back to article Should we teach our kids how to program humanity out of existence?

"Kids tend to spend far too much of their childhood in an unproductive way," it says here. I quite agree. It was the same when I was a child. All that counting numbers and spelling words they made me do over the years was a massive drain on my television-watching time. "Research shows that children have an increasing problem …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder if this will accidentally have the opposite effect. Many of my age learned to program in our own time because it was fun and interesting.

    Make it a 'subject' from an early age and suddenly everybody will be trying to get away from it and we'll end up with a generation of programmers who are solely university trained. Ie: know absolutely fuck all because they had no inclination to learn on their own.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      Oh I don't know about that, first contact I had with a personal computer was at school, aged 11. And from that moment I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life was making that machine do what I told it to! Convinced my parents and remaining family to contribute to buy me a ZX Spectrum for my birthday (I was one of the first kids in school to have one, with much envy around), started programming BASIC, then moved to assembler then started making money writing small programmes and games, until it was enough to buy my first proper PC (a Schneider with - not one! - but two floppy disk drives!), rinse, repeat. And still going strong (although less hands-on and more SW design now).

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        But if it had been a "proper subject" that you learned at school you would all have been in rows chanting the table of Sinclair basic commands and memorising memory addresses to regurgitate in exams.

        That would probably have put you off about as effectively as times-tables puts people off appreciating maths.

        1. MonkeyCee

          Hmmm

          My experience of IT teaching in schools is it's a position that's either held by the oldest non-STEM teaching member and functions as a bad introduction to word processing (typing classes -> computer classes) or it's run by an enthusiastic young 'un (and thus highly variable). Almost always there where *much* better "computer as a tool" subjects where the computers where incidental to the work, but alos provided much more useful skills. Art classes using Adobe products, GIS stuff in geography, video editing in drama etc.

          Programming also hasn't suffered too much (yet) from pointless fuckery from on high, which is often the issue for many of the hated subjects at school. I've a fairly high level of math knowledge/ability, and so have tutored many a struggling student, and I've yet to find anyone who didn't *get* it if you bother to explain it in terms the can relate to. Trig can seem horribly complicated, but relate it to physical objects and it's fairly simple to understand. Algebra is calculating constant unknowns, again physical visualisations often work. Applied statistics to games makes it more appreciable. The biggest hurdle is often that the student does understand, but thinks "it can't be this simple" and then puts an extra hurdle in their way.

          As for times tables.... didn't that go out with the dinosaurs? It still seems a bit preferential to the "enforced" teaching of new math, despite the fact that "new math" is closer to how I do mental arithmetic, it seems to focus on the steps rather than the principle. The main points of times tables (to me at least) was to identify possible factors quickly. Even numbers divide by 2; if the sum of the digits of a number is a multiple of 3, the it divides by 3; multiples of 5 end in 0 or 5, multiples of 10 end in 0. Breaking steps into easier to compute chunks.

          Teaching using an abacus is also quite neat if you want fast mental computations instead of using paper, although even when I'm visualising it my fingers still twitch when doing the calculations. Even though I've never used it in anger, using a slide rule is also great for younger minds.

          I'm also often surprised by which things I was taught in school that have been the most useful to me in my adult life. Knowing how to (safely) use a sewing machine, axe, bandsaw, circular saw, soldering iron, drill press, lathe and potters wheel have all served me well, while being taught how to make a piece of wood square using only hand tools and how to write a balanced budget are things that I've spent waaaaay more time post school than many of my academic subjects.

          For whatever reason politicians (and Jo Public) seem to think they not only know more about education than educators, but they get to fuck around with it. As compared to almost any other area, where at least some bowing to reality is done.

    2. Tom 7

      I did sciences at A level and read the books that the english students were made to study - I loved them, they hated them. I started programming at 15 on bits of paper someone took to the tech and returned with the (shit) results. We programmed in FORTRAN IV (not shouting it was uppercase then) on an almost permanently 'hardware fault'ed ICL mainframe at uni and then a PDP11 for a term. That started to get interesting and managed to simulate a nuclear bomb - not what I should have been doing!

      What really turned me on to programming was, as a chip designer when CAD was at about puberty level, was realising how much work I could get computers to do rather than me having to do it.

      Laziness is the true mother of invention - but you cant really appreciate the true power of programming until you've done that shit by hand first.

  2. PhilipN Silver badge

    "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

    Agreed! Star Trek was rumoured to be based on episodes from the Odyssey. Kojak clearly derived inspiration from Aesop and other classicists. Noggin the Nog was existential and the Magic Roundabout surreal. By comparison the infrequent value of formal schooling was for example limited to finding out where Jethro Tull got the name.

    1. m0rt

      Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

      Surreal - you want surreal? Take a look at Chorleton and the Wheelies, Willo the Wisp, Jamie and the Magic Torch, Mr Ben. Kids' TV was ace back then.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

        Surreal - you want surreal?

        Waddaya expect. Those were made when running a blood sample of a children entertainment professional would have shown an off-the-scale amount of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Magic Mushrooms and Good Ole Dope.

        Those days are sadly long gone - the past time of choice is now Bolivian Marching Powder or Bolivian Marching Powder. Expecting surreal (or creative) from someone who had a good line of that is overly optimistic. At best. So you get gung-ho shows where the characters (or contestants) do stupid things fast with lots of energy. As expected from someone running on a fresh supply of Colombian Supreme. Surreal? Strange? Weird? Creative? Some other time.

        1. Mage Silver badge

          Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

          "children entertainment professional would have shown an off-the-scale amount of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Magic Mushrooms and Good Ole Dope."

          Doesn't sound like Oliver Postgate

        2. LionelB Silver badge

          Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

          Surreal? Strange? Weird? Creative? Some other time.

          So you've never seen Adventure time or The Amazing World of Gumball or Spongebob Squarepants or ... (or Teletubbies, for that matter).

          1. macjules

            Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

            HAH! Your surrealist argument pales into globular fractal distortions when we can mention such luminaries as The Clangers and Pogles' Wood (Oliver Postgate, you are my God .. well, almost), The Banana Splits, Camberwick Green, Crystal Tipps and Alistair (cry Scott Adams, I know where you got Dilbert from), Trumpton or The Wobbles.

      2. Tom 7

        Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

        I was off work ill one day when I saw a cartoon called Dr Snuggles - it was brilliant. I put it down to Hills Bronchial Balsam which contained morphine acetate in those days. I set the video for other episodes.

        Found out many years later some of it was written by John Lloyd and Douglas Adams. Almost as good as Maid Marion and her Merry Men!

      3. Long John Brass

        Re: "a massive drain on my television-watching time"

        Vision-On was also a favourite :)

  3. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Programming or coding?

    Placing coloured blocks of code is still a form of programming being it a robot or whatever. Will this arouse interest in the kids to later on pursue a career in IT? Or should they rather learn to write actual programs and feel the real pleasures of coding assembly and stuff?

    I'm actually with disgustedoftunbridgewells on this. About 25 years ago cooking classes became mandatory for all pupils around here (before only for the female). Did this lead to a surge in boys becoming chefs? Certainly not. And when thinking about domestic cookery I believe Jamie Oliver had by far a greater impact than those classes taught at school.

    What is needed for children to choose a certain career path are positive experiences or role models in the respective profession. They might be found in school - for someone wanting to become a teacher. But role models for most other professions are rather found outside school and its curriculum.

    1. m0rt

      Re: Programming or coding?

      I had a Bigtrak. It was fun. I bought one of the recent re-released smaller jobbies for my nephew. It kept him entertained for at least an hour.

      I only wish the Blue flashy 'weapon' actually had real lasers*. But then this was when CD players were cutting edge tech.

      "But role models for most other professions are rather found outside school and its curriculum."

      And here you are bang on. Teaching is about effective teachers. Not role models, not mentors, not social workers, not childcare. But teaching.

      Sometimes I think this is lost sight of by the same class of people who attribute big data to a large apache log file, as AO recently wittily stated.

      FLASHBACK: What was that turtle robot thing that used the LOGO programming language? (bings** it) - HA - it was called the Turtle. Happy days...

      * Sorry, I obviously mean Frikkin' Lasers.

      ** Did I buggery. I used google like every other whipped 'net user.

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Programming or coding?

        I only wish the Blue flashy 'weapon' actually had real lasers

        Never had a Bigtrak myself, always coveted one.

        The boys, however, do have one of the (smaller) modern re-creations. It came with a Nerf-gun style accessory. There is nothing like a bit of wanton destruction to motivate an 11 year-old. Set up a Lego model or a pile of no-longer-used building blocks or a row of minifigures and see how much of it you can program the Bigtrak to destroy given just four "missiles" and a limited amount of program memory.

        I agree with Mr. Dabbs that "logic" is the first hurdle that must be overcome, and children really seem to find it hard breaking problems down into steps, but the way to do it is to give them motivation.

        In the case of the boys it was a Bigtrak and destruction.

        In the case of my youngest girl it was the crushed-upon teacher at school who ran the afterschool coding club. Said 7 year-old came home from school one day, fired up a web browser and "programmed" from scratch (not with Scratch, but something similar) a "collect all the apples" game in about 15 minutes, complete with score, re-spawning apples etc. I watched her do it. The only things she imported were the images!

        I'm re-doing the heating at home. How's this for incentive? Each bedroom will have its own heating zone and a thermostat, probably constructed from an Arduino. If they don't learn how to program it before the winter, they'll freeze :-)

        M.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Programming or coding?

          "[...] and children really seem to find it hard breaking problems down into steps,"

          The problem I found with many IT people was that they could only think in serial steps. Introduce a timing race or some parallel computation and their brains just seized up. Several times they would produce a solution that was a series of linked building blocks. Yet the efficient answer recognised that most of the intermediate steps were an unnecessary "druidic ritual". They didn't see the big picture - just each hurdle as they came to it.

          There's always the "obvious" way - and then there is the "lateral" way that takes insight and innovation.

          1. Martin an gof Silver badge

            Re: Programming or coding?

            The problem I found with many IT people was that they could only think in serial steps

            Hmm, good point. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "steps", but rather "units of work". If you can't identify individual units of work in a problem it's difficult to get the problem solved. Once you have identified units of work you can then work out which ones are dependent ("I can't do this until I've finished doing that") and which ones are independent ("These two actions can happen at the same time").

            The beauty of something like Scratch is that each block of program is effectively independent and this sort of thing comes naturally.

            For the rest of us who grew up with linear Z80 or 6502 assembler, awful Sinclair BASIC or the vastly better BBC Basic, it's a big step. Maybe we should be teaching combinatorial logic, Boolean Algebra and even Gantt charts at primary school...

            M.

            1. m0rt

              Re: Programming or coding?

              @ Martin an gof

              "Maybe we should be teaching combinatorial logic, Boolean Algebra and even Gantt charts at primary school..."

              You utter, utter sadist.

              Were you a PE teacher in a previous life?

              1. Martin an gof Silver badge

                Re: Programming or coding?

                Were you a PE teacher in a previous life?

                Sorry, no :-) I did teach (primary) briefly, but I was rubbish at it so I went back to engineering.

                We had to do Gantt charts as part of my engineering degree (business studies!). I still haven't recovered, and I still haven't found a real-life use for them that can't be done more easily in another way(*).

                On the other hand I did quite enjoy flowcharts and Boolean algebra and binary maths when I did my A-levels. It turned out to be the last year those subjects were mandatory in A-level computer science for that particular exam board.

                M.

                (*)That said, we're about to embark on a huge project at home. This is the sort of thing that Gantt charts are supposedly designed for. I might give it a go.

                Or I might not.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Programming or coding?

            There's always the "obvious" way - and then there is the "lateral" way that takes insight and innovation.

            The problem with the "lateral" way is that its more error prone and harder to debug those errors when they occur, and much more difficult to understand once the "genius" who came up with it departs for his next great adventure in asshattery.

            There is a reason we break things down in to logical small blocks, it fucking works.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Programming or coding?

              "There is a reason we break things down in to logical small blocks, [...]"

              Not necessarily. It is easy to end up with bloatware that has many interface mismatches because no one tied them down to very unambiguous definitions.

              I once took on a project with one colleague to produce an enhancement to a system. The development department had pronounced it "impossible" - after the contract was already signed. In spite of that we delivered a fully working system three weeks ahead of the customer's deadline. It ran for many years with no major problems.

              At the same time a large project team was assembled to produce an almost identical enhancement for another customer. The project was abandoned after about nine months having not produced any working code.

              The difference was that my colleague and I knew the hardware and software inside out. One of our first tasks was to rip out some previous "blister" enhancements - and replace them with an orthogonal solution that meshed with the original designer's intentions for expansion.

              The other project's large team had no one who knew the hardware and software intimately. They assumed that it was just a task of defining changes for their proverbial Chinese army of coders.

              That happened many times in my career. You had to do the hard graft understanding how things worked before you could come up with design that would work within the constraints. It was not erudite obfuscation - but elegant simplicity. The chameleon tweak - rather than a large coding blister.

            2. wayne 8

              Re: Programming or coding?

              Use the 80/20 rule.

              80% of coding could be done visually with predefined code blocks and objects. Challenging, but ho hum. Code monkeys.

              Leaving 20% of coding that needs a dev who can visualize the solution to solve a new situation.

              I would rather work on the 20% issues, coming up with new solutions.

              I learned to code, then I was able to understand calculus by coding the formulas into a computer and printing (ascii art) the integral, etc. The finer the granularity of the iterations gets a closer approximation of the answer. I could see what was going on. I was math phobic up until that moment.

              Later I taught remedial math for a summer to sixth grade boys. One issue was multiplying a four digit number by a three digit number, they were all sure they could not do it. I broke the problem into the smaller steps they could grasp. The ahh moments followed. They had learned basic, general problem solving.

              The point being the ability to visualize lower level details matters sometimes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Programming or coding?

      My bet is that the Great British Bake Off has had the most impact on convincing people that baking is fun and worthwhile. I'm a beneficiary of that as SWMBO has taken up baking to a delicious extent - she's gone from a bad cook to an excellent one.

      I can't see The Great British Code Off being such great TV though.

      1. d3vy

        Re: Programming or coding?

        I considered Britain's got talent once..

        Lowell : "What's your talent?"

        Me : Im pretty good at c#

        I would then proceed to sit on stage with a laptop swearing intermittently for a few hours before showing them my creation.

        Golden buzzer material I think you'll agree!

        1. wayne 8

          Re: Programming or coding?

          For reality show add various team members, including a raj, interrupting every five to seven minutes.

          The raj will ask "how long will it take to complete the code?" To which I responded, "It will now take the amount of time I have spent talking to you plus whatever time it takes."

          I never got promoted there, but the raj never bothered me again.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Programming or coding?

      What? No design, documentations nor tests?

      At least they are allowed to do what they like to achieve it. I was told by my manager that I can only change 2 files to implement the new stuff - I ended up changing 6 files.

      I have already told him I plan to resign a few months ago so I can do whatever I like. If he keeps up this stupid manager knows all act. I will just walk out immediately.

      May be this is something the kids can learn - don't take shit from incompetent management/government :P

      1. Chris G

        Re: Programming or coding?

        I'm right there with you AC, I have a General Manager who gets three estimates or prices for everything he does ( I think that includes bog paper each day) even if it is for something urgent. Always gives a finish date way before the real one and then keeps moving it back bit by bit. Most of the questions he asks are either just stupid or just so that he can say something.

        I have called him a cupid stunt to his face twice so far and give my opinions loudly, all he does is slap me on the shoulder occasionally and asks if everything is OK, then he runs off before I can reply.

        For kids now as always in the past, teaching them to read and comprehend, to spell and write

        (whether it is with a pen,pencil or keyboard),and basic arithmetic and maths in an interesting and relevant to life format.

        Once you have those foundations then teach logic and problem solving, engineering , the sciences and coding but not in the dry dusty manner that most of my teachers taught in.

        If children can't relate to what they are being taught, it just becomes rote and only for passing exams, make it relevant and interesting and they might want to do it for it's own sake.

    4. Bernard M. Orwell

      Re: Programming or coding?

      "Placing coloured blocks of code is still a form of programming..."

      Not only is it a good introduction to logic and program flow, in some corners visual coding is becoming the way forward. For a good example take a nose around Unreal Engine 4, which is possibly the best game-creation middleware available right now. Whilst you can code in C# for it, in the classical manner, it's primary interface is a drag and drop, box and block affair which is both intuitive (mostly) and very powerful.

      I've also come across coding tools for VR which consist of blocks, icon and snap tools for creating logic structures.

      Fascinating stuff, and I suspect the way of the future. Not that this should be a surprise for us at all - I cut my teeth writing assembler and turbo-pascal, but I can't remember the last time I did any coding in such a limited framework; since the advent of .net portability or even OO structure.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Bernard M. Orwell - Re: Programming or coding?

        Yeah, but in order to get to see the logic and structure and stuff you had to start with assembler and Pascal. You get to know what makes the difference between a software engineer and a code monkey.

        As for a limited framework, I would invite you to write a device driver using the intuitive and powerful drag and drop block and box interface.

      2. Mark 85

        Re: Programming or coding?

        "Placing coloured blocks of code is still a form of programming..."

        Not only is it a good introduction to logic and program flow, in some corners visual coding is becoming the way forward.

        While this is probably true..there's still going to be one of "us" sitting a darkened room with a large monitor, a large coffee or tea cup, a pile of reference books that will write the code that lets other paly with the blocks.

  4. d3vy

    Is that what "kill all humans" block does in scratch?

    1. DropBear
      Devil

      We can only hope "human" is declared as float and direct "==" comparison attempts will fail more often than not...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Is it programming?

    Yes it IS programming. Very basic.

    I think the oldest example of programming is rope wrapped around a spindle/axle of an old automated cart* in Greece. It could be "programmed" where to go, by which direction the rope was wound, and so could drive onto stage, change direction, and drive back all by its self.

    l guess all programming is logic operations. Then understanding sequential and parallel commands and logic trees.

    *Bucket of water/sand/rocks on a long rope pulled down by gravity to drive it along: https://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-robot-from-60ad.html

    and: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526111-600-the-programmable-robot-of-ancient-greece/

    1. Maty
      Headmaster

      Re: Is it programming?

      '... old automated cart in Greece.'

      Alexandria is not in Greece. It's in Egypt. The guy who did it worked for the Library in Alexandria, and had the name of Hero. He also developed a steam engine (the aeliopile) and the world's first vending machine.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is it programming?

        "Alexandria is not in Greece. It's in Egypt."

        I think Egyptians just get tired of reminding people that (a) they aren't Arabs and (b) when European archaeologists were excavating ancient Egyptian civilisation, they should have had the humility to consider that when the Egyptians were constructing stone cities and long term planning grain storage using papyrus-based ERP systems, the ancestors of the archaeologists were living in wattle huts with smokeholes.

        1. DropBear

          Re: Is it programming?

          "should have had the humility to consider that when the Egyptians were constructing stone cities"

          Sic transit gloria mundi. Everyone knows how much "respect" yelling "first!" gets you in any forum. They actually got it lucky with barely a missing nose compared to Ozymandias...

          1. Vincent Ballard
            Coat

            Um

            Ozymandias was an Egyptian pharoah. Ramses II, to be precise.

      2. DropBear
        Trollface

        Re: Is it programming?

        "The guy who did it worked for the Library in Alexandria, and had the name of Hero."

        Hmmm. Weird. I could swear I haven't read that Neal Stephenson book yet...

  6. d3vy

    If we are going to teach kids for IT careers we should do it right.

    Start with some vague requirements, "ok Timmy build me a robot that brings me things"

    Then supply the wrong tools, maybe give them duplo.

    Then tell them they only have until bedtime (you should spring this on them just before bed time) (also note that "bed time should not be substantiated, there is no actual time just a vague indication that it's some time in the future).

    Then change the nature of what you want... it's not to just bring me things, I want SPECIFIC things. Keep adding new things without extending the deadline.

    Finally tell them that they are being outsourced as you have found some Indian kids that will do it faster and for less money*

    *Bonus points give it two weeks then tell them that the outsourcing has gone titsup and they have to do it again (but to the timeline agreed by the outsourcer - dinner time!)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Childcatcher

      Don't they...

      Also have to train the other kids? I always got into trouble for not being a good example...

      1. d3vy

        Re: Don't they...

        That's optional...

        It can be more fun to let the outsourcer do their own thing then give it back to your kids to support later (again with no training and little understanding of what the outsourced kids did)

        1. d3vy

          Re: Don't they...

          You should also give the outsourced kids your kids pocket money (probably more too) to add to the realism.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: d3vy

          Oh, I use to get that too, handed something by the brothers, then when the parents walk in, it's MY fault!

          Wait, are we talking about immature kids getting into trouble and arguing, or about children and parenting?

      2. Mark 85

        Re: Don't they...

        Also have to train the other kids? I always got into trouble for not being a good example...

        Yes, but be sure the "other kids" don't have your kid's native language as their native language. And add in some PHB equivalent between them for "clarification" purposes.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      That'd drive any kid mental and put them off it for life. It would also be self-evident to anyone that the adult is asking the kid to do nonsensical things.

      Can someone tell me why we are doing this again?

    3. Eric Olson
      Coffee/keyboard

      To increase the realism, find a second person to provide a not quite similar set of requirements through a friend who'll act as a business analyst on the project. Then demand that the one robot satisfies both possible users with no trade-offs or compromises. This way, they both can learn the joys of being set up for failure and conflict by indifferent (or malicious) management.

    4. wayne 8

      Interfacing the duplo with a lego system.

  7. Warm Braw

    50 years of masturbatory teenagers

    There is an obvious way to interest teenagers in robotics while simultaneously keeping them distracted from thoughts of human annihilation*.

    *Though I suppose there is a risk of diminished fertility.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 50 years of masturbatory teenagers

      Obligatory reference to "Weird Science"

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090305/

    2. ChrisElvidge

      Re: 50 years of masturbatory teenagers

      Howard did this. Ended in hospital. The nurse rebooted it.

  8. Rich 11

    or for a government health minister to be a brain surgeon.

    I'd settle for a government health minister with an actual brain.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      "I'd settle for a government health minister with an actual brain."

      Oh you wanted a working brain?

      That'll be the optional upgrade, guv. See price list for details.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I'd settle for a government health minister with an actual brain."

      The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP does have a working brain. It's the programming which is faulty.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I also expect a London coffee shop barista who insists on writing your name on a paper cup ought to have at least a rudimentary command of how to transcribe vocal sounds into letters of the alphabet."

    When you see birth announcements in the local paper for "Jazzmin" - it is assumed that the parents are trying to give their child a life-long distinction. Many of my friends are called "Clare" or is it "Claire"? Then there is "Kate" who started life not as a "Katherine" but as "Kay".

    English is actually a simple language -- or rather there are so many ways to say something that you can usually be understood with any choice of words from the dictionary. We are also used to making a mental association of a potential spelling with a potential syllabic sound. That is what makes it a rich language for puns - "four candles" anyone?

    Blame it on the invasions - in both directions - that made English a cornucopia language long before any educational deficiencies added to the mix.

    Some countries have a rigid official name registration system. If the spelling isn't on the approved list then you can't have it.

    In previous generations it was easy - you used a small pool of family names so that several generations had the same first name - differentiated by informal variations. Grandfather "William", father "Bill", son "Billy". Similarly "Elizabeth", "Lizzie", "Betty".

    My grandfather was "Cornelius" - but named his two sons "Francis Thomas" and "Thomas Francis". The apparently irrational bit was that the former was known as "Tom" and the latter "Frank". Whereas my father "Tom" sensibly named his children without any generational linkage - his brother named his son "Frank" who also begat another "Frank".

    What is obviously phonetic in one country, or even region, isn't necessarily so elsewhere. A young English friend is confused about his newly born son's registered names. The Polish mother made the name choices - and caused confusion with the first name pronounced by the father as "Christopher". Yes - it turns out she had chosen the English spelling rather than the Polish "Krzysztof". However his second name is that of his father who is "Alex" - except this time she went for the Polish version "Aleksander". His father still has trouble remembering that spelling.

    Love of my life has the apparently prosaic, even old fashioned, name "Mona". The Finnish-Swedish pronunciation has the softer sound of "Moonah" - with an ending syllable that took some practice to get the right husky drop.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Barista spelling

      I'm not talking about writing "Claire" instead of "Clare". I would simply like to state "Alistair" and not have the barista write "Alice".

      1. Tabor

        Re: Barista spelling

        Alice, maybe you should leave the frock at home when going for coffee...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Alice

        Just do what I do, when asked "what is your surname" I say "complicated". Then suggest they just write "Ben".

        Or when asked "what shall I write on the cup" could we try "coffee"? Or if asked "what is your name?" I suggest signing in BSL. That's sure to get a laugh, and they will remember for next time and not need to write anything. :D

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Barista spelling

        " I would simply like to state "Alistair" and not have the barista write "Alice"."

        Recognising a name is usually down to familiarity. Unless it is radically different we pigeon-hole it as one we recognise. It is even more difficult to sort out the standard gender spelling for names like "Leslie" and "Lesley" - or "Robin" and "Robyn". My own name is androgynous in sound and spelling - and people assign me a gender depending on the business context.

        A new neighbour's son apparently introduced himself one day as "Nicholas". He repeated himself several times until I finally grasped that his Mexican name was spelled "Nicolas" - but was actually pronounced "Nicola". My brain had introduced the final "s" because he was a boy.

        It is interesting that a year later he calls himself "Nicola-s". Presumably the same playground influence that caused a Danish neighbour's son to eventually introduce himself as an Anglicised "Anders" - rather than the Danish glottal-stopped "An'ers".

        People having apparently different gender names is not unusual when you get a cosmopolitan culture. One of the most famous was the "Marion" later known as John Wayne. "Maria" or "Marie" is common in some countries as a boy's name.

        "Alice Cooper", even though a stage name, was a man who the general public probably never recognised as a "Vincent". Therefore it enters the English language cultural lexicon as a possible man's name.

        So the barista - who is possibly not a English-speaking native - is doing their best to match against their cultural experience of names. "Alicia" is a boy's name in some parts of the world. It is not difficult to hear an unknown "Alistair" as a more familiar "Alicia". Reading the scribble on the cup an English person could interpret that as "Alice".

      4. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

        Re: Barista spelling

        When giving your name to a barista, I suggest taking a leaf out of Dave Gorman's book in order to get a humourous reaction when they shout it out. Various options include: name of a rival coffee chain, "free coffee on the house", "rum and coke", etc.

        1. Mark 85

          Re: Barista spelling

          When giving your name to a barista, I suggest taking a leaf out of Dave Gorman's book

          My favorite is to tell them: "Mike Hunt".

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Barista spelling

            I've always been fond of Amanda Huggankiss....

      5. MonkeyCee

        Re: Barista spelling

        Ah, but you'd miss out on some sweet country and western then :)

        "Alistair, Alistair, who the fuck is Alistair"

      6. Anonymous C0ward

        Re: Barista spelling

        Alice? Who the f**k is Alice?

  10. Dr_N

    "Coding" ...

    ...one of the most annoying words to come out of politicians' and pundits' mouths.

    I remember learning the usual raft of high & low-level programming languages before, during and after my education.

    (Then I got a real proper job and learned the things that are actually useful in industry:

    shell scripting, sed/awk/grep & tcl.)

    As Mr Dabbs implies, once you have the fundamentals covered, the rest you can just pick up on-the-job.

    How is the BBC Microbit thing doing in schools?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Coding" ...

      I think the BBC Microbit is in a delay limbo... but if it works anything like an Arduino/Adafuit (Atmega chip) or is in C# like they are, then it will do fantastic. :)

    2. Martin an gof Silver badge

      Re: "Coding" ...

      How is the BBC Microbit thing doing in schools?

      The MIcrobit was supposed to have been sent out to schools already:

      Excitement Grows

      Cip Olwg (Welsh)

      (the latter, filmed in February, says the roll-out will happen "this term". My Y7 child hasn't heard any news yet and is getting worried that the school will decide to hand them on to next September's Y7 pupils, which he would be livid about.

      Various suppliers have the thing available to pre-order now, which implies it's probably in a container on the way from China:

      CPC

      Pimoroni

      The Pi Hut

      M.

    3. swm

      Re: "Coding" ...

      Gee, when I started programming they just threw me a manual and let me figure it out myself. FORTRAN 1, machine language, etc. There were no formal classes in programming. Of course the manuals were better written then. The manuals told what things did and not how to do things.

      50 years later, when I taught computer science, there were books on how to code, exercises on "fill in the blanks", and other highly constrained environments. When I taught C++ I required students to write a program with no preexisting code framework - just an objective. Harder to grade but the students learned more.

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: "Coding" ...

        Gee, when I started programming they just threw me a manual and let me figure it out myself. FORTRAN 1, machine language, etc

        Yes, but back then we were satisfied with barely-formatted output on a CRT or a dot-matrix and there was no requirement to have the thing interact with the user using little clicky boxes in a resizable window on an underlying complex OS, or host its own webserver so it could be fiddled with from afar.

        When I did Computer Studies 'O' level, a bit of input validation and some clear text was all that was required for the programming tasks. The BBC BASIC manual was invaluable. Nowadays the "working" part of the task is almost secondary - the first objective is that it looks good.

        And I am blowed if I am going back to low-level system calls to set up and decorate a window and deal with all the "events" that might happen to it, when I can just use some pre-written, pre-tested, nicely-documented library instead and concentrate on the stuff that matters.

        In my first "real" job I wrote practically the whole operating system (if you could call it that) for a handheld device from scratch with no libraries other than a floating-point library. Frankly I could have done without the FP library too as I had about 24k of ROM to play with and a large part of that was taken up with the onscreen text. The screen? The "best" model of the device had a 2x16 lines of 5x7 dot matrix characters.

        These days the thing would be expected to be a Bluetooth-connected device that sent readings to an app on an iOS or Android tablet, and rather than spending six months working out how to do clever things with the low-end hardware to give it the capabilities of devices costing five times as much, I'd be spending most of that time working out how to draw a pretty picture and wondering why the BT connection kept dropping.

        Ugh.

        M.

  11. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Memory Lane

    I remember my 'O' level Computer Studies course well...it was the first time the subject had been taught at our school. None of the teachers had any real experience with microcomputers (for that it what we called them back then) but all the kids had a few years of Sinclair- or Commodore-based tinkering under their belts so were streets ahead of the teachers.

    Once a week I used to stay back and unoffically coach the teaching staff through the curriculum they were supposed to be teaching. I made a fortune out of them.

  12. Stevie

    Bah!

    Bullseye again Dabbs.

    A colleague asked how I got my start in DP seeing as how I have a degree in chemistry, so I explained how the economy in the UK in the late 70s and the flood of STEM graduates into it produced the need to broaden horizons if one were to continue eating. Only took me 18 months of interviewing all over England before I accepted that, by the way. It didn't help that my mad IR spectroscopy skills were being stolen by the new microprocessor tech Perkin Elmer were putting in their machines as I was collecting my diploma. Good times.

    I did not "get" the logical thinking bit you speak of until an Old School Cobol couse made everyone slow the creative process down to - and I am not making this up - the single instruction per box on the flowchart.

    And there it was. The magic oofle dust of understanding. The insight that computers aren't clever, just very fast at doing one dumb thing at a time. From that came good design, (because I look at things ver diffently now, when I used to try and understand "holistically") and the clawing of a decent career sans CS degree by doing the job better than anyone else who wanted it.

    Judging by the recent crop of consultants we have in my shop, the CS degree is a hindrance, implanting daft ideas based on hardware/software politics rather than understanding.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bah!

      "[...] just very fast at doing one dumb thing at a time."

      Dumb is the operative word. Most people tend to program computers as if their coding interface is a 100% reliable step by step. However there are always constraints within the underlying structure, or environment, that may pop up and bite you for no apparent reason.

      In my early days of O/S support I was amazed by how many application programmers didn't grasp that their code was constantly being interrupted by time-sharing scheduling. At the same time many O/S programmers couldn't grasp that the hardware may occasionally appear to lie to them.

      Most of the time assumptions of deterministic behaviour - at the particular programming level of abstraction - are reasonable. However it is interesting when people's assumption of such certainty overrides the blatantly obvious fact that the machine is playing by different rules. They find it very hard to think about asynchronous interactions like timing races and logic metastability.

      One colleague could not accept that bits could be dropped/gained without warning - because "the manual says a parity error will be detected". He did not understand two things: that the number of bits affected could be more than one - and the parity checks only affected memory and not the data crossing the internal processor bus.

      It was once estimated that 20% of coding is for contingency handling - and takes 80% of the effort. You have to be defensive even if the threat is not defined.

      IT is ruled not by "certainty" but by "probability" - and most of the time you have the odds on your side. Kids learning IT should be given something akin to a rugby ball - with occasional unexpected wobbles to teach them caution and lateral thinking.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bah! - "their code was constantly being interrupted by time-sharing scheduling."

        Even things like Arduino and Pi shield the user from actually understanding what is going on. I think that, once past the most basic level, something like the Pic has advantages - because you can program interrupts easily, and it is easy to show how the resulting multiple threads can have side effects (e.g. by messing up software timing loops or by accidentally re-using data locations.)

  13. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "It would certainly be challenging to recruit grave diggers if we insisted that all applicants had "a proven track record of being dead"."

    Zombie Gravediggers!

    Yeah, I'd watch that.

  14. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    LOVE and KISSes.... Keeping IT Stupendously Simple in Live Operational Virtual Environments

    Should we teach our kids how to program humanity out of existence? ..... Alistair Dabbs

    Why ever take such a slow and difficult route and root whenever the present day smarter adult option is readily available and advertising its ware and services in works in progress, AD.

    Indeed, in deed, let's be logical.

  15. ShortLegs
    Happy

    Nothing really new in this story; today's parents buy robot programming kit for the sprogs because: robots are coming, the hot new field of the future.

    35 years ago, those same parents, as kids, were bought 'home micro computers' because: micro computers are coming, the hot new field of the future.

    Young Timmy was bought a TRS-80/PET/Apple II. Didn't learn to code shit, but got a great score in Temple of Aspai.

    ;)

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What happened? Dabbsy got serious.

    And yes, it's programming.

    Of course, software vendors like to say that code-free programming is not programming, because customers like the idea of not paying coders, which naturally leads to rude awakenings.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Or we could teach them to do something which is actually creative. The solutions to most of the world's problems are not going to be found in Python.

    1. GrumpenKraut
      Facepalm

      > Or we could teach them to do something which is actually creative.

      Programming IS a creative process! Think algorithm design.

      1. andrewj

        Algorithm design is software engineering, not programming.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All that hyperbole was wasted...

    ...on anyone who remembers programming a LOGO Turtle at school.

    Or a BigTrak, for that matter.

    Honestly, who are they kidding?

  19. Arthure B. Hynde

    Thank you so much

    I have not laughed this hard for a long time. And yes, you nailed it! :-)

  20. Unicornpiss
    Pint

    And we liked it!

    When I was a kid, we learned programming the old-fashioned way, by swapping the plastic cams in toy cars to make them do U-turns and other silly stunts, then when the microprocessor became cheap enough, by programming our "Big-Traks", a late 1970s programmable toy that was kind of reminiscent of the "Ark-II" motorhome in that ancient TV series some of us grew up with. This got us on the fast track for programming in BASIC and assembly on the likes of Commodore PETs, TRS-80s, etc. Which of course made us the nerds we are today, able to remember both vacuum tubes and the Atari 2600 :)

  21. Efros

    TV viewing time

    TV used to be a force for good and I put much of my catalogue of useless but entertaining information down to being an avid TV viewer in the 70s. It also refined what I wanted to do in terms of my chosen discipline, the TV available now will do little for our youth apart from force feed them the latest crop of shit that someone somewhere is trying to make their fortune off.

    In the 70s a curious and technology/science/history interested kid was blessed. The range of educational programming available on the BBC and to a much lesser extent on ITV was huge. More to the point it was truly educational, unlike the mostly glossy presenter centred claptrap we see now. Horizon is a pale shadow of what it was, today's Panorama is sensationalist at best, Man Alive has no modern equivalent. The list is huge but some highlights include Connections, Tomorrow's World, World at War, All Our Yesterdays, Chronicle, Miller's Your life in their hands, This Week, just some of a very long list.The best that is on offer today is still good but there's just an awful lot less of it. When documentary channels are dominated by fecking reality TV shows (I'm looking at you Discovery and History) and presenting Hollywood films as factual content, things are in a sorry state.

    1. Andy A

      Re: TV viewing time

      I well remember a Horizon called "Now the chips are down" which reported on the coming ubiquity of processing power.

      For a "foretelling the future" programme, they got a whole lot right. The level of detail is impressive. These days no explanation longer than two minutes seems to be allowed, as though we were all goldfish. They got a whole HOUR, with no breaks for ads.

      It's around on iPlayer, or YouTube for those outside the UK. Well worth a watch for those who were not allowed to stay up as late as nine o'clock in 1978.

      1. Efros

        Re "Now the chips are down"

        I actually use that programme with my electronics class to show them how we expected electronics to develop contrasted with how they actually did. Not a lot of disappointment! The kids like the old cool tech.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AkBvNW3Ht0

        1. Martin an gof Silver badge

          Re: Re "Now the chips are down"

          Now the Chips are Down at the BBC (1h20min).

          The other big influence was the book The Mighty Micro, later turned into a series on ATV. I picked the book up at a second-hand stall some years ago and it's an interesting read.

          M.

  22. martinusher Silver badge

    Its not going to be a problem

    We've been teaching kids to program since the days of the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum. I haven't noticed the machines taking over. I have noticed an awful lot of very bad code where we need something close to an old time supercomputer to do trivial operations like read and write messages or listen to music.

    Programming is like writing. We all need to be competent at writing but being merely competent doesn't automatically make us a great author. The important part about programming is all the other stuff, the non-programming stuff, that the programming mechanizes.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Its not going to be a problem

      Agreed. The bloat in software these days is beyond redemption.

  23. halfbaked

    We haven't got a decent programming language yet

    I noticed all the recommendations on getting kids to code. I have coded (but many decades ago), and I had been messing about with Libre Office Calc to help my 7 year old grandson with his times tables. I noticed that it supports Visual Basic Macros, so I thought that sounds like a fairly simple language, and in the context of Calc, a lot of things should be already set up. To start with "Hello World", I assumed I would just need to write a statement very like the pseudocode:

    Write "Hello World" in Cell "x" in Sheet "y"

    No such luck!! the tutorial tells me to write the following gobbledegook:

    REM ***** BASIC *****

    sub hello_world

    dim document as object

    dim dispatcher as object

    document = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame

    dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")

    dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue

    dim args2(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue

    args1(0).Name = "ToPoint"

    args1(0).Value = "$A$1"

    dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:GoToCell", "", 0, args1())

    args2(0).Name = "StringName"

    args2(0).Value = "Hello World!"

    dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:EnterString", "", 0, args2())

    msgbox "Completed!"

    end sub

    No way am I going to try to explain this to my seven year old grandson. What have all these computer scientists been playing at for all these years?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: We haven't got a decent programming language yet

      What have they been going? Getting marginalized by VCs and MBAs in favor if InstaFaceBookTwitterGram garbage or vendor lock in.

  24. Christian Berger

    It's certainly not the worst way of teaching someone to program

    I mean the "real" programming languages are often designed by people sitting in their room being tired of having to solve trivial problems. So they come up with special language features you'll probably never need. Those features are then taught to people who will never need them and struggle even understanding them. They still try because those features are hyped. Eventually all they do is struggling with the language, learning new features while not actually getting anything done on time. It's one of the reasons so many software projects fail.

    Instead we should give children, and perhaps even professional programmers, systems that are appropriate. Children might need shiny IO features like controlling a robot or a grapics card. Adults might never need the complexity of C++-style OOP, but could work with a simple underlying principle like the UNIX-Philosophy. We must learn to use the tools we should use, not the ones we are being told to use.

  25. Long John Brass
    FAIL

    I for one welcome our new machine overlords

    Given the choice between uber klop sturm fuhrer Trump and the kill all humans AI; I choose the AI.

  26. wolfetone Silver badge

    I would argue the actions of generations previous have done more damage to the future of our world than future generations will ever do.

    Thinking it was an amazing idea to do:

    a) Nuclear waste just chucked in to a pit - Hello Windscale/Sellafield!

    b) The use of Asbestos in the home - Hello Lung Cancer

    c) The use of weed killers in the food chain from Monsanto - Hello Cancers, Goodbye Bees

    So, really, if the place is already screwed up let's just have one massive party and wreck the joint.

  27. Brian Allan 1

    "Ah well, that’s de-evolution for you. What we do is what we do."

    Wrong! That is truly homo sapien evolution to homo machinicus; the ultimate future of mankind.

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