Coding coming to B.C. schools

[hobbyguy]

I think this is a great idea. I hope the follow through makes it a regular part of the curriculum.

My reasoning is that I have always lamented the lack of foundation in our educational systems for logic. Teaching logic helps students no matter where their abilities lead them. Coding is an inherently logical process. Teaching logic per se is rather a dry subject, but through coding the students will absorb a lot of logic.

When I was hiring folks for manufacturing and warehousing jobs, I found that logical thinking was a good indicator for a good hire - so it isn't just a "white collar" type thing.

[spooker]

Being a coder since the early 80's I've always gotten friends that have asked me to teach them how to code ... my response was always, "ok, let's go buy a bike from Walmart" ... their puzzled look always required an explanation

Programming a computer is all about problem solving, same idea behind solving word problems in math ... take a large problem/task and break it down into smaller pieces that you can then teach a computer how to do in the limited syntax that's available ... you have to look at all the parts of a bicycle and figure out what has to be assembled first before you can have a fully working bicycle, logical and functional

Teaching kids to code is going to enable them to apply the same processes to anything in life ... nothing is daunting when you can look at a goal and work out all the small steps that are required to get there

(While I am skeptical of our Liberal governments motives, I do think this needs to happen)

[Rosemary1]

A good idea. It will all be in the implementation. I do not have a lot of confidence in plan to train all teachers to teach coding either. A better plan would be to create a specific teaching position for someone specializing in coding and technology in general to teach such classes.

[36Drew]

Programming a computer is all about problem solving, same idea behind solving word problems in math ... take a large problem/task and break it down into smaller pieces that you can then teach a computer how to do in the limited syntax that's available ... you have to look at all the parts of a bicycle and figure out what has to be assembled first before you can have a fully working bicycle, logical and functional

Sort of. If it were simply about problem-solving, then math could suffice. In practice, the curriculum could survive with some algebra and some basic Logo.

The programming paradigms of today are vastly different than the procedural programming you would have practiced in the early 80's. Very little is developed in a procedural method any more. Today's modern languages have far surpassed even the basics of functional programming (of which objects exist in). Programming models such as actors, futures and promises, reactive programming are quite commonplace in modern software development. Modern languages (compiled or interpreted) and technologies are very different from the days of learning basic on a Commodore 64 or Apple II.

Good on the province for trying to further improve students' knowledge of technology. Let's just hope they're not trying to teach concepts that are 50 years out of date.

[maryjane48]

is it possible for a computer to write code with out human coaching ?

[spooker]

is it possible for a computer to write code with out human coaching ?

There have been rudimentary attempts where a template is built by a human and then used to piece together another program based on a set of rules that use templates to assemble something else.

But the human is still needed to design the solution and parameters that the computer uses to generate the code.

[36Drew]

There have been rudimentary attempts where a template is built by a human and then used to piece together another program based on a set of rules that use templates to assemble something else.

But the human is still needed to design the solution and parameters that the computer uses to generate the code.

Probably the best example I can think of is the SDK generator for the AWS API Gateway (which we use at $work).

You can define your API as a swagger doc (YAML or JSON, both being a markup DSL) and import it. You can then generate an SDK bundle for one of the supported languages. It's magic.

However, somebody still had to write the functionality for API Gateway and the related tooling, and the generated SDK itself isn't actual running software - it's just a library suite to allow you to use the API you've defined without having to write that chunk of code yourself.

[jetty1965]

I think its a very good idea. I had no exposure to computers until I reached post secondary. Took classes in Basic and Fortran, turned out I really liked programming. So I think the kids having exposure to coding is very progressive teaching. Learning about databases would be good too.