Here is my $0.02. While this may be a great idea, coupled with the current state of software industry this is absolutely terrible! Let me elaborate. What does it take to get a job as a programmer? Next to nothing. After graduating with my computer science degree I've spent a few years working with the most incompetent people who were cooks, business graduates, poured concrete 2 months prior (you name it) and then decided to become programmers because they coded a formula in a spreadsheet.
I've spent some of the most agonizing hours unclusterfucking big bowls of pasta code with meatballs and all kinds of other shit all sprinkled with cheddar cheese. Then I had to hold their hands so that they wouldn't make such a stupid mistake again, and again and again. Then i left and you know what? These people still work there. This is exactly what this kind of thing encourages. It encourages coders, not software engineers/developers and it ends up hurting the industry more than helping it. Yes, you'll have some high school kids who'll like coding. They'll graduate from school and will be sucked into their first programming job right out of HIGH SCHOOL writing shitty code, making way more than their friends and making someone's life miserable. Then a small fraction of those kids will get better (some much better) and maybe get formal education, while the majority will remain damn coders. The industry allows this and it only gets worse. Look, we're not professionals by any formal definition of an engineering profession, but at least we can try to get there some freaking day. But it's incredibly hard to do when you have so much "noise" entering the work-force. Don't get me wrong, i think programming IS essential and I DO believe it should be taught, but i just don't see how this benefits anyone at this point in time.
> I've spent a few years working with the most incompetent people who were cooks, business graduates, poured concrete 2 months prior (you name it) and then decided to become programmers because they coded a formula in a spreadsheet.
If we make CS education accessible earlier, you could imagine that more people would actually be more prepared to enter the field.
> Don't get me wrong, i think programming IS essential and I DO believe it should be taught, but i just don't see how this benefits anyone at this point in time.
A few immediate benefits: Giving job opportunities to students who would have never had them before. Allowing students to complement their other subjects with knowledge of programming. Demystifying the use of computers. Creating their own projects.
Those seem like benefits to lots of people at this time.
It benefits all the kids who are given an opportunity to learn what they deserve to be taught.
If taught well, kids will understand that coding is an art and requires a lot of practice and thought. We are not claiming you can get a job right out of high school, but merely that they should get exposed in high school and have a basis for continued study.
If every kid learning to code increases the number who choose to continue to study it in college, there will be more qualified coders. Companies will be able to selectively hire good ones, and people will understand that they need to actually practice and get good at it to get a good job.
I've spent some of the most agonizing hours unclusterfucking big bowls of pasta code with meatballs and all kinds of other shit all sprinkled with cheddar cheese. Then I had to hold their hands so that they wouldn't make such a stupid mistake again, and again and again. Then i left and you know what? These people still work there. This is exactly what this kind of thing encourages. It encourages coders, not software engineers/developers and it ends up hurting the industry more than helping it. Yes, you'll have some high school kids who'll like coding. They'll graduate from school and will be sucked into their first programming job right out of HIGH SCHOOL writing shitty code, making way more than their friends and making someone's life miserable. Then a small fraction of those kids will get better (some much better) and maybe get formal education, while the majority will remain damn coders. The industry allows this and it only gets worse. Look, we're not professionals by any formal definition of an engineering profession, but at least we can try to get there some freaking day. But it's incredibly hard to do when you have so much "noise" entering the work-force. Don't get me wrong, i think programming IS essential and I DO believe it should be taught, but i just don't see how this benefits anyone at this point in time.