Friday, December 4, 2015

Learning Programming

To say that I'm a software development enthusiast is an understatement. I think about it literally all the time. I think about application architecture as I'm falling asleep in bed, I think about algorithms in the shower, I daydream about debugging techniques while driving down the road(ok, only at stoplights ;) ). I think about other programming tasks as I'm programming. That last one isn't always a good thing, and I try to keep it in check.

When you have the level of passion for something that I have, it can become easy to be biased, and blinded to some of the realities of it. I've spent most of my life with the perspective "programming is such a pleasure, everyone should do it". I still have vivid memories of the first time I saw source code at 11 years old, and the instantaneous explosive ignition of a flame within me to become all about it. I can still recite the 6 line program almost verbatim:

10 LET N = RND() * 10 +1
20 INPUT "enter a number from 1 to 10", G
30 IF G = N THEN GOTO 50
40 PRINT "WRONG!, GUESS AGAIN"
50 GOTO 20
60 PRINT "CORRECT!"


Or something like that, I didn't write it, I'm not sure who did, maybe it was my best friend, who showed it to me, maybe it was from a book, but I had a googly-eyes over it "I can make a machine make decisions!". 

In the course of my life, I've sought to spread this joy to those close to me - my siblings when I was younger, my wife, my kids. I've been in a wishful denial about is that some people just aren't wired for the programming mindset. This is not a bad thing, the diversity of the human mind is what makes our species great. My wife has an engineering background, and has worked in the IT field, and had worked as a software developer, and took courses on expanding her software development knowledge. But by her own admission, "I'm just not that into it". She switched careers and now works in special needs education. She found her own passion. 

Similarly, I've exposed my kids to various incarnations of educational outreach designed to ignite a similar spark within them. They've had orders of magnitude more opportunity to become involved with crafting algorithms that I did. They're all still younger than I was when I saw my first code. My kids (and wife) are incredibly smart, but the jury is still out on if they have the same little something that makes me crave coding. 

There's been a push in recent years to get greater exposure to a wider range of youth to encourage an interest in software development, as part of the "STEM" movement. While this is a fantastic thing, I am starting to think that we should also recognize that software development, or evening engineering in general (Contrary to some, I believe that Software Engineering is a *real* field of engineering, that simply has not matured enough yet as a career field to have all of the kinks worked out) is not for everyone. For one thing, it is hard to do correctly. The goal of programming education should be to facilitate, make it a viable career path for those who have the desire, and to kindle a desire in those who may not have had the opportunity(though in these days that is a diminishing demographic). What we should not do, is to "sugar coat" the art and science of it, pretend that the sole barrier to a career in software engineering is a lack of an friendly introduction and adequate access to computer time. It takes a lot more than that. 

This port was inspired by an article I ran across this week:


The gist is nicely summed up as:

"All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess. The current fad for short learn-to-code courses is selling people a lie and will do nothing to help the skills shortage for professional programmers"


I more or less agree with this assessment, but in addition to the aptitude, it requires the passion for it, and "mental the circuitry". The basic knowledge of writing  or understanding a few lines of simple code is a low bar compared to becoming a master of the craft. I think the percentage of the general population that possess the aptitude needed to develop code is greater than the article implies, perhaps it is even a majority of the population. However when considered with the subset of the population that also has the motivation, passion, to develop into a master, I arrive at the same conclusion. "Aptitude" is a loaded term, and unfortunately, carries a connotation of exceptionalism. That is not the intent, it is a fact that with any particular skill, only a certain percentage of the population posses an aptitude for that skill, it does not make them elite, only wire for that skill. I have precisely 0 aptitude for playing musical instruments, that means almost nothing outside the context of discussions on musical ability. 

The takeaway is an idea that I have has bouncing around in my head for a while. There is no shortage of "learn to code" and "everyone can be a programmer" education out there, but there is a dearth of resources for those who wish to "take things to the next level".. Once someone gets through the basics, where do they go from there? For the most part, they are on their own. There needs to be more "experts" coming forward to develop the intermediate and advanced levels of educational programs for aspiring Software Engineers.

--P

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