Re: Are children being taught to program computers today?

I think you just made my point by example...
We have a current culture that seems to encourage math- phobia
and even science- phobia?!
Sometimes I think that maybe drafting young men did them some good,
as the Army teaches a lot of things and doesn't
pamper their predilections about them?
A program of getting back to basics here has come to
teachers teaching the tests not the subjects.
And music teaching falling by the wayside...
at least with music they had to learn to count.
I suppose I'm like every old guy: I think the world is going to hell around me, ha, ha...
This time I appear to be right.
Jim Hauser wrote:
"Roger Bagula" <rlbagulatftn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:qdpcf.13949$q%.8299@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From a Gates biograophy at Microsoft:
"Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13."
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio.asp

The point is that students are not really educated about computers, but educated to become blind users.
Fundamental computer education as it existed in the 60's, 70's and early 80's is gone.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JVP/is_2003_Spring/ai_102119717
http://www.erzwiss.uni-hamburg.de/Sonstiges/Logo/logolite.htm

It is very hard to do much with fractals unless you know at least the basic fundamental of computers and some programming.
Most children are taught in school to use computer programs and not to make them.


I remember that back in the seventies I was griping that we were taught basic typing for two years and in math class we had to delve into non-base 10 numbering systems.

"Why in the world would we ever have to use base eight or base sixteen numbering systems? " I guess we were hexed...

On the other hand, my youngest brother did the right thing by scoring A+ semester grades in geometry, trig and calc in high school. He went on to pursue computers. His entire college career was based on Cobal and Fortran.

Sigh...

But don't worry, he is doing fine.

As for me, I remember the days of programming in interpreted Basic and 65XX assembly code. It still lives on a few emulators installed on this machine.

"How many books do I have to buy before I can figure this X$%^& thing out!" :-)

I'm not sure what they are teaching kids nowdays. I have to hire them on a regular basis in my line of work. Most do quite well if you don't mention fractions, percentages, or the lines on a tape rule. Computers? Oh yeah, they can download music and play games all day long!

Just don't ask them to count to eight using the binary number system.

As an aside to this dicussion I would like to mention a common electric time that is used quite frequently in the refrigeration industry.

It is composed of multiple slide switches that are either on or of. Each switch has a numeric value in seconds:

1
2
4
8
16
32
64
128
256
etc...

Try to tell one of these youngsters to set on for 3 minutes and then you will understand.

Sound familiar?

Now try to tell them about fractals and attractors!



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: BASIC is still the best programming language!!!
    ... But I learned programming with the BASIC that was bundled with DOS 25 years ago. ... There is a lot of irrational antipathy to modern BASICs that stem from the name itself and from the fact that the most prevalent versions are Microsoft products. ... the more sophisticated you are about computers the more you hate MS. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Interview to Gary Kildall
    ... he designed the DR Logo programming language for the IBM PC ... A native of Seattle, Kildall was born on May 19, 1942. ... through to write code that makes computers perform. ... INTERVIEWER: It's difficult to teach problem-solving principles. ...
    (comp.os.cpm)
  • Re: Methodology
    ... want to go with ASP.Net and with programming in general. ... Computers are called "computers" because they always have been ... And the mathematical language of computers is binary, ... "language" was born: Assembler. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.general)
  • Re: PL/I string representations (was Re: To Richard Heathfield: enoughs enough)
    ... >> remember that the majority of computers are not even a thousandth as ... programming has more than one aspect, ... > live up to your assertion that it is a useless language. ... >> required since additional speed involves additional cost. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Old broken COBOL programs from the 70s and 80s
    ... On Jul 19, 5:38 pm, "Pete Dashwood" ... At least the MicroSoft one is automatically ... I don't believe computers will still be manually programmed by ... At this point humans merge with computers and programming is ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
Loading