Silicon Valley types are too young to remember Cobol but it was the business language of the 60s. Fortran was scientific. C was just starting to be thought of. I first learned FAP, Fortran Assembly Programming where we loaded registers with bits.
Now the wizards of Silicon Valley have a new Trojan Horse. Instead of training young folks in typing and shorthand, we will train them in coding. See the trend? Katherine Gibbs graduates of the new millennium.
Thus the NY Times notes:
Computer
science is also essential to American tech companies, which have become
heavily reliant on foreign engineers. Mr. Trump’s efforts to limit
immigration make Code.org’s teach-Americans-to-code agenda even more
attractive to the industry. In a few short years, Code.org has raised more than $60 million ...,
along with individual tech executives and foundations. It has helped to
persuade two dozen states to change their education policies and laws... while creating free introductory coding lessons,
called Hour of Code, which more than 100 million students worldwide have
tried. Along
the way, Code.org has emerged as a new prototype for Silicon Valley
education reform: a social-media-savvy entity that pushes for education
policy changes, develops curriculums, offers online coding lessons and
trains teachers — touching nearly every facet of the education supply
chain.
Is this just a Trojan Horse for the "training" of cheap labor. Or is it just another way for the NY Times to insert Trump in every paragraph?
But really, the algorithm to optimize train flow into and out of Penn Station is NOT programming and those being trained to "code" will not have the skills to develop such optimization. They will become the typists of the 21st century. The more we have the cheaper they become.
I always remember the NYNEX VP of MIS, a tough Irish woman, who when hearing Bob Kahn speak of the Internet and its potential in 1990 told me that I and Bob were fools, and why did we waste her time! That was an example of "training".
Posts
