Teaching students to code

[Tamas_Papp]

@tim.holy

Since most of us here in the Julia community like & value coding, it’s easy to imagine it should be required, but with so many worthwhile skills one should proceed cautiously before elevating any particular one to the status of “required.”

I assume that many (most?) people in this community are self-taught when it comes to programming (cf this topic). We

1. wanted to learn to code, usually badly enough to overcome various obstacles (hardware and learning material was much harder to access in the 1980–1990s and even later, compared to today),
2. ended up liking it (otherwise we would not be using Julia, or any programming language),
3. acquired a lot of relevant additional skills during the process (learning something on your own is always educational, even counting the rabbit holes and the difficulties you encounter).

Reflecting on this, I realized that I do not really have a good mental model for why someone would not want to code if they are otherwise interested in STEM, and if they want to, what prevents them from doing so. It is easier than ever if you have access to a computer and the internet.

The exception may be children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who may not be aware of the possibility. I think that the best approach is to address that, with programs like

Bootstrap