization that helps low income folks deal with their utility bills. And he's working on a custom database front-end to help streamline their operations so they don't have to do data-entry off paper and pencil forms anymore. Which means their interns and volunteers can do something more useful than hours of data entry.

    There's very few jobs that can't be improved with some good software skills. Of course, it also helps a lot if that education is broad rather than deep. It never ceases to amaze me how many *programmers* just don't understand how to use Microsoft Access/OOo Base, and will spend hours writing custom software for something they could do with one of those in five or ten minutes. Sometimes Javascript is actually a great choice if you just need a quick and dirty UI. If you're doing file processing, shell scripting is incredibly powerful. For more complex math, Python has some nice libraries. You don't need to know every detail of all of those environments, but you can't use them if you don't know they exist. So a program that spends two years teaching Java is great for future developers, but for everyone else that time would be better spent doing six months in four different systems.

    But it's probably also good to actually avoid standardizing this kind of basic software literacy class too much. You can't teach everyone everything, so teach everyone something different so hopefully there's always a friend or coworker around who can suggest a different approach...