50% of Parents in the US Believe Coding Most Beneficial Subject For Their Children, 75% Believe Big Tech Firms Should Be Involved in Helping Schools: Study (microsoft.com) 219
Long time reader theodp writes: According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey, 50% of parents in the U.S. with children aged 18 and under believed coding and computer programming to be the most beneficial subject to their child's future employability ("compared to foreign language skills at 28%"). From the Microsoft Education blog post: "When asked about the technology industry's involvement, 75 percent of parents said they believe big tech companies should be involved in helping schools build kids' digital skills. Many companies, including Microsoft and organizations like Code.org, are working to do just that. Programs like TEALS, which is supported by Microsoft Philanthropies, pairs trained Computer Science professionals from across the technology industry with classroom teachers to team-teach the subject." In 2016, Microsoft partnered with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to help bring computer science education to every public K-12 school across the state, an initiative that Raimondo is now touting in her 2018 bid for re-election (political ad).
Coding for what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Writing software is intended to serve a purpose, not just making programs for the hell of it. What the heck problem does a kid need to solve with software? Kids need to learn basic math and science, not screwing around with computers. Writing code is a trivial side issue related to solving other problems, not an end to itself.
Re:Coding for what? (Score:4, Insightful)
As soon as you need reliability, security and performance, coding becomes anything but trivial. It also becomes something most people cannot master. Hence this just shows that 50% of parents have swallowed the propaganda.
The one thing humanity does not need is more bad coders. There are already far to many of them.
Re:Coding for what? (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as you need reliability, security and performance, coding becomes anything but trivial. It also becomes something most people cannot master.
Most people also can't master math, it doesn't mean math classes are a bad idea. Most people are absolutely terrible at breaking down a problem into individual steps and explaining them to someone with no subject experience. See every business requirements specification ever written. It's going to be a terribly hard class because the computer can't coddle you, it doesn't know how. I think if you're looking at it as a software creation training class you're missing the biggest benefit, it's a logic/problem solving class. And while you can't make miracles training helps.
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There is very little math in school. Just some elementary introductory algebra and maybe some elementary introductory geometry. I am not opposed to some elementary introductory coding being in there as well, in fact any reasonable math class will include that at some time. But it will not be a "most beneficial" subject for any of those subjected to it.
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There is very little math in school.
What? Math is a required course every single year from K thru 12, taught for an hour or so every day.
Programming is an elective.
I learned calculus in high school. I also learned to program. In my career, the programming skills have been a thousand times more useful.
You only need calculus if you are writing a physics engine, or doing physical simulations. Likely less than 1% of coders do either.
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You have no idea what Mathematics actually is. Basic calculus (and I gather you have not done any n-space or non-standard Calculus or any related proof theory?) is like 0.1% of it and it mostly serves to support classical engineering. What is taught in school only scratches the surface. Same with programming.
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is like 0.1% of it and it mostly serves to support classical engineering
You know why ? Because it is fucking school.
Same is true for English, Science, foreign elective languages, History, "Moral Science" if you have that. In school they can't teach more than 0.1% of any subject.
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I think if you're looking at it as a software creation training class you're missing the biggest benefit, it's a logic/problem solving class. And while you can't make miracles training helps.
Problem solving, yes. But logic? No. Programming logic is a whole different world than mental logic.
Re: Coding for what? (Score:2)
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What sort of program might a kid write where security is an issue? You care about security in web-connected systems where the consequences are relevant, but nothing a kid writes is going to interact with the internet or be used in a production environment.
You woudn't teach any sort of programming by starting with these "pull crap from a library" programming in any case, or do system-level programming. So, what can he do? Write a FFT program - that presumes that you know what an FFT
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I have worked with an after-school coding program for 4-6th graders for several years. My experience is that the best way to start kids out is 2D graphics. They can see the output, tell when it is wrong, and it looks cool when they get it right.
Start out by drawing a square, then a triangle, then a pentagram (5 point star). They not only learn coding, but also about angles, cartesian coordinates, and logical thinking.
After they master basic shapes, they move on to responding to mouse clicks, and making s
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Problem is, let's play coding is fun and not that difficult but immediately hits a wall, when you stop playing and start with real coding, that next step is big. Simple little problems become quite complex when you try to program solutions. It will likely become easier when it shifts to software engineering a problem and the software converts that engineering solution into actual code, which you would still have to debug et al for efficiency but the core would be done.
Lots of tech companies help schools, p
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The kid doesn't stay a kid forever and at some point in time I would expect him or her to do just that, write a FFT program, a closed-loop sim or a database program.
Else torturing the kid with learning how to program is kinda pointless. It's like torturing me with geography. A worthless endeavor that served no purpose in my professional life.
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"...but nothing a kid writes is going to interact with the internet..."
"...You woudn't teach any sort of programming by starting with these "pull crap from a library" programming in any case..."
Perhaps you should start by educating yourself on what and how children learn. You are clueless.
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What sort of program might a kid write that actually teaches any useful skills for a world were almost any useful piece of software is networked in some way? If we want coding education to be useful, it must not just be toy code that does nothing meaningful.
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No! We need more programmers! And the worse the better!
I am in IT-Sec. I call them by the endearing pet-name I have for those cargo-cult programmers: Total Job Security.
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Well to be fair, these moron coders (well, the subset that can actually produce code that at least works somewhat) are ensuring a significant portion of my main job (IT security consulting), so you have a point.
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Hello competitor!
Then again, there's plenty of jobs going around, there ain't really much competition. We're hiring, by the way. ;)
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As soon as you need reliability, security and performance, coding becomes anything but trivial. It also becomes something most people cannot master. Hence this just shows that 50% of parents have swallowed the propaganda.
The one thing humanity does not need is more bad coders. There are already far to many of them.
Exactly. The weird concept that everyone can code is like the concept that everyone can be the best athlete ever, or that we are all Einsteins if we only try hard enough.
The skillset that makes a person a proficient coder are very specific, and cannot be force fit into a person. The ability to concentrate, work alone and whatever endorphin buzz one gets when the coding works is close to opposite of the pop culture world and personal opinion as an education world that most young people consider kewl.
Cod
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Coders aint cool, but they perform a vital function. The efforts to force fit others into that world will just make for unhappy, bad coders.
And that is exactly it. Also, working conditions and salaries are only good at the top were it becomes really hard to replace them.
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Good point. My take also.
Its a matter of visibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Programmers are in high demand and command high salaries. Tech businesses own the world and basically print money. In addition, they have been blanketing our country with propaganda about how great a career is and how easy it is to learn coding. And it has worked, people believe this.
So, parents think their kids need to learn coding, to have stable careers and make lots of money.
None of this addresses the much-resisted fact that doing really well as a software developer requires above-average intelligenc
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This is basically the problem.
A couple years ago, everyone had to be a doctor. Your kid had to study medicine, or at least law, to have a chance later in life. And yes, we did need a couple qualified doctors back then. Lawyers not so much, but they come with the territory. Now we're sitting on a pile of mediocre quacks and shysters. Are all of them unqualified? Not at all, we also have a bunch of really awesome medical geniuses and star lawyers that can turn black into white and back with only a few words.
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That's not how school works. School serves two functions.
1. Give a general education in things like language, maths, social skills/civic knowledge, help kids develop into healthy adults.
2. Provide an opportunity to try different things, so kids can find out what they like and what they are good at, and to give them a broader understanding of the world.
I was lucky enough to be taught my first bit of coding at age 4, and although it was extremely simple it made me realize that machines were not magical black
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It's not trivial, which is kind of the point. That being said, I agree it doesn't have to be an end unto itself and there's no reason why it couldn't be more incorporated into existing classes. For example, I had one of my lab classes write short vbs scripts to control simulated instruments. Math has always been included in many non-math courses, skipping the theorem/proof concepts. The same can and should be done f
Critical reading skills (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me help you. The story starts with:
"According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey"
Questions that you should ask:
1. How does "more coding for children" help or hurt Microsoft?
2. How does "having big tech firms involved in helping schools" help or hurt Microsoft?
Answer those two questions, then read the claims again.
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This really boils down to if you believe that Microsoft has a genuine need for talented people or if you believe that Microsoft is trying to force down wages.
Same with H1B. Either you think Microsoft can't find the skills it needs so gets people in from other parts of the world (despite the extra costs to find those people, hire them and get them visas which are limited in number), or you think that Microsoft uses cheap foreign labour to drive down wages but for some reason doesn't just open a Bangalore off
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False dichotomy could not be more real if you tried to set up one.
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Parents need to be "instant experts" in so many things. I'm sure that many just use the term coding (or other even more loosely defined or misapplied terms) as a catch-all for the discipline of solving any sort of issue through software, I would not read any more nuance into it.
And in answer to "coding for what" I would say coding for the development of the child's mind. As an abstract peek at how to define problems and approach solutions, why some solutions are better than others. There's a wealth of lesso
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Coding was a great motivator for me when it came to learning boring maths, because I could see practical applications for it. I remember the first time we did algebra and it was all familiar BASIC variables.
Even in English language I started to care more about being able to spell, not least because I got fed up with syntax errors due to not remembering how many Ls are in "until"... I used to think "wend" was a word too. I was pretty young.
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C'mon, how could you resist the pun "It took me a while to find out wend isn't a word"?
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True, what I mean is I thought it was the word "wend" when it is in fact an abbreviation of "while end".
"Wending" was a fairly common word in children's literature of the day, which is probably where I heard it. Roads and paths were always wending through the hills and valleys, if not meandering too.
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Writing software is intended to serve a purpose, not just making programs for the hell of it. What the heck problem does a kid need to solve with software? Kids need to learn basic math and science, not screwing around with computers. Writing code is a trivial side issue related to solving other problems, not an end to itself.
Exactly. learning math, logic, and other problem solving skills would be far more beneficial no matter hat field a kid ultimately enters; since these are fundamental skills that can be broadly applied, vs. being able to code in (insert hot language of the moment). Coding, especially basic, will continue to migrate to the lowest price location; just like other labor intensive but relatively basic skill jobs.
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Re: Coding for what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well [cough cough] it seems unlikely that Microsoft could be biased here. I mean, its not like they would benefit from an excess of computer programmers.
Re: Coding for what? (Score:4, Interesting)
An excess of BAD computer programmers.
You can no more make 50% of the population good computer programmers than you can make 50% of the population symphony class musicians.
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You can make 50% good enough to do a lot of development work. There are tiers of developers. Most of the ones using those Javascript libraries or SQL databases wouldn't have the faintest idea of where to even begin implementing those technologies themselves, but produce useful applications anyway.
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An excess of BAD computer programmers.
You can no more make 50% of the population good computer programmers than you can make 50% of the population symphony class musicians.
This should be at +5. While I think that opportunities in learning how to code should be available in schools, this whole idea that we're going to somehow provide wonderful careers and fix perceived societal ills with teaching children the modern equivalent of "Hello World" and misguided effort to make coders into the kewl kids.
It is pretty easy to add a semester of low level coding to allow kids to see if they might be interested, and an option for schools to have a club for the same.
But I kinda doubt
Music and symphony class (Score:2)
You can no more make 50% of the population good computer programmers than you can make 50% of the population symphony class musicians.
You can't make everyone a "symphony orchestra"-class musicion.
But music is an art that plays an important part in human culture.
And thus it's good to at least have some rudimental ideas what music is.
Hence, music classes are thaugh in school, so everybody has an idea what this thing is. (Then, some - those that have a bit of talent, and a lot of perseverance - might go on and make career in music).
Same here. You can't make a Linus Torvalds or John Carmack out of 50% of the population.
But computer (and other
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From you, that's a compliment.
Retarded trolls disagreeing with me is a sign I'm right again.
Re: Coding for what? (Score:2)
Re: Coding for what? (Score:2)
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Excess bad of writers, atheletes, historians, mathematicians, wtf.
Indeed. "Some people are bad at X, therefore we shouldn't teach X" is a dumb argument.
My kids learned Scratch, then Python, then C++, then Java. My daughter got a 5 on her CS AP test. My son just completed an "AI bootcamp" summer program for teens. CS is the most-in-demand college degree. If you have bright kids, you are negligent if you are not teaching them this stuff.
But if you don't, no problem. My kids can use part of their $150k starting salary to pay your kids to clean their toilets. Please teach them to scrub under the rim.
My son is learning a lot of computer science stuff and learning several subjects because he wants to.
I'm not encouraging my kids into CS if they don't want to though... all in all it's a boring degree and leads to a boring work life. I wouldn't wish my kids to live through the same career I have. I'd much rather they go into medicine or law... like I should have done. I don't regret not going to med school, yeah, would have made 3 times the salary, but it wouldn't have been worth it; I do regret not goin
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Medical technology degrees are very in-demand. The 2017 Forbes list putting Finance at the top.
Those are for advanced degrees, not 4 year bachelors.
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Why would their government work against them?
Re: Coding for what? (Score:3)
If everyone can code, then coding wil be a worthless skill, meaning employers will assume you have it and won't pay a premium for the skill.
American public schools - preparing today's students for yesterday's lucrative jobs!
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If everyone can code, then coding wil be a worthless skill
If this were true, then locations where coding skills are rare, such as central Africa, would pay coders the most.
And locations where coders are common, such as the SF Bay Area, would pay them the least.
This is the exact opposite of reality.
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If you ignore the demand part of "supply and demand", it would actually be that way.
Come back when you learned economics 101.
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Wow, absolutely zero reading comprehension.
The statement was "If everyone can code, then coding wil be a worthless skill", not "everyone can code, therefore coding is a worthless skill".
Try to keep up, Bill.
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If everyone can read then reading will be a useless skill.
If everyone knew math then math would be a useless skill.
While they are at it, they should teach kids that their coding skills are interchangeable with everyone else's, that every problem is shallow, anticipated and already solved by a pattern, that every task requires the same set of skills, that future learning and experience are irrelevant, that their effort only amounts to units of work, that the only thing of value is their burn rate, that they
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If everyone can code, then coding wil be a worthless skill, meaning employers will assume you have it and won't pay a premium for the skill.
American public schools - preparing today's students for yesterday's lucrative jobs!
I agree with what you wrote. Except that everyone won't be actual proficient coders. This everyone codes effort is an unholy alliance of business interests who want a source of cheap labor, people who want to change the demographics of STEM, and those always optimistic folks who preach "You can be anything you want if you only try hard enough."
I suspect that all three groups will fail completely. Perhaps if students are pre-selected for the "right" demographic, and forced into the field, the first two gro
Why stop there? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's just teach all of our children brain surgery, far more lucrative than programming. After all, anyone can do it, right?
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Anyone can do it. Doing it right is another matter.
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I've been reading Amature Doctor magazine for 25 years. If that doesn't make me a doctor, I don't know what does.
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Doc, I have a problem. I have this medication that says "take a teaspoon with some water before dinner". I did that for two weeks, now I'm out of teaspoons and my tummy aches.
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Well, it ain't rocket science...
Re: Why stop there? (Score:2)
Actually most people couldn't solve end of high school level math problems. So they suck at math.
According to a Microsoft-commissioned survey... (Score:4, Insightful)
End of story.
My career has about 10 years left then! (Score:3)
Maybe a bit late to the party? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would imagine that for new students, by the time they reach of the end of their schooling, the landscape will be completely different.
We are already starting to see programs that will code for you. I could imagine in the not too distant future, there will be no need to know code. "Programmers" will be more akin to architects, arranging code blocks like Legos to get the desired outcome. The program will do the rest for them to complete the application.
I think that things are advancing fast enough that we will surely see this type of situation before my children are grown.
Personally, I feel that time is better spend learning core disciplines, like mathematics, physics and especially critical thinking skills. I think when you have a good grasp on core areas, that it becomes much easier to derive the correct answer in other areas.
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People were saying "computers will program themselves" long before I was born.
But I agree on spending time on other disciplines instead.
What simple computer programming introductions do though is to show that you can make your computer do your bidding, not the other way around.
If we can have special courses, maybe it doesn't have to be computers. I wish they made us do e.g. woodworking (this type of things existed in my country decades before my birth). Learning "i=i+1" isn't that hard when you spend over a
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People keep making these grand predictions, but all they result in are Fisher-Price toys. Non-programmers think if only they could learn the language, they would become well-paid hackers. Programmers realize the languages are actually designed for concepts like logic, reason, formalism, and other things non-programmers will never grasp, regardless of the language or the interface.
Until computers can have an everyday conversation with an idiot trying to accomplish something they have no business accomplish
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Exactly this. Learning the language doesn't make you a programmer. Unless you have the right mindset, think through the logic, and so forth at best you're going to be a code monkey one step above flinging feces.
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Programming languages are a tool. At best. Knowing a language does not make you any more a programmer than knowing how to hold a hammer makes you a carpenter.
Re:Maybe a bit late to the party? (Score:4, Insightful)
People have been predicting the lego-block coding future for the last thirty years at least, and it's still not here. Thirty years from now, it will still be "just around the corner."
Oh, I'm sure it will happen to some degree eventually, but if you've ever worked in a complex production environment with thousands of fragile moving parts, you'd understand how terribly far away from that dream we really are. Essentially, it's still a complete fantasy for all but the most trivial of toy projects.
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I remember reading exactly the same thing in the 90s, and in old magazines from the 80s, and then in CS history books about the 60s.
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It's called an "IDE," an Integrated Development Environment.
They're popular, but they also don't really achieve anything. The devil remains in the details.
You can make it as easy as lego, and yet as with lego, anybody can stuff a few blocks together, but building something interesting to other people is much harder. Now, build something life-sized that solves some sort of problem that some human is describing to you...
I have heard this before... (Score:2)
PowerBuilder, anyone?
100% of asked parents... (Score:3)
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it's fine, more than 7 / 8ths of people can't code anyway so it's not like anything much would happen
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Hello? Remember it's a GLOBAL economy (Score:1)
Those parents should be asking where the majority of Fortune 500 companies (and mom and pop outfits too) currently get their coding done, and then consider if they want their precious snowflakes to spend their school years learning a trade that is almost completely outsourced (and certainly will be in the next decade with various countries racing to the bottom bidding for coding and IT jobs). Does little Johnny want to compete with a foreign programmer that is perfectly happy making $50US a day?
Self Coding AI (Score:2)
Looking forward to the day we can just feed AI a set of plain language requirements and it will code everything for us.
oh god; Bad survey or AMericans have lost it (Score:4)
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This is the result of big name tech companies dumping money in to flooding markets they don't want to pay high salaries for. When they're also advising the gov't what do you expect? You live in a corporate oligarchy. Money decides all things.
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More Microsoft Store offerings? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do have a degree in Computer Science. I was never a programmer, except in college.
That being said, I never wanted my child to learn coding as anything other than as another tool to solve problems, not as a profession.
Critical thinking and problem solving skills were always more important to learn. Knowing the right questions to ask, and having the ability to know when someone was "stretching the truth" or outright lying to your face.
There are other far more valuable computer tracks than programming, like Network Security specialties. Design, and architecture that pay far more than programming.
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Critical thinking and problem solving skills?
I hope you're homeschooling. Or at least have something planned to undo the damage public schools do in those areas.
Of course (Score:2)
Why wouldn't they? Everybody has been telling them that.
In reality, the tech firms want to flood the market to push down wages.
As a parent of two children... (Score:4, Insightful)
The parents also said (Score:3)
everything they know about coding they learned from Hollywood movies.
A little dispiriting if they just hire H2B Visas (Score:2)
What is easier for companies... helping prepare the next generation of American workers by ensuring they get a good education in... whatever... or hiring H2B visa workers that have whatever skill they want at a lower rate than the US rate?
They'll never care so long as you let them do that.
Wrong-o (Score:3)
I'm a coder.
I've been coding since the mid-1970's.
These parents are all wrong.
Coding is dead.
Not yet but soon there will be no need for coders.
10 years, maybe less.
It's going to become a gourmet thing.
Something people do for fun perhaps.
Like art but not as a profession.
Getting kids into coding is not preparing them for a future career.
It's a great introduction to thinking clearly.
But be realistic.
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I'm a coder too. And I would still be a coder if I never wrote another program. I code many times a day for things other than writing programs because it is the most convenient way to solve all sorts of problems.
Coding is just problem solving, and it is an excellent way to do so. I think if a kid can write a script on the spot to solve a problem in math, it is the same as writing the equations out on paper. If they can write something to draw a picture, it is the same as doing it with pen and paper. If they
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Coding is dead.
Not yet but soon there will be no need for coders.
10 years, maybe less.
I think you vastly overestimate the abilities of AI and I think you vastly underestimate human thought.
AI can "navigate" endless probabilities, such as playing Go, but it can not navigate the subtleties of responding to the question of "Why?". Answering "Why?" is very important as it is used to feed the next stage of what happens next. An example of a "Why?" that is important: Why do humans do anything besides eat, procreate, and sleep?
Without an answer to that, AI will not be able to figure anything out th
This isn't surprising (Score:2)
American companies don't hire rank and file code monkeys anymore. They outsource or use H1-Bs if they need somebody onshore. The last thing on earth you should do is go to school for programming. Yes, there are still top end programming jobs in cryto and security, but that's not really programming, it'
This happened during the dotcom boom (Score:2)
Lots of people that weren't really into coding learned how to be shitty coders, and got their relevant piece of paper about the time the market for coders went to shit.
The shitwinds are blowin....
I'm OK with this... (Score:2)
For some reason, people see coding as a way to write programs. I don't understand that.
I am a computer engineer and can say that ever since learning how to code, I've routinely used coding as a means to solve problems - one time problems.
I code to code. If I'm editing code that I know has a pattern to it (almost everything does), I find it faster to throw the pattern into a macro than to use manual means - even for one time use. Because of this, I prefer editors with macro languages that look like regular p
Big tech firms should be helping schools? (Score:2)
How about they just pay some taxes- that will help the schools.
Coding == Unlocking Student Creativity & Poten (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as a former software engineer who is now a k-12 coding instructor, the justification for this initiative is unlocking student creativity and potential. Teaching kids some block-based coding skills through Code.org or Scratch and helping them to build some basic games unleashes a torrent of creativity. It unlocks their imagination and improves their problem solving skills as they learn to craft and debug more complex programs.
I'm amazed almost every week at the things my students come up with after some minimal guidance and instruction. No, most of them will never become professional coders or compete for your job, but most will have a better understanding of the increasingly digital world we live in and be able to imagine or even create new ways to interact with it. It's not a coding cure-all, but it is a worthy initiative and for some kids, it can be a game-changer.
Apart from it being a waste of time (Score:2)
CS done right is expensive. Given that education (the teaching bit), has been slowly but systematically gutted since the hey day of the 60â(TM)s, it beggars belief that if CS is to be an area of effort that it will be funded in any meaningful manner.
When I was in high school... (Score:2)
When I was in high school, we were taught typing, and there was this assumption that everyone should learn MS Word and MS Excel. I never understood why these tools would be useful, and moreso didn't know why anyone would ever need training to use them anyway.
This seems like the same thing to me. People who don't know what coding is or accomplishes assume that because they keep hearing that coding is a critical path to the future that all kids will need it. They won't. There's a future where AI will ha
And here's why it doesn't work (Score:4, Insightful)
The first mistake here is to call it "coding". Writing the code is the last step of a long way, and arguably the least difficult one. A parallel you could give to the non-techs is building a house, coding would be the bricklaying part. Yes, it has to be done, but it's arguably the part that earns the least amount of money. What comes before is planning, designing, logistics and probably a lot more steps that I, as someone who doesn't build houses for a living, won't even think about. Programming is quite similar.
With the main difference that writing the code isn't a big enough part that you would usually hire people to even do it and instead you just do it yourself.
The next problem is that people only see the likes of Torvalds or Brin and think that all they really do is push a few buttons and "write code", and that it should be possible to simply teach this. What they omit is that not only is "this computer stuff" way different than law or economy, fields where rote learning does actually get you somewhere. Unfortunately, since solving problems that have already been solved is useless in this field (unlike the aforementioned economy or law where solving the same problems over and over is pretty much a staple of the field), you actually have to understand what you're doing. At least if you want to make it big.
And that's the next problem people omit. Those that really strike it big don't treat this as a 9 to 5 job, where they drop the pencil (or the keyboard) at 5, go home and never think about computers until the next day at 9am when they have to again. We don't have to think about computers. We want to. We enjoy solving mathematical problems and coating them in code. We enjoy watching a well written program execute and do its job. We don't think "when is that project finally done" but "hope I have some time left to improve this bit here".
THAT is the difference. That differentiates those that won't from those that can and do.
And that is not different from any other field. A surgeon will not be a sought after specialist if he doesn't constantly improve his skills, in his spare time and at his own expense. A star lawyer isn't someone who does the same shit every day but someone who takes every new law that he comes across and ponders long and hard how to abuse. And a great marketing guru isn't the guy that runs the same campaign over and over but someone who understands trends and uses them to put his product on top of it.
THIS is the key to success. Not studying the flavor of the month field because this is where the money is. The money is, and has always been, in being one of the few really GOOD ones in your field.
Parent here- (Score:2)
I hate that big tech is involved in my sons school day. Most of his coursework is now done on chrome-books, but nobody can tell me what happens to the huge amount of data he generates by using the Chromebook 6 hours a day in a controlled setting.
The best I get from google is, "We will not use this data to target ads on the chrome-book."
This is such a bullshit lawyer line it makes me sick. I didn't ask what you are NOT doing with the data, and I never cared about where you use the data.
I want to know what yo
Misplaced priorities (Score:2)
What is more important?
Learning to "code" or learning personal finance that one would use nearly every day of their lives?
Re: Languages to learn for kids (Score:2)
I agree. That's why I discourage from learning an Apple specific language like Swift. And yes I know in theory it can be used on other platforms.
Re: (Score:2)
My guess is that the other 50% are composite with 20% coming from the bible studies fanatics you mention, 20% are deadbeats that don't give a fuck and the remaining 10% are parents that actually have an idea what programming is like and what's needed for it.