Why are we lacking computer programmers?

[d1screet]

Because shit gets real hard, real fast.

 

There's a ton of kids at CMU that realize CS isn't for them, or just simply don't make the cut.

[TechFnatic]

It's not that simple though. A small dev team can be responsible for millions of dollars of revenue and just because software is being used more doesn't mean it requires more developers to work on it.

 

Google has a big team working on self driving cars when they only have a limited number of cars but when that is available to buy their team will probably remain a similar size and certainly scale with the cars. Yes jobs are changing but people who used to make cars in a factory now maintain and monitor the robots, they don't program them.

I'm not saying everyone needs to know it to the point where they can make A.I and robots etc. But in the next century everyone should have an understanding of how and why our devices work the way they do. We need to promote creating with technology instead of just using technology.

[TechFnatic]

Because shit gets real hard, real fast.

 

There's a ton of kids at CMU that realize CS isn't for them, or just simply don't make the cut.

Yeah, it definitely is not for everyone, but we should all have an understanding of how things work. Kids are forced to study math, spanish, history and what not but we need to give them a chance to explore programming... make it a mandatory grade 8 course and then an elective from there on out. Just my thoughts.

[Froggerztech]

I believe it is because programming is a really boring job to some. Comparing what a programmer and say, an engineer do, the engineer goes and does stuff, while the programmer sits at a desk all day typing away. I would personally prefer being out and doing stuff

[d1screet]

Yeah, it definitely is not for everyone, but we should all have an understanding of how things work. Kids are forced to study math, spanish, history and what not but we need to give them a chance to explore programming... make it a mandatory grade 8 course and then an elective from there on out. Just my thoughts.

 

I'm with you on that one. It definitely should be something that kids should try and at least understand the fundamentals.

 

Although, I personally think that there are more important things that kids these days ought to learn that need to be made mandatory; such as how loans, insurance, and credit card payments work. Things anyone would need to properly navigate life-related financials, and yet it's severely lacking while the US government is pushing for this Common Core garbage.

[TechFnatic]

I'm with you on that one. It definitely should be something that kids should try and at least understand the fundamentals.

 

Although, I personally think that there are more important things that kids these days ought to learn that need to be made mandatory; such as how loans, insurance, and credit card payments work. Things anyone would need to properly navigate life-related financials, and yet it's severely lacking while the US government is pushing for this Common Core garbage.

100% agree, our educational system is behind the times and for the most part garbage.

[Swndlr]

its like learning a new language basically but then again programming careers are very well paying if you get signed to the right job with the right company, so then again its worth it. and the lesson continues to be, the more you learn the more you earn

[YellowDragon]

I'm not saying everyone needs to know it to the point where they can make A.I and robots etc. But in the next century everyone should have an understanding of how and why our devices work the way they do. We need to promote creating with technology instead of just using technology.

 

But but then we lose our Wizard cards  . I'm the only programmer in my family,  my Dad and Grandfather are both electrical and  civil  engineers respectively. They think I do black magic  when im at my computer

[YellowDragon]

100% agree, our educational system is behind the times and for the most part garbage.

 

Public school systems exsist to make better citizens, not help people learn marketable skills.

 

By better citizens I mean instilling complacency, laziness, ineptitude......makes them easier to control and manipulate..... look at it from a social engineering perspective. Everyone has  an inherient social value, with public school  its goal is to lower that much as possible. You gain social value from wealth, education and networking connections all of which standard highschool  will not teach you. 

[Hikaru12]

I think it's for the same reason we don't have a bunch of engineers - "let someone else worry about it". How many kids nowadays actually play around with robots or electronics and make their own devices? They could end up being the generation that solves many of this worlds problems. A lack of curiosity is being instilled in children - an apathy if you will which is sad. Not to make a blanket statement, but I don't know where the fire for learning has gone but most people are either too scared to break something or they don't care enough to learn. This is why we'll never see many kids growing up to be engineers, programmers, mathematicians, physicists, etc. 

[rockking1379]

I'm wrapping up a passion project for one of my finals and its basically wrapped around the question "How has computer programming molded today's world and why should everyone know it?" and I need some perspective on something:

 

Why do you guys think programming is so uncommon, especially in younger kids, why isn't it picked up as a hobby unlike other subjects? I really need to touch this subject and I honestly think it's due to the lack of education in our early lives (High school) 

 

Anyways any help would be appreciated, thanks!

so i was going to type this on my phone and decided it deserves a better response so i switched to laptop. but here goes my two cents for you.

 

the reason programing is so uncommon is because of several issues. first being that computers have gotten easier to use. you no longer need to know how to program to use a computer. back when they first were coming out though, that wasnt the case. the second is schools. there are multiple issues with schools and computers. when computers first came out, schools were teaching how to write software. now schools teach how to write using software. there is a big difference. among the youth, why is it so uncommon? because it is challenging intellecutally. programming isnt something you can just pick up and run away with. it takes some real thought and work to get what you want. and many students when things stop going how they want (which in programming will happen in about the first five lines they ever write) they give up. programming takes persistence and as a generation that is lacking. so is logical thinking, but thats a different story. there are also a lot of misconceptions about programming and a lot of wrong doing in schools with it. with programming in schools, if it is offered, it is done so as an elective. and many students have other electives they would rather thake than programming. goes back to the misconceptions which is that its hard. no programming it self is not hard. what is hard is logically breaking down large problems that are easy enough to solve. that is the hard part. many people also think it involves a ton of math, and sure if you go do 3D graphics then its going to be very math intensive. if you are going to design the latest and greatest algorithms it will be very math intensive because you are doing performance metrics and trying to reduce times here and there. but for the general population, a few extra milliseconds on something is just fine and will go unnoticed. another issue with programming in shcools, is even if we were to begin offering it, who is going to teach it? we dont have teachers certified or able to teach programming because they themselves would be learning. and trying to convince someone with years of industry experience to take a pretty large pay cut and come teach a group of misfit teenages how to code isnt gonna be a easy task. so why is it uncommon? because we dont have people able to teach it to students and students dont want to learn.

 

also i recently wrote a paper on programming in schools, message me if you would like to see it. i would be happy to share it with you

[flowalex]

I'm wrapping up a passion project for one of my finals and its basically wrapped around the question "How has computer programming molded today's world and why should everyone know it?" and I need some perspective on something:

 

Why do you guys think programming is so uncommon, especially in younger kids, why isn't it picked up as a hobby unlike other subjects? I really need to touch this subject and I honestly think it's due to the lack of education in our early lives (High school) 

 

Anyways any help would be appreciated, thanks!

This isn't a good thing to use as a source, but here is a blog about not being able to use computers http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

[rockking1379]

This isn't a good thing to use as a source, but here is a blog about not being able to use computers http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

Thank you for sharing that. I personally enjoyed the read

[flowalex]

Thank you for sharing that. I personally enjoyed the read

No problem I actually agree with the authors views

[d1screet]

That really was a nice read.

 

Getting kids in school to set up Arch Linux on their own on a VM would be a pretty great idea. But then again, oh noes, school budget going down.

[rockking1379]

That really was a nice read.

Getting kids in school to set up Arch Linux on their own on a VM would be a pretty great idea. But then again, oh noes, school budget going down.

Doesn't necessarily have to be arch, just setting up a Ubuntu server VM will teach them a lot. Sure Ubuntu is easy but for a first year, probably be hard enough on its own

[Godlygamer23]

Public school systems exsist to make better citizens, not help people learn marketable skills.

That's no excuse for a poor educational system. Many schools teach incorrect things like the taste sections of the tongue. Completely false, but still taught.

[Joegeddon]

Programming is one thing that I've wanted to do but it just gets really damn frustrating and boring as fuck eventually.

[d1screet]

Programming is one thing that I've wanted to do but it just gets really damn frustrating and boring as fuck eventually.

 

Like learning how to play a guitar, training to be real good at sports, or just about any other skill.

 

 

Doesn't necessarily have to be arch, just setting up a Ubuntu server VM will teach them a lot. Sure Ubuntu is easy but for a first year, probably be hard enough on its own

I'm just partial to Arch

[Joegeddon]

Like learning how to play a guitar, training to be real good at sports, or just about any other skill.

 

 

I'm just partial to Arch

I know but this field specifically just really annoys me, the lack of stimulation is soul crushing. I'm quite good with computers and hardware, but programming is just so boring to me.

[YellowDragon]

That's no excuse for a poor educational system. Many schools teach incorrect things like the taste sections of the tongue. Completely false, but still taught.

Not asking for you to like it, just telling it how it is. Kinda sad schools are that way but its the world we live in and you have to go through bullshit politics before changing a school program to something useful.

[zushiba]

I'm wrapping up a passion project for one of my finals and its basically wrapped around the question "How has computer programming molded today's world and why should everyone know it?" and I need some perspective on something:

 

Why do you guys think programming is so uncommon, especially in younger kids, why isn't it picked up as a hobby unlike other subjects? I really need to touch this subject and I honestly think it's due to the lack of education in our early lives (High school) 

 

Anyways any help would be appreciated, thanks!

There's been a fundamental change in the thought process of this generations programmers. I've noticed it especially on Reddit.

Years ago you would go online with a project and say "Hey guys I'm doing X with Y just to see if I can" and you would get several replies that would help working out the difficulties of said project.

 

These days if you go anywhere and state that you're attempting to say, "Make a chat client in PHP using a custom written socket of some sort" you'll get hundreds of replies saying "You're dumb, you should be doing (Best Practice X) and using (Best Language for that job Y). No one seems to care to do things for the challenge of doing them or do things just to see if it's possible.

 

We've lost that adventurous nature. If a newbie asks how to start working in PHP, Python, blah blah blah, the very first suggestions are 9 times out of 10 "USE X FRAMEWORK, LEARN THIS MVC STYLE". It drives people away and people feel less inclined to share a project they are working on because it doesn't use all the latest trends or pre-written library. When was the last time you saw a brand new, truly innovative Javascript doodad that didn't use jQuery?

 

Back in the day I saw people write NES emulators just to see if they could, you don't see that kind of thing anymore.

[Stuff_]

Programming is a difficult task. You need to learn one, or many different languages and understand a lot of logic.

 

It's not desired by a lot of people. I work at a place right now, while I'm going through college, and out of the 100 or so employees there, not a single one that I have met is either enrolled in a computer science degree program, or wants to, besides myself. (My job includes many high school students, and quite a few college). 

 

From what I can tell, they usually think it's tough, and generally have a poor concept about computing, and truly don't care to have one at all. 

 

I also believe the growth of the tech market is exceeding the growth of degrees associated with programming, software engineering, etc. 

[ofr057]

In Australia its not really covered in any depth at school from what i understand, this is why company offer over 100K for people working in SAP

[rockking1379]

There's been a fundamental change in the thought process of this generations programmers. I've noticed it especially on Reddit.

Years ago you would go online with a project and say "Hey guys I'm doing X with Y just to see if I can" and you would get several replies that would help working out the difficulties of said project.

 

These days if you go anywhere and state that you're attempting to say, "Make a chat client in PHP using a custom written socket of some sort" you'll get hundreds of replies saying "You're dumb, you should be doing (Best Practice X) and using (Best Language for that job Y). No one seems to care to do things for the challenge of doing them or do things just to see if it's possible.

 

We've lost that adventurous nature. If a newbie asks how to start working in PHP, Python, blah blah blah, the very first suggestions are 9 times out of 10 "USE X FRAMEWORK, LEARN THIS MVC STYLE". It drives people away and people feel less inclined to share a project they are working on because it doesn't use all the latest trends or pre-written library. When was the last time you saw a brand new, truly innovative Javascript doodad that didn't use jQuery?

 

Back in the day I saw people write NES emulators just to see if they could, you don't see that kind of thing anymore.

 

this is something i notice a lot. personally i am not a big fan of libraries. dont get me wrong, i will use some. like for example the sqlite jdbc driver library, i will use. sorry but i couldnt write it myself. but using things like say cakephp (just bear with me) for something like a simple json service that could just as easily be done without. seriously.

Programming is a difficult task. You need to learn one, or many different languages and understand a lot of logic.

 

It's not desired by a lot of people. I work at a place right now, while I'm going through college, and out of the 100 or so employees there, not a single one that I have met is either enrolled in a computer science degree program, or wants to, besides myself. (My job includes many high school students, and quite a few college). 

 

From what I can tell, they usually think it's tough, and generally have a poor concept about computing, and truly don't care to have one at all. 

 

I also believe the growth of the tech market is exceeding the growth of degrees associated with programming, software engineering, etc. 

growth of the market isnt out pacing the degree types offered, however it is outpacing those graduating with degrees relevant. and that is the big problem. we dont need ten more types of degrees in computing. but we sure could use ten more graduates with degrees in computing. as for not being desired, if it requires younger students to think even slightly then they dont want to do it. heaven forbid they have to actually look something up online and the first source not be wikipedia