[Edu-sig] As We May Think: What will we automate?

[kirby urner]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Scott David Daniels
<Scott.Daniels at acm.org> wrote:

<< SNIP >>

> This issue is why I am so not in love with fancy aids in generating
> code; I want to read what the original programmer wrote, not the pile
> of garble that got blasted out when he pushed some buttons and dragged
> some boxes.  I'll need to check his logic, determine where he went
> wrong, or follow and extend it to enable unanticipated requirements.
> Programs are (or should be) communications about the solution to
> particular problems, not to the computer, but to future humans
> reading the program.
>
> --Scott David Daniels
> Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org

Yeah, I here ya Scott.

Getting widget programming right is a difficult art, in terms of not
getting a lot of ugly code.

I think that's what draws me to the thin client MVC approach, using a
templating language to build the interface -- it's just web page
design, something we already know, the browser being ubiquitous.

But you also still need thick client solutions, I realize that.

What I'd focus on in high school is just sharing more of this
vocabulary, having more of a footprint to deliver more of the lore,
shoptalk, terminology.  This stuff is fun, a turn on more than a turn
off.

You could dismiss that as just another geek raving about what he
enjoys, but they don't even get a choice a lot of the time i.e. have
no clue what they're missing, given all the limelight is being hogged
by other subcultures (ethnicities) at this time i.e. the "math
teaching ethnicity" (not sharply defined, but that's par for the
course in anthropology).

On the visual programming front, I don't like curricula that work like
bridges to nowhere, postulate all these future development
environments we don't have, then word backwards from there (where?).
We need to aim at moving targets, sure, but there's no reason to
assume POSIX is going away, or that no one will need any GNU bash
skills in 5 years -- so start learning some today how about?

Kirby

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