Re: Are children being taught to program computers today?

Dear An Ony,
I only has one one hour class in Fortran Four
in college and how to turn on a Programa 4 bit machine
that had a "Language" very much like machine language.
Most every thing else I have taught myself.
I was pretty much "pre" the personal computer in my education,
but I know that Logo and Basic were taught more often in the past than
they seem to be today.

Your point about mathematics is one that I made about "fractal artists".
As far as I know computer programming is a kind of mathematics:
they even have a Fields metal for computer science related research.
Ph.D.'s in computer science are mnore common than in Mathematics today.
My point is that getting an introduction to programming before college
is probably a very good idea. Grade school is where languages like Spanish are introduced; why not computer languages?
An Ony wrote:
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.


Don't you think they need math a bit more than computerprogramming to understand fractals? One might just go program blindly things that you can do with fractals, but don't even know what they're dealing with. A mathematical analysis first always solve problems like memory management etc...

In high school, aged around 16 years I was, our computer exam started with "1 point: switch on the computer".


.

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