Programming Literacy

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Programming Literacy

Owen Densmore
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Lots of hip education work (Khan Academy, MOOCs) is promoting "programming literacy".  
​    ​
https://medium.com/javascript-scene/programming-literacy-7bc4ae154b91

​Initially I thought it odd .. why not *all* forms of literacy?

Well, this article .. although biased? .. has some pretty interesting observations:
​- ​
In 25 years, a human driving a car
​ ​
will look like a horse pulling a buggy
​ (Google's car)
According to Code.org, 9 out of 10 US schools don’t offer computer science courses
​- 
Right now around the world, those who can’t read and write earn roughly 25% as much as those who can
In America, those who know how to code earn roughly twice as much as those who don’t.
.. and so on.​
​ 

This is not "developer" level .. its literacy level, understanding the basics and having a cultural intuition where it all fits in.

Short sighted? I guess it adds a fourth letter to the Three R's.

   -- Owen​


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Re: Programming Literacy

Marcus G. Daniels
Owen wrote:

> This is not "developer" level .. its literacy level, understanding the
> basics and having a cultural intuition where it all fits in.

I recently advised someone that took Harvard's CS-50 class. Someone with
no experience with programming.  Initially she said she wanted rules for
what do first and what to next, and so on.  The fast-and-loose nature of
it was troubling to her.  

Of course, it is troubling from the perspective of making robust
systems.  It is also the unique and fun aspect of designing software.
That there are no constraints, little cost or risk to entry (compared to
say, mechanical or chemical engineering), and skill is learning how to
cope with the freedom.

I think if there is wisdom to extract from programming literacy, it's
(one way) to learn what it is like to get in over your head,
complexity-wise, and find a way out.  I'm skeptical that unless one
tries to get to some degree of `developer' level knowledge, that one
really gets the possibility of tackling a large and complex problem in
pieces.   There's no sitting on the sidelines.

Then there's the more direct meaning of literacy, which is whether one
can rationalize large and complex projects written by other individuals
or teams.  This is taught poorly, if at all.   Lots of emphasis on how
to build systems, but less on modeling and deconstruction and
rebuilding.

Marcus








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Re: Programming Literacy

Arlo Barnes
On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 12:10 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
Then there's the more direct meaning of literacy, which is whether one
can rationalize large and complex projects written by other individuals
or teams.  This is taught poorly, if at all.   Lots of emphasis on how
to build systems, but less on modeling and deconstruction and
rebuilding.

To pull from another discussion, this happens for the same reason that positive results in scientific research is (unintentionally, perhaps) favoured over unbiased results: individual success and competition between individuals is, despite claims to the contrary, valued higher than group collaboration.

-Arlo James Barnes

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