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Comment by teach | Hacker News Reader

Computer science is just an elective at my school. Students can also take a cooking class as an elective even though they don't plan to be chefs.

Students have room in their schedules for several electives and mine has a reputation as a tough but rewarding course. The majority of my students just take a single class and go on to college to major in something else.

Kids have different hobbies. I have students who've been playing soccer since they were 5 years old who don't play around with a computer for fun. Or they don't have access to a computer. (Many of my students are on free or reduced price lunch.)

Limiting the profession to those who started naturally at a young age is a good way to keep out everyone but rich mostly-white kids with college-educated parents.

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"Limiting the profession to those who started naturally at a young age is a good way to keep out everyone but rich mostly-white kids with college-educated parents."

I would say it weeds out everyone who was not inclined to study programming or was not in a situation that prompted them to start programming.

Frankly, this is a childish presupposition. Let's imagine if surgeons where expected to have begun surgery for fun at the age of seven.

It's a cop-out excuse from teaching establishments (if used) and it's a harsh and exclusive requirement from colleagues, more fitting of a puerile fraternity than that a professional cohort.

What one does need, is a certain fluidity in language skills, logic, and most of all, most importantly, a will to learn.

Yes, it needs a lot of work, and it's not easy, but let's not invent imaginary boundaries for peoples careers and lives.

> Limiting the profession to those who started naturally at a young age is a good way to keep out everyone but rich mostly-white kids with college-educated parents.

Counter-example: I started coding at 9, got my first at-home family computer 3 years later, and my parents graduated college when I was already in college. This was back when a PC cost more than my parents made in 2 months. Now laptops can be got for $300.

It's not about rich, it's about having coding after-school classes as available as soccer (or whatever) practice.

> It's not about rich, it's about having coding after-school classes as available as soccer (or whatever) practice.

Ok... so what about the kids who want to play soccer instead of being cooped up inside?

The idea that you might have to choose between playing a sport and getting enough experience to consider going into CS/SE in college is ridiculous.

OK ... so what about the kids who want to be cooped up inside instead of playing soccer?

The idea that you might have to choose between coding and getting enough experience to consider being a professional soccer player is ridiculous.

;)

But my point was about having the choice and opportunity.

> Ok... so what about the kids who want to play soccer instead of being cooped up inside?

I don't see what your point is. The OP suggests that coding after school classes should be as available as soccer practices. Do you think that if coding classes after school are made available then somehow it is harmful?

Or rather, it's either about rich or about having a adequately funded and provisioned school system for people who are not.

I went through my first year at community college without even having a desktop computer. All of my home programming was with pencil and paper, and I used the lab. I can imagine that if you're 9, you may not have parents that can carve out an extra $300 so you can see if you like computers, or a lab at your school that has free computers that you have a sufficient level of access to in order to run or install the software you would need. I was in my 20s, and still limited.

I think the OP meant those doing a CS degree with no prior coding experience why would you do a degree in something if you had not done it at some level at high school?

> I do work with older students (aged 14-18)

These are high school students.

> Limiting the profession to those who started naturally at a young age is a good way to keep out everyone but rich mostly-white kids with college-educated parents.

~$100 (or less for an old second hand laptop plus a basic internet connection (or the public libraries one) is all that's needed to start programming.

$100 equals 40 hours of work in a blue-collar job down here in Argentina. It's probably even worse elsewhere.

And if you're coding, you're not training or doing another job. So it is actually much more.

Maybe there should be a laptop charity page which connects the ones needing old laptops with people having them rotting away in a drawer. Shipping can't be that expensive.

The question is, is there need for something like this?

$100 is a lot of money for a lot of people.

A lot of poor people do not have free time to earn it-- they're going to school and using their minimum wage money to eat. I slept on the floor and worked 16 hour days to be able to get my education.

"is all that's needed to start programming"

No it's not. You first have to know that it's a thing that you might be able to do. Who knows what other barriers are there unless they live it?

Hardware is relatively cheap, time is not.

To have been coding for 5-15 years when entering college now... you have to think about the prices and availability of internet/computers 5-15 years ago ;)

15 years ago I was involved with a charity refurbishing 486s (or better) and we were giving them away.

Okay, so you could potentially get a computer.

Now, think about accessing the resources to learn programming: Books, Documentation, Compilers, IDE...

I recall being on 56k internet in 2001, paying by the hour. Couldn't have learn programming, except going around and buying books and tools on CD and offline documentation.

That was the hell of a barrier to entry compared to today.

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