Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Is Computer Code a Foreign Language?
Maryland’s legislature is considering a bill to allow computer coding courses to fulfill the foreign language graduation requirement for high school. A similar bill passed the Florida State Senate in 2017 (but was ultimately rejected by the full Legislature), and a federal version proposed by Senators Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, is being considered in Congress.
The animating idea behind these bills is that computer coding has become a valuable skill. This is certainly true. But the proposal that foreign language learning can be replaced by computer coding knowledge is misguided: It stems from a widely held but mistaken belief that science and technology education should take precedence over subjects like English, history and foreign languages.
As a professor of languages and literatures, I am naturally skeptical of such a position. I fervently believe that foreign language learning is essential for children’s development into informed and productive citizens of the world. But even more urgent is my alarm at the growing tendency to accept and even foster the decline of the sort of interpersonal human contact that learning languages both requires and cultivates.
[...] The difference between natural and computer languages is not merely one of degree, with natural languages’ involving vocabularies that are several orders of magnitude larger than those of computer languages. Natural languages aren’t just more complex versions of the algorithms with which we teach machines to do tasks; they are also the living embodiments of our essence as social animals. We express our love and our losses, explore beauty, justice and the meaning of our existence, and even come to know ourselves all through natural languages.
(Score: 2, Funny) by lolococo on Monday March 25 2019, @06:17AM (5 children)
print("Hello Soylent friends");
if (!I.hadRead(it)) {
I.wouldNotBelieve(it);
}
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:59AM
He said in English with very odd Syntax
(Score: 2, Funny) by DECbot on Monday March 25 2019, @07:03AM (2 children)
try {
} catch(RuntimeExcepiton ex) {
System.out.println("Exception in thread \"Is Computer Code a Forien Language?\" lang.RuntimeException:/n/t
Uncompilable source code - Erroneous sym type: I.hadRead");
System.out.println("dude... check your imports");
}
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday March 25 2019, @07:43AM (1 child)
Semantics and Syntax not our strong points in school, eh?
In College, they teach you Semiotics.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:11AM
Nor is grammar, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:11PM
You failed to say anything about what happened after you read it...
Or was your point that basic logic classes should take precedence over both of them?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:39AM (2 children)
learning programming languages, mathematical logic and how to translate pseudo-code algorithms into programming languages is good.
it is not the same as learning different human languages.
and before anyone bothers asking: typing class is not the same as piano class, although both are closer to foreign language learning than to learning how to program.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:10AM
Correct
Coding is Math. Even the high end of Math and Sciences where new words and phases come to pass, there will never have Romeo and Juliet. They will have thought puzzles, but Language is Literature. .
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday March 27 2019, @06:30AM
Learning how to program is one thing but learning a specific language is another. You can approach a specific computer language or two as you would a foreign language and write beautiful code. Coding is expression of though, after all, and even the courts admit that. Thus the applicability of copyright to code. However, approaching a computer language as if it were a natural language will mess with your head and, I think, impair the learning and enjoyment of other languages.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DECbot on Monday March 25 2019, @06:39AM (4 children)
At higher levels of math, there is as much vocabulary or more than many programming languages. So, with enough math you should be able to get your foreign language requirement too.
OO programming languages have a neat trick of adding vocabulary by defining new classes and using inheritance and polymorphism. Kind of like the concept of the English word "it" on steroids. Initializing a conversation would be tedious, but rapid once setup. Though fuck trying to have a conversation in Javascript. this.document reference not found.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday March 25 2019, @09:46AM (2 children)
Isn't it exactly the other way round? OO programming languages have a neat trick of avoiding new vocabulary by defining new classes and using inheritance and polymorphism. That indeed is analogous to some language use. "it" should be compared to an object (in a programming language) rather than a method. I would compare it to any variable in an untyped language.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday March 25 2019, @01:41PM
They avoid new "key words" - analogous perhaps to verbs from the compiler's perspective - but every new function, class, and variable name is still a word in the vocabulary, wouldn't you say? Functionally all proper nouns from the compiler's perspective, but often verbs or phrases from the programmer's perspective.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 25 2019, @02:03PM
Lisp languages allow you to build any language you want.
What kind of iteration and flow of control mechanisms do you want?
What kind of function invocation?
Recursion?
Other flow control mechanisms? Invent your own new ones! Exceptions? Stack unwinding?
What kind of variable scoping do you want?
What kind of type checking, if any, do you want? How complex of a type system would you like?
Would you like a side order of pattern matching or logic programming?
And on and on and on.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Monday March 25 2019, @12:21PM
Any specialised field will have its own vocabulary - whether its mathematics, chemistry, music, law, social science... Mathematics contains multiple "languages" (there's at least 3 notations for differential calculus with different histories). Making a special case for computer programming just because it uses the word "language" for some types of technical notation is spurious.
In other news, baseball is just applied Newtonian physics and should count as a science and maths qualification...
Education - at least up to high school level - should be about breadth of knowledge and skills, which entails a certain amount of forcing kids to study things that they otherwise wouldn't. The problem is the idea that any student should "fail" because they don't emerge as a perfect "Renaissance Man" polymath - that idea needs to be dropped before you start handing out the career-defining certificates. Society needs good coders, mathematicians, lawyers, poets, footballers, musicians... it doesn't need people branded as "failures" because they can't do them all. Credit people for what they are good at, not what they are bad at. That doesn't mean that the kid who produced a lovely finger-painting in third grade should get the sane credit as the one who found and corrected all of the errors in the algebra exam - in fact its the current 'deficit model' that encourages that sort of dumbing down so that more people can 'pass'.
That's exactly what will happen if 'coding' replaces 'foreign language' - millions of kids will be taught to write 'Hello World' programs in Python or memorise (with no understanding) the code for a quicksort - because that's a hell of a lot easier than failing to learn French.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:39AM (19 children)
That is one heck of a bias. He, and others like him, have an intense desire to lobby the legislature in favor of languages. Millions of struggling students want to avoid the useless GPA-killing waste of time, but they get it over with (with success, or just dropping out) and then don't go lobby the legislature.
All foreign languages are nice to know, but niceness is relative. That time could be better used. There is an opportunity cost. Even band and chorus and gym are more valuable.
Suppose you decide to learn a useful language. Call it language X. A few hours per week, for a couple years, will not do the job. The time is thus fully wasted. You'd need to spend about 4 hours per day for about 10 years. That time could have gone to so many other skills, but hey, now you know a language! Oops, it turns out that you guessed wrong. There are hundreds of languages, and it turns out you didn't win the lottery. Language Y is what you actually have a use for. Well, not that it matters, because by the time you have a use for a second language you've forgotten the one you learned anyway.
Allowing a programming language is a start. It is a sly way to wiggle out of the nonsense, at least a little bit. We should also allow other alternative things to study: economics, extra math, accounting, how to run a small business, oboe, bassoon, contraforte, hecklephone, ophicleide, public speaking, plumbing, golf, cooking, legal research, CPR, masonry...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by coolgopher on Monday March 25 2019, @06:49AM (8 children)
Hey now. A foreign language is why I'm able to write this sentence :P
Honestly, learning a second human language is one the best things you can do for your ability to think. It really creates another abstraction layer for you to play with and build on. Computer languages are great and all, but once you've done one imperial and one functional, the rest is dialects. And in either case, the vocabulary is teensy compared to a human language (until possibly when you've covered all language-specific idioms, frameworks and styles).
I'll definitely agree that a human language is a serious time investment. I studied German for six years and I really can't speak it (especially now after a couple of decades of disuse). I'd like to know Japanese, but I don't have the time to devote to learning it, so I'll just have to keep reading subs...
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:11AM (4 children)
If you are a native user of English, there are several countries in which there is almost zero reason to learn another language. It is especially unreasonable to require a second language for all students as a graduation requirement. Those countries definitely include the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and the UK. I'll even add Canada, over the protest of the French speakers.
An individual student might have an unusual reason to learn a language, but that is no reason to impose it on everybody.
Example: students going into the military and wishing for nice overseas assignments may wish to learn Japanese, Korean, or German.
Example: students planning missionary trips may wish to learn the language of their destination country.
Example: students who want to join the CIA will likely want Pashtun, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Chinese, or Russian.
If you are not a native speaker of English, then most likely you'll want to learn English. Mostly you'll just need to read it, except that pilots and control tower operators will need verbal skills.
Also, if you natively speak an insignificant language compared to a locally dominant one, you want to learn that. So for example, you learn Spanish if you are part of a non-Spanish tribe living in Mexico or Peru or Bolivia.
Remember that the context here is a Maryland high school graduation requirement. Foreign language is almost 100% useless for these students. All it does is keep many of them from graduating.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday March 25 2019, @07:24AM
You are still operating on the assumption that the only use of learning another language is to communicate with the speakers of that language. The point made in the comment you answered to was that it improves your thinking ability.
But maybe you believe that thinking is 100% useless.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:55AM (2 children)
Fuck off.
In a century time, no student will need to learn English at all.
And this not becauseuse English will be lingua franca, but because the English native world has less to offer to humanity culture (science included) with each day passing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:17AM (1 child)
Not true. Anyone studying history of the twentieth and twenty-first century will still need to learn English. And that will be an important subject to study, since it will be the best documented decline of a culture in all of history.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Monday March 25 2019, @11:41AM
In translation. All they need for studying is the authorized translation of the history in the language of the civilized world (i.e the victors' language).
Mandarin, that is. (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Monday March 25 2019, @09:40AM
I get what you mean about there being ideas that don't exist or aren't well expressed in certain languages. Learning another language can expand your mind in that way. You can then find yourself stuck because the person you are talking to doesn't know the other language. I still disagree. The reason I disagree is that I'm not even a good programmer and I have the same thing happen with programming languages in spoken conversation with humans.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @11:42AM
You might as well go for Japanese, it's one of the easier languages to pick up in many people's opinions. The killer, as always, is colloquialisms.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 25 2019, @02:02PM
But, when our robot overlords rise up and prosper, computer coders are likely the only ones who can speak with them in their native tongue. (Still, by the time the robots are prospering, they can probably speak our languages better than we can...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday March 25 2019, @07:03AM (3 children)
Very hard to become the Pope without learning Latin. And Pope Francis had a big advantage there, he comes from Latin America. From Argentina. Easy, right? We know it was easy. But, the guy is no slouch. He learned to code, he's writing Computer Code now. They call it Programming for Peace. We have so much Programming for war, we just hired Boeing & Northrop/Grumman to do new cyber for I.C.B.M. Lot of money in that one, the Pope doesn't need the money. He has more money, and I'm talking the liquid assets, than Jeff Bozo. He's not doing it for the money, he's doing it because it looks very impressive. And I think we're going to see a lot of Catholic bishops, a lot of priests, even the deacons getting into that. For a long time, it wasn't O.K. Now the Pope's done it, it's O.K. And the Catholic Church could become the next Microsoft, very strong competitor to Microsoft. Making beautiful Stained Glass Windows for Computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:48AM
Very hard to become "Trump" and speak English, and stay unindicted. Just saying, boyo!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 25 2019, @02:06PM
When you learn to speak English, and learn to read and write, get back to us.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:34AM
> Very hard to become the Pope without learning Latin.
In totally unrelated news, a rather high ranking priest forgets the verb [youtu.be] when giving the urbi et orbi absolution of sins. (I guess the Holy Spirit was like: "You called? Where am I supposed to go, chief?").
As for the topic, no it's not a foreign language. Not for me at least.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @08:37AM (3 children)
You just sound entitled. Americans have a big incentive to learn Spanish. Anyone wanting to do international business has good reason to learn a language from a big asian country.
And any other english speaker without a clear objective in mind should probably learn french, which is still very widespread because of Africa.
I agree you may like to do something specific instead of language but certainly choir, band and PE aren't more valuable unless you plan on becoming a pro musician or athlete.
Most kids don't know what is good for them anyway, mandatory languages and a bit of philosophy like in the french system will do more than a high school coding class. Because what you learn in a high school coding class you could learn on your own in less than a week end.
As for your argument pertaining to the work you do in class not being enough to acquire enough skill, I'd argue that's just kids being lazy and no one putting them in the right path because they think it's useless. In Europe, you're a bad student if you can't pick up english and in some specific parts of europe you're expected to know at least three to four languages.
I'm giving credit to anglos and not assuming it's the drab simplicity of their language making it too hard for them to learn anything else, then it's certainly adult behaviour enabling lazyness with short sightedness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:42AM
Also, if you want to ever successfully communicate with a hotline, I guess you should learn Hindi. ;-)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday March 25 2019, @02:24PM
PE is valuable to almost everyone, because almost everyone gets insufficient exercise to maintain their body and promote healthy growth, which is especially important in the developing years. The sports-obsession of most PE classes however is completely gratuitous for most people if not outright counterproductive. As a bookish, non-athletic kid who was one of those who probably benefited most from PE, the mandatory being-put-on-display-as-a-loser for an hour every day did nothing good to my self esteem, and cultivated a strong distaste for participating the physical arts that lasted into my early 30s. But there's no reason a good PE class couldn't span dance, hiking, swimming, and many other non-competitive activities that would be less demotivating to those who need the activity the most, as well as introducing kids to a wider range of activities that might pique their interest for the long term. Unfortunately in America at least, PE seems to be mostly a class designed to employ the football coach, and is thoroughly permeated by gladiator culture as a result.
And music (not just choir) seems to have far-reaching effects into other areas of education, even if we don't understand exactly why.
Languages though - definitely at least as important. There does seem to be something that happens when you learn a second language well enough to think in it, a liberation of thought from the limits and assumptions of your native language. You can get there by other routes, but learning a second language is probably the easiest way for most people. And there's practical benefit as well if it's a common language - being able to be the person is able to translate for a distressed customer, or even just exchange a few pleasantries with a potential business partner or employee in their native tongue, can be a very valuable asset. Much more likely to be directly valuable than choir for someone with a mediocre voice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @08:57PM
Having American students learn Spanish is an acceptance and encouragement of the conquest of America. It is an enabler.
I'm doing my part, prohibiting my kids from learning Spanish. Do your part.
Also, when you hear Spanish, call ICE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @01:59PM
Language classes wouldn't be GPA killing wastes of time, if we'd actually be willing to pay what it costs to get and support competent people teaching the classes. There are some competent people, but the pay and generally terrible work conditions drive most out after a few years.
Language instruction is something that's relatively well understood, but you don't see any of what works in most classrooms. Instead, you see the same crap methods being used in too many cases, methods that are largely known to be ineffective, but that's how the teacher managed to learn, so it's what gets used.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by brausch on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:34AM
I took two years of Latin in high school (almost 50 years ago). I've since earned multiple engineering and computer science degrees and programmed professionally in 15 or so computer languages. None of them has helped my human communication skills as much as the two years of Latin helped my English.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pipedwho on Monday March 25 2019, @06:48AM (12 children)
Conflating the two is imbicility at its best. Computer languages have nothing to do with language as it pertains to communication and the spoken or written word.
Foreign languages are also useful in the sense that they provide another point of reference to understand one’s own native tongue.
What’s next, replacing modern history with historical trend analysis. Both have history in the title, so clearly must be related.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Monday March 25 2019, @07:22AM (2 children)
Let you be standing alone; // you = 1
Let me be thinking hard; // me = infinity
If you is less than me then me wins; // I love infinity games
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday March 25 2019, @07:35AM (1 child)
result = you + me
so... are you using signed or unsigned integers to count here? I'm trying to determine if result will be at zero or negative infinity when it rolls over.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 25 2019, @07:49AM
Neither signed nor unsigned integers have infinity. Obviously floating point numbers are used.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday March 25 2019, @07:30AM (1 child)
^this
// pun intended
Gödel's incompleteness theorems [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:08AM
Aaaah, the Pascal pointer syntax! It burnssss!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @11:48AM (6 children)
The major argument for learning a second language in the US is that it exposes you to new ways of thinking. Computer languages do this even moreso as logic is an entirely new concept to most of humanity. If you live in a tiny country that relies on international trade and does not have the current lingua franca as its main language then I could see an argument on practical grounds but that is not the case where I live.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:03PM (1 child)
Computer languages don't do anything in the curriculum to further that goal that isn't better done in math.
The US isn't going to be the center of trade much longer with this sort of extreme narcissism. Also, having to always interact with people in your own language places you at an extreme disadvantage in terms of learning anything about the world around you. Which is probably a large part of why language instruction in school isn't taken particularly seriously. With the amount of time that students are required to study, there's no excuse for the degree to which they learn nothing. Yes, you're not going to become fluent in that kind of time, but not being able to use the language for any sort of meaningful purpose, even if you pass the class is embarassing.
This is about pumping up the number of coders in the market place so that the price of wages gets depressed and nothing more.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @02:41PM
Recognizing facts is not even mild narcissism, much less extreme, and the fact of the matter is we are the world's most influential economic superpower. If we weren't, we couldn't get away with most of us speaking only English. But we are. Laziness? Probably. Narcissism? Nope.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday March 25 2019, @02:41PM (3 children)
> it exposes you to new ways of thinking
Only if you're not fluent in math yet. It's arguably a decent substitute for a mid-level math credit on those grounds, but not a foreign language.
Computer languages are designed to issue commands to a glorified calculator. They expose you to new ways of thinking only insofar as they require you to break down complex commands into an exhaustive list of steps simple enough for a calculator to perform without further human intervention.
Human language in contrast is designed to communicate. To allow the efficient, bi-directional exchange of complex human concepts - something computer languages can't do at all.
And every human language has a pantheon of encoded cultural concepts and assumptions into its structure, some of which will be alien to those encoded into your native language. Learning your second language is often as much a matter of learning to recognize and break free from the encoded assumptions of your first language that are getting in the way - subsequent languages are typically far simpler to learn, because you've already done the hard part in breaking free from the confines of your first language.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @03:46PM (2 children)
Computer languages (except possibly assembly) are not math any more than this conversation is (unless you think everything you think and do isn't governed by physics, which is just math with a fancy shirt on). They've both been abstracted so far from math that nearly all of their context is lost when you try to think of them as such.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:14AM (1 child)
Have you ever taken a graduate-level math class? Math gets pretty frigging abstract - real mathematicians don't do arithmetic, they formulate and prove theorems and develop algorithms. And to do so they must decompose their claims into tiny steps that invoke only a single previously-proven theorem at a time, so that there's very little chance of them improperly invoking a previously established truth, and it will be easy for a challenger to spot their failing if they do.
Math is rich and expressive language, not just a tool. Arguably far richer than any programming language. But like programming languages, it's largely incapable of expressing normal human concepts, though it is a lot better suited to communication, while programming languages are strictly declarative.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:04AM
Programming languages are indeed about getting stuff done rather than discussing them but they most assuredly both invite and demand new ways of thinking about things, which is the claim the "everyone must learn other languages" folks are always making to justify their position. Between the several spoken languages I know and roughly three times as many programming languages I know, I most definitely had more avenues of thought opened up to me from the coding ones. The ability to converse with more people never really changed how I think much at all. The conversations might have but that was due to content not method of delivery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday March 25 2019, @07:32AM
Is the goal to create actual Bynars?
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bynar [fandom.com]
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:57AM (3 children)
I warmly recommend reading "the sound and the fury" in the original C++.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:38AM (2 children)
Side remark: Is ecode broken, or is it just that my browser doesn't render it correctly (correct: fixed width font; empty lines are actual empty lines, not paragraph breaks)?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @11:53AM
The font is you, the layout is us.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:55PM
the i in "iostream" is a different font then the i in "while".
I guess the lines starting with "#" are in fixed-width, the rest not.
this is firefox version a million or whatever they're at, on ubuntu.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Monday March 25 2019, @08:02AM (5 children)
As much as I would have liked to drop French for a programming language, that would not have been good. Learning a foreign language doesn't just involve an alternative syntax and vocabulary. It also encompasses culture, cuisine, history, and politics. It opens doors into other *human* societies.
Sorry. No easy outs. At some point we all specialize, but while you're building the base of a good general education you need the technical *and* the non-technical studies.
Allowing techies to duck out of language requirements, even just the 1 or 2 years of basic Spanish that a lot of my fellow students took as the easiest option, is cheating them out of something that can broaden their horizons.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:40AM (2 children)
Fuck off, you pompous douche bag.
(Score: 3, Funny) by theluggage on Monday March 25 2019, @11:11AM (1 child)
At least one of those words is French...
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 25 2019, @11:50AM
Exactly. If we steal the useful bits of another language, we don't have to waste time learning it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:00PM
We can do that without learning French.
Culture: be lazy, demand that the government make you impossible to fire, go on strike, riot
Cuisine: whine... I mean wine, and cheese. They eat horses and snails.
History: attacked Russia in the winter and lost, defeated by Germany and saved by the USA, did that again, and now Jews are not safe in Paris due to Islam
Politics: a battle between globalist socialists, nationalist socialists, and globalist communists
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:20PM
Techs need foreign language. If not just wel round. But to understand that dates have many many formats. Ca;aendars have different alignments. Names are not just First and Last, let along character sets and sorting rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @10:38AM (4 children)
It's not misguided at all. I couldn't pass a foreign language course to saving my life, yet in the past forty years I probably written code in over thirty languages. If there was a foreign language requirement when I went to high school, I would have failed to graduate. People like me shouldn't be held back because we don't have an aptitude for the skills YOU deem necessary. You probably couldn't do what I do, either.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 25 2019, @11:47AM
What better lesson than fire him and then tell him to learn to code? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 25 2019, @12:52PM (2 children)
Perhaps you couldn't pass a native English language course, either?
By that logic, what is the justification for the high school math requirement? I'm being serious, here. Not that we should drop math, but that just as many people are forced into classes with skills YOU likely deem necessary (and for which an even greater number of people claim not to have an "aptitude" for), and which are rarely directly relevant to most people's lives.
Poll people sometime and see how many people EVER use math beyond middle-school level. The vast majority of people likely never use algebra again after high school, at least not in the formal symbolic manipulation sense. They may use logical skills to solve for an unknown, but good math teachers start showing students how to think about those in problems even in elementary school.
The very simple concept of symbolic representation (x and y, etc.) is usually discussed in middle school, too, which is sufficient to do a lot of basic coding.
All the formal apparatus of high school math (geometry proofs, algebra 2 level shuffling around symbols in complicated equations, trigonometric, calculus, etc.) is never used by people in their lives. And for those who do need it, they generally have a few circumscribed sets of problems that they can look up how to do online. My father was a blue-collar worker who on occasion had to solve a trigonometry problem, like finding an angle or side of a triangle. You know how he did it? No, he didn't set up an equation and solve for x. No, he didn't have to recall definitions of trig functions or the Law of Sines or Cosines. He had a little "cheat book" that had diagrams of all the different arrangements of sides and angles one might be given in a triangle, and it listed the stuff you needed to punch into a calculator to solve that particular problem and find that side or angle. That's the level of math real people often use.
Another proof: the GRE math section is easier than the SAT math section. (At least that was traditionally the case; I know the SAT has been changed a bit in recent years, but I know that GRE math was for many years easier than SAT math.) What's the reason? Well, I don't even know why exactly they even bother with the GRE math section as it is, because for the large number of non-tech related graduate programs, math competency is nearly irrelevant. And for the hard sciences, math, engineering, etc., the level of GRE math is probably not sufficient to show whether students will be able to do well in a graduate program. So, maybe the test is relevant for 10% of potential grad school applicants in fields where some math is needed, but not a lot.
Point is -- poll even most engineers and ask them how often they use calculus. And no, not just looking up an equation in a book that has a derivative in it and plugging in some numbers from a table. I mean actually fluently using calculus in an active way to solve a novel problem, write a novel equation or three with integrals or derivatives or something more advanced in them, and then applying the solution, as one might be expected to do in an actual calculus class.
Not many. And after a decade or more out of college, I doubt many tech people could summon their calculus skills in this fashion without some substantial review. If they even had them in the first place -- because you should also ask, if you're going to compare it to language learning, what percentage of high school students actually achieve "fluency" in higher math?
Most people never use algebra, nor do most people have an immediate aptitude for it. I'm someone who has actually taught high school math, and I understand the conceptual challenges in introducing this stuff for the first time to most people. Most people are CAPABLE, but it can take hard work. And stuff beyond algebra? The vast majority of people will never even think of it again, even though our high schools require years of math and most students are encouraged to take higher math.
None of this, however, is meant to be an argument against teaching math. To the contrary, I think there are lots of cognitive benefits to learning about abstraction and applying it to problems, to thinking of the logical steps necessary to prove something on the basis of limited given information in a step-by-step fashion, etc. Not to mention the attention to detail necessary to solve a complex math problem, whose meticulousness is a marker of a careful student by itself. Perhaps one could offer other courses that give similar benefits, but the point is that there are lots of benefits beyond the small number of students who ever achieve great fluency.
Similarly with language, there are benefits to understanding culture, to learning a language with etymological roots that might help you understand words even in your native language, to confronting grammatical structures that are both similar and different from your own (many students say they only deeply understand grammar in their native language by studying another), etc., etc.
And perhaps there are ways to achieve such skills aside from a language requirement too, just as one might achieve what high school math does by teaching some other things. I agree there may be a need for curricular reform and serious questions about why we do what we do. But there are lots of potential benefits to taking even a basic foreign language class.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:08PM
The main issue with language in the K-12 system is that it's not taught effectively. The time and resources available should really be more of a light conversational class with far less grammar. If a student can't carry on a basica conversation, even if limited in scope, then all the grammar rules in the world aren't going to help.
But, the grammar and vocab is the main thing that is taught and tested, leading to tons of students who pass the course, but can't use the language for anything. And because they can't use the language for anything, they aren't in a position to use what they've learned to either maintain or advance their language skills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:16PM
This may be news for you, but... we don't require calculus for graduation.
My wife's sister whined to us that she had to pass an algebra class in college. In college!!! In other words, she graduated from high school without it. I see that in the graduation requirements for my kid's college too; a bit of trivial algebra, just 7th grade to the better students, is all that is required.
Being able to solve a calculus problem is far less valuable than being able to set one up. If you can set one up, then you can look up how to solve it. That is of use, though most people would benefit more from statistics.
Really though, we don't seriously require math. Kids who struggle with it are diagnosed with bullshit learning disabilities and then allowed to graduate without math, destroying the value of a high school diploma for everybody. (this is partly why college is required for so many jobs) Those who don't get diagnosed are still getting away with just being able to punch numbers into a calculator. Really, it is that bad and sometimes worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:59PM
No.
Next article.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:13PM
i would not say that a programming language is a foreign language.
i good programming language however is completely encapsulated in the venn diagram-circle labeled "logic".
languages intersect the venn-diagram of logic. sometimes more, sometimes less.
some even try to avoid intersecting it all together but to figure them out you have to learn the language ^_^
i suppose if you want to understand a culture and the country(s) the best and fastest way is to learn
the corresponding language ... that's about it.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday March 25 2019, @04:34PM (3 children)
As both a parent and a person that understands statistics, your fervent beliefs are meaningless to me. In the US, less than two percent of people taking a foreign language in high school retain any fluency beyond graduation. The ROI on this is absolute shit; I wish my kids could take auto repair, wood shop, art, coding, another math class, creative writing, or pretty much anything else instead.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Monday March 25 2019, @05:54PM (2 children)
Most people retain hardly any of the maths they are taught in high school beyond what they already knew from middle school. Same goes for ‘coding’. I can teach someone in a week to ‘code’ as well as most retain from a year long course in HS. At least the foreign language exposes the student to culture, and reflects a reference to their own native language.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday March 25 2019, @10:32PM (1 child)
Lets go for the same benchmark. Out of 100 people, do more than two retain any of the knowledge they pick up in the class?
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:16AM
Even the least attentive kids that have passed the exams for a foreign language in high school will retain some portion of the information. Like any other high school subject, that is not likely to lead to fluency unless there are other factors involved (eg. pet hobby related to the subject matter, friends/family speaking the language, future career path directly related to the subject, etc). However, every subject leads to some retention of information - or at least changes the developmental path of the student based on things they have learned.
For example, many students that study romance language also improve their understanding of English, recognising root words, etc. Another reason I think Latin is as useful a language as Spanish/French/Italian/etc. Since the student isn't likely to become fluent, the secondary benefits are still important.
Even non-romance languages like Chinese/Japanese/etc lead to some element of cultural immersion along with how English grammar works as differentially applied to foreign grammar. Even when the student can't remember any direct words, these basic elements still remain as part of how they continued their learning process.
This isn't to say languages are ideal, but they are certainly not a 'waste of time' any more than any other general high school subject that doesn't lead to a career directly related to the subject. High school is really about giving the student a broad enough base of subject matter that if they choose, can go on to specialise at college, university, or in an apprenticeship without a total lack of cross-subject knowledge. Or maybe change career in the future even if they have to relearn something - at least they know what they need to relearn, and learning is generally easier the second time.
I've tutored many university students that came into engineering with no background knowledge beyond what they learnt in high school science and standard (ie. non advanced) maths classes. The little bit of maths they did made this possible. They were no more difficult to help than kids who came through high school advanced courses in calculus, computer science or electronics. And in the end, graduated university as well as anyone else.
Same would apply for a student going into some sort of foreign language specialty at university.
I don't advocate for forced subject curricula, but for kids that are otherwise capable, I see no downside. Although there is definitely something to be said for a less strict curriculum that doesn't penalise a student that is having a lot of trouble with a subject and would desperately prefer something else. But, at the HS level, there needs to be a balance between humanities and STEM subjects. Especially considering HS courses are quite general, and mostly not skills related training (although I admit that learning to touch type in year 9 was VERY useful). Encouraging HS students to specialise early cheats many of them out of the opportunity to grow a wide enough knowledge/experience base to better choose that speciality, or even change to another one if it turns out not to be what they expect.
Speaking from experience here where the only HS humanities subject above year 9 I did was English. After university I went back and spent the next few years part time learning French, music (still doing that one), ancient history, some Japanese, some Latin, European history, world religions, etc. The advanced maths/phys/chemistry/engineering subjects at school were handy, but not critical, as all the material was re-introduced in my university engineering courses - and other kids that didn't have the background just spent a little more effort learning it. In the end, we all knew the same stuff. But, looking back, I would have been just as happy (probably more so), if I'd not had the option of specialising in HS. In fact I may not have chosen an electrical engineering degree since all my options would have been open, rather than the 'easy' path of just continuing with higher education in STEM.
(Score: 2) by AssCork on Monday March 25 2019, @05:44PM
All the pain and torture of learning French with none of the fun of unit-tests.
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Monday March 25 2019, @07:29PM
echo "me: ^M $(CC) sandwich.c" >makefile && sudo make me
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:56AM
"As a professor of languages and literatures" (which isn't a word, by the way. "Literature" is an uncountable noun, meaning it is neither singular nor plural, and does not have a plural form) I don't think he is qualified to speak about computer languages.
You see, a shitty programmer writes code for the computer to run, while a good programmer writes code for other programmers to read. Writing in a programming language therefore requires the same faculties as writing in a natural language: proper word choice and phrasing, a large vocabulary, pacing, attention to syntax, usage of conventions, knowing when to break convention, knowing your audience.
Of course, I don't expect most students to get that out of a programming course, but I also don't expect most students to learn how to write in a natural language course either.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!