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Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:00 AM

Why Johnny can't code

BASIC used to be on every computer a child touched -- but today there's no easy way for kids to get hooked on programming.

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  • Thursday, September 14, 2006 09:11 PM

    I agree!

    When I graduated most of my friends had watched TRON, could name all hands on the deck of the Enterprise, and "code". Flash forward 25 years. Now, all my students know most "cheats" for most retail games, can identify the sidebars on Star Trek 2.0, but can't code their way out of paper bag. I spend hours upon hours teaching them command line Unix, shell scripting, and programming logic so they have at least a shot of being succesful in higher level programming or jobs...most of which we knew long before we arrived at college. Don't get me wrong, I love my modern desktop but I do wish students had the opportunity to learn the skills we did before graduating.

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