OK fine, I'll wade into this morass. Unpopular take: Everyone can learn to code. But not all "coding" is worthwhile for "everyone" to learn. Just like archery, welding, or setting your own broken arm bone.
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More importantly, what does the salary distribution of Excel-wielding VPs vs. Emacs coding grunts say about the actual economic value of these different partitions of coders?
“Most programmers are terrible at teaching real people to program... Basic programming should be taught at the whiteboard, not the screen.” Wut I don’t think *anything* should be taught at the whiteboard if it can be avoided & it seems borderline insane to do that with code
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Seems correct, especially since you don't code a whiteboard, you code a computer. The whiteboard might have some usefulness to express certain concepts, but coding certainly seems like its best learnt by doing, at the computer.
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Coding on paper or a whiteboard reread requires the user to learn to simulate the state machine / computer in their head. I found it frustrating in HS and in college but now appreciate the exercise.
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I don't think it can be avoided. I learned to code by starting with simple runtimes (LOGO, BASIC). But once you get beyond that to procedural abstraction, collections of refs, loop variables, etc. - then you need to get a whiteboard and really walk folks thru the runtime model.
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I didn't empathize with the lack of ability to model arbitrary systems until I tried explain for-loop (in Python) to somebody in a car. They *could not* understand how or why the loop var changed values.
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