Why Johnny Can’t Code and How to Help Him

When Bill Gates was 13, a parents group enabled his school to buy a Teletype machine and computer time on a remote GE computer that used the BASIC programming language; he, Paul Allen, and others became intrigued by the technology, including obviously the immediate feedback they got from programming in an easy programming language. He went on to learn other languages, found Microsoft and become a gazillionare.

Does that mean that if your sons or daughters learn about computers using BASIC that they too will earn googol dollars? Well… probably not. If not, might they understand the computer better if they do? Well…. maybe.

Being interested in programming by profession and by inclination, I came across by sheer chance an article in Salon.com entitled “Why Johnny Can’t Code” by David Brin. By 12/31/06 it had attracted 297 comments and over 300 blog reactions.

Mr. Brin’s point seemed to be that there ought to be a language, whether BASIC or something else, that could give an inquiring student to try out simple computer concepts, without ceremony, in the same manner as you could on the old computers that brought you directly to a screen into which you could key BASIC statements ( like PRINT 290*25*16; ” BOTTLES OF MILK”).

Well, the response was overwhelming. People wrote to agree, condemn BASIC as a learning tool, and/or suggest alternatives for beginning computer education for kids. And did they suggest alternatives! In approximate alphabetical order, they suggested: ActionScript, BASIC4GL, C, C++, Chipmunk BASIC, DarkBASIC, Flash, Forth, FreeBASIC, HTML, IPL, Java, JavaScript, JustBASIC, Kids Programming Language(KPL), LambdaMOO, Leopard, Lisp, LOGO, MatLab, MindStorms, Mumps, Octave, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, QBASIC, Rebol, Ruby, Runtime Revolution, Scheme, Smalltalk, Squeak, TCL, Turbo C, VBScript, VB .NET, Visual BASIC, Visual BASIC Express ( I realize the previous four are variations on the same thing), Visual C, Visual C#, and VPython.

( If you think that’s a lot of programming languages, try this site , where you can find over a thousand ways to program the printing of all the verses of the famous song “99 Bottles of Beer”.)

So people are interested in cultivating computer education. I certainly am too. I am glad to be in an occupation where I can support my family and can enjoy myself, even have fun; and I would love to be able to help others find a vocation they can enjoy.

In some respects, my viewpoint is a bit limited. I came to programming late. I was 30 when I got interested in programming, and my motivation, in addition to its native appeal to my personality, was more basic – desperation. Trying to support a wife and four young children as a very mediocre (all right, lousy) furniture salesman can do that to you. The programming language I learned, RPGII, had the singular advantage of being a language that businesses used and would pay you to write. You didn’t push pretty pictures around on a screen; you paid employees and creditors, kept the books, and kept track of the money the company made, and you updated the necessary files to keep track of all these things, and you printed reports. There wasn’t even a CRT screen; the operator typed into a typewriter-like device connected to the computer.

But it was fun. And as I learned more, I got interested in other computers and programming languages. I programmed a little arithmetic game for the Apple II at my kids’ school, and later I created a substantial program – creating data entry screens and reports- using the GWBASIC on my Tandy 1000, even making the screens look like the screens I created on IBM minicomputers. I recently did a simple program in Visual BASIC 5.

They Need a Goal

I found the main motivation for learning was to accomplish a specified task. Without a goal, no matter how intrigued I was by a particular programming language, my progress would be limited by the lack of a specific task I needed to carry out. Without it, my progress was slow, and interest faded away.

This need for a goal or purpose is illustrated by an incident from my kids’ high school days. One of my PCs came with ClarisWorks, an integrated software package. I only used the word processor. They needed a pie chart for a news article for the school newspaper they worked for. I had no idea how to do it; I only ventured a suggestion that it probably had something to do with the spreadsheet. Armed with that information, they dove into the program and figured out how to do it. The goal was a sufficient motivation for them to dig into it.

How do you motivate them?

So, what would your child like to do? If your idea is for him to ace Comp Sci at Stanford, and his concept of computer literacy is wedded to an Xbox or Playstation 3, I wouldn’t recommend pursuing the matter at all. If you yourself are not computer literate, that would also be a problem if he/she isn’t either. I am very much open to suggestions as to how one might motivate a young person to extend his computer interests in the programming area. (None of my kids became programmers, though one or two could if they wanted to.) I know it helps speed progress if the child can read well, since so much of the available study material is in printed format either on paper or the Web. (Although in some cases the reverse has been found to be true – that the desire to learn about a given subject can also spur the desire to learn to read better.)

Make it Possible

However, once an interest is discerned, there are a number of options. For one thing, almost all of the computer language options that were suggested above have free downloads of the language interpreters or compilers. Many of them also have an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) available so your child would not have to key the source code (the verbiage you key in that is translated into computer instructions) into Notepad and run from a DOS command line. (If you don’t know what I just said in the last half of the previous sentence, be happy. It’s one headache you won’t need to be concerned about.) Many of them have easily accessible free tutorials that may be available through the language’s main web site.

BASIC, after all, is an acronym for “Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code”. It was designed for beginners. Your child can learn “structured programming” concepts using modern versions of BASIC, such as JustBASIC. Some languages, such as Logo, KPL, and Leopard, are said to be oriented toward making the learning about computers fun; this may be a consideration. If his orientation is toward Web design, HTML, PHP, JavaScript, Python, or Ruby might be possibilities. I would warn against C or C++ or Java, at least as a first language; my experience and observation, which has been corroborated by my own research and discussions with Java programmers, is that C++ and Java have extremely steep learning curves. One IBMer, at a seminar for programmers about “Web-facing”, or enabling RPG programs to access the Web via HTML, once commented that it took over five times as many lines of Java code to carry out a task as it did in RPGIV. The same is true of C++, and the C or C++ syntax may be difficult to get used to.

My Own Recommendation
My own suggestion is for a language not mentioned above – Oberon-2, created in 1991 by Niklaus Wirth, the creator of Pascal, an extremely popular language originally created in 1970 as a teaching language. Oberon-2 uses “Object-oriented” programming concepts, which many feel are very important to learn. It is a simple yet powerful language – it has been used to create computer operating systems and other very complex programs. It is not widely used in North America, but concepts found in languages such as C++ and Java are presented in a much more comprehensible format in Oberon-2, which would make them easier to comprehend if they take up C++ or Java later.
Programming environments for Oberon-2 can be found for anything from simple Windows programming to Visual BASIC-style programming to .NET programming. A textbook only about 200 pages long, entitled “Into the Realm of Oberon“, by Eric Nitikin is available, for as little as $16.95 at this writing.

With regard to the previous comment, I am reminded of the article in Salon about David Brin’s son being about 200 pages into a C++ textbook; from my observation, he is probably less than a quarter of the way through the book. “C++ Primer Plus”, by Stephen Prata, has 1224 pages; “Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days”, by Jones and Liberty, 936 pages, according to their descriptions on the Amazon.com web site.

Yes, He Can

Can Johnny learn to code? Many factors affect the answer to this question, but the short answer is, Yes. There are no guarantees. But if your child is interested, and if you can express your interest in a non-threatening, friendly, helpful way, his chances are very, very good.

Contributed by: Curtis Barron

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