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Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

I don't get the complaint that teaching Java and JavaScript puts them on the bottom rung. You have to learn on some programming language and those are as good as any, though starting on Java sounds painful.

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I think he's implying that teaching them how to code and not how to design programs will be the new "vocational" equivalent. Although this issue seems like it just generally applies to the education system as a whole, not specific at all to coding... unless I'm missing some key point.

Also, I think perhaps the issue is with allowing "coding" classes to qualify as math/science credits may encourage some students to essentially come out of highschool with a working knowledge of how to write java / javascript to accomplish certain tasks but have little analytical training (ie the scientific method, math beyond the basics, etc)

Math as taught in US high schools has very little to do with anything of real value. It's basically an SAT prep program, to push people through to calculus.

I could very nearly count on a railway brakeman's fingers the number of times that high school math has been an asset in my software career. The three years of computer programming electives I took were wildly more useful - and actually taught me geometry...

I would argue that well-taught geometry and such will make learning programming muuuch easier. Linear algebra has a lot of concepts that translate quite neatly to programming. Set theory, functions, etc. Formal logic is also a great asset for understanding branching logic.

Then again, learning how to program probably also makes learning those concepts easier too, as it goes both ways...

Not to disagree with the idea of their importance, but linear algebra, set theory, and formal logic are things I had not even heard of in a relatively impoverished public high school, much less had courses on.

Hell, I had to take the AP Calculus AB twice -- not because I did poorly the first time, but because there was no other courses for me to take and I didn't want to go a year without any math before college.

And why take a vocational track, when you can get a 4 year comp sci degree and take on many more thousands of dollars in debt, to get the same job!

Agreed, with the additional observation that this is just a reservation builder akin to a knowledge of Microsoft Office products from yesteryear.

Java jobs are well paid and Javascript is the new BASIC. It's not a bad choice.

And C and Haskell teach you how to pick up those two in less than a week when you have mastered them.

If your goal is not to have codemonkeys - you need to give the people skills to develop themselves further - which means knowing how computers work.

> ...which means knowing how computers work.

In that case, assembler is more appropriate.

Why stop there? Microelectronic engineering anyone?

Boolean algebra :-)

Nothing the majority of people learn in High School is well paid. If these programs are effective, entry-level programming jobs will drop to minimum wage from the increased supply.

"Coding literacy" may or may not be a worthwhile goal with a net positive impact, but it is certainly not going to let everyone get in on the current tech salaries.

> If these programs are effective, entry-level programming jobs will drop to minimum wage from the increased supply.

I think there not very effective but can give a bit of programming culture and maybe the real programming virus to few.

This dicussion reminds my the personnal experience of "prog21" at school on a Apple ][:

> One guy presented this amazing demo full of animation and shaded images. I'm talking crazy stuff, like a skull that dripped blood from its eye into a rising pool at the bottom of the screen. And that was just one segment of his project. I was stunned. Clearly I wasn't the hotshot programmer I thought was.

http://prog21.dadgum.com/87.html

> You have to learn on some programming language and those are as good as any, though starting on Java sounds painful.

Not really – but I won’t make that argument myself, but instead link to pg’s "Blub Paradox": http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

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