I learned to program when I was 5.  I wrote a program to factor out any number to their base primes to do my 2nd grade homework.  My mom didn't consider it cheating because I apparently understood the concepts already.

I'm probably not special, either.  Kids are learning how to use tablets and computers at 2 or 3 years old nowadays.  They will learn how to program if you push a language towards them.

I'd encourage anyone to learn basic scripting, at least.  Pretty much anyone who works at a desk has at least one repetitive task that makes them want to die.

Education seems to be particularly behind the curve on this.  Most places will employ a desktop support guy who makes sure the printer's got paper, but there are way too many cases of schools employing a half dozen administrators (with assistants!) pushing papers like it's 1965.

dragonchild: I'd encourage anyone to learn basic scripting, at least.  Pretty much anyone who works at a desk has at least one repetitive task that makes them want to die.

Education seems to be particularly behind the curve on this.  Most places will employ a desktop support guy who makes sure the printer's got paper, but there are way too many cases of schools employing a half dozen administrators (with assistants!) pushing papers like it's 1965.

You hear about the last time a school tried to get into the current information trends?  Some jackasses had a kid named Bobby...but you see their last name is Tables;  Guess what they decided his middle name should be?

BumpInTheNight: Some jackasses had a kid named Bobby...but you see their last name is Tables; Guess what they decided his middle name should be?

I thought his name was Robert');.  SQL injection doesn't work without the special characters.

blue_2501: I learned to program when I was 5.  I wrote a program to factor out any number to their base primes to do my 2nd grade homework.  My mom didn't consider it cheating because I apparently understood the concepts already.

Jeez, they let young people on the internet these days.  When I was five, a Computer was like the equivalent of several thousand modern dollars if not more, my parents wouldn't have let me near it intentionally ever, would have been like letting me try to drive the car.

blue_2501: I learned to program when I was 5.  I wrote a program to factor out any number to their base primes to do my 2nd grade homework.  My mom didn't consider it cheating because I apparently understood the concepts already.

I'm probably not special, either.  Kids are learning how to use tablets and computers at 2 or 3 years old nowadays.  They will learn how to program if you push a language towards them.

You were in 2nd grade at age 5? You must have already been special.

I was definitely programming by age 9 to do my 5th grade homework, among other things.

Jim_Callahan: Jeez, they let young people on the internet these days.  When I was five, a Computer was like the equivalent of several thousand modern dollars if not more, my parents wouldn't have let me near it intentionally ever, would have been like letting me try to drive the car.

Oh, I'm in my 30s now.  This was an old ATARI 800XL with built-in BASIC.

jonny_q: You were in 2nd grade at age 5? You must have already been special.

I was definitely programming by age 9 to do my 5th grade homework, among other things.

Nah, I was 7 then.  It was either first or second grade.

dragonchild: Education seems to be particularly behind the curve on this.  Most places will employ a desktop support guy who makes sure the printer's got paper, but there are way too many cases of schools employing a half dozen administrators (with assistants!) pushing papers like it's 1965.

Repeat after me: All data entry jobs are absolutely useless and can be replaced with programming.

blue_2501: All data entry jobs are absolutely useless and can be replaced with programming.

Nope.  At some point, it's a manual process.  Even if you force your users to create an account and enter their own information, all you've done is push off your data entry work, which has its own downsides.  Where programming comes in is automating reports -- if you've got multiple assistants compiling and formatting data, you're paying people to do a program's job.  It's slower, more error-prone and much more expensive.  Ideally, a student's PII would be taken down exactly once and then never directly touched again.

Jim_Callahan: Jeez, they let young people on the internet these days. When I was five, a Computer was like the equivalent of several thousand modern dollars if not more, my parents wouldn't have let me near it intentionally ever, would have been like letting me try to drive the car.

I'm in my early/mid 30s, and I had something to program on since I was around 4.  The first was a simple 'educational toy' that taught you how to program in BASIC - it was really just a Zilog Z80 microprocessor with some trivially simple peripherals and a built in BASIC interpreter.

First actual computer was around 1990, and yes it was several thousands of dollars (even more with the laserjet printer).  Dad definitely encouraged me to use it and program on it - I learned C around that time and C++ a few years later.  It's also not like there was much, apart from physical damage, you could do to those computers.  At worst you might lose your data (which of course should have been backed up to 5.25" floppy disks), but it would be hard to actually damage the machine in any way.

Sum Dum Gai: Jim_Callahan: Jeez, they let young people on the internet these days. When I was five, a Computer was like the equivalent of several thousand modern dollars if not more, my parents wouldn't have let me near it intentionally ever, would have been like letting me try to drive the car.

I'm in my early/mid 30s, and I had something to program on since I was around 4.  The first was a simple 'educational toy' that taught you how to program in BASIC - it was really just a Zilog Z80 microprocessor with some trivially simple peripherals and a built in BASIC interpreter.

First actual computer was around 1990, and yes it was several thousands of dollars (even more with the laserjet printer).  Dad definitely encouraged me to use it and program on it - I learned C around that time and C++ a few years later.  It's also not like there was much, apart from physical damage, you could do to those computers.  At worst you might lose your data (which of course should have been backed up to 5.25" floppy disks), but it would be hard to actually damage the machine in any way.

You didn't have a little sister who had a thing for kraft cheese slices and was always looking for new places to hide them, eh? :)

BumpInTheNight: You didn't have a little sister who had a thing for kraft cheese slices and was always looking for new places to hide them, eh? :)

I think that would count as physical damage :)

dragonchild: Education seems to be particularly behind the curve on this

I'm a defender of public education in many aspects, but not on this one. Public education is waaaaay behind on virtually all technologies. You'll never find a bigger group of luddites than public teachers.

If you think about it, handing iPads and laptops is all the rage these days.... but personal computing devices of varying degrees have been pretty common tools for most of us since at least the late 90s.They're just now figuring out simple ways of integrating tools that have been in common use at this point for a decade and a half. And they're not so much integrating them as they're trying to awkwardly cram their traditional teaching methods onto them.

It really is a sad state of affairs.

C# is considered elementary now?

Good to know.

dragonchild: blue_2501: All data entry jobs are absolutely useless and can be replaced with programming.

Nope.  At some point, it's a manual process.  Even if you force your users to create an account and enter their own information, all you've done is push off your data entry work, which has its own downsides.  Where programming comes in is automating reports -- if you've got multiple assistants compiling and formatting data, you're paying people to do a program's job.  It's slower, more error-prone and much more expensive.  Ideally, a student's PII would be taken down exactly once and then never directly touched again.

In 90% of the cases, it's not a manual process, but taking data from one computer system, and then entering it to another system manually.  Even data entry from human sources can be delegated to the customer themselves, or the employee has more skills than just data entry (sales, troubleshooting, etc.).

poot_rootbeer: Hold on, you were factoring primes in second grade?

We didn't even start multiplication until I was in third grade, and I was in the gifted program.

I'm sure, nowadays, my son will be learning this stuff in kindergarten.

BumpInTheNight: I'm in my early/mid 30s, and I had something to program on since I was around 4.  The first was a simple 'educational toy' that taught you how to program in BASIC - it was really just a Zilog Z80 microprocessor with some trivially simple peripherals and a built in BASIC interpreter.

I think the ATARI 800XL was about $100-150 back then.  The disk drive was actually $200, which was pretty ironic.  We also discovered piracy at an early age, considering the cost of software was way too much for our appetites.  We still bought some things, like Alternate Reality.  Awesome set of games.

LOGO was my second "language".  By the time they were teaching it in 4th Grade, I was teaching them how to write subroutines to draw custom shapes.  I'd also like to point out that magnet schooling was awesome.

I've worked at home as a self employed software guy for decades. I raised our son the first three years of his life while his mom was finishing her degree. He started smashing on a keyboard when he was months old. One day I was reading him Cat in the Hat. A couple minutes later he typed C A T into his mom's computer pointed at it and said 'meow'  He could type cat before he could say it.

/csb
//he is currently getting his masters in computer science