Letters to the Editor
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poppycock!
Why would you want to teach a fifth grader computer programming? Programming is a skill; it's a trade; it's a way to make a living. I went to college 25 years ago majoring in Comp Sci -- today, I don't even think that we should have such a major, at least not for a BS degree. You want to be a computer programmer? Study math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, music...and pick up a Comp Sci minor along the way. We have enough monkeys banging on the keyboard who know all sorts of fancy, new-fangled contraptions, yet they can't code or debug or reason their way out of a paper bag.
Over my 21 year career I've seen more than my share of bad computer programs. I don't know whether their authors learned computer programming by the way of BASIC, COBOL, Algol, Z80 assemblly or PERL, but the common feature that bound them all together was that they couldn't create an elegant logical construct to save their lives.
Microcoder