Programming Should be Required Language

Strongly agree with  letter to the editor in the WSJ today:

For years it has been mandatory in secondary-school education to study a foreign language, and for most students it is an inconvenience soon forgotten. Instead, it should be mandatory to begin learning a much more useful language: computer programming. Ninth-graders, for the most part, are capable of learning a general-purpose programming language, and some students would continue more advanced programming for three or four years. We could have an army of young people capable of writing software, enabling them to easily join a work force that is woefully short of programmers.

I made similar points in a letter to Minnpost - How to Not Squander a Sputnik Moment. I don't necessarily think that programming as we think of it today - web, pc - is a career path for high school kids, but I do think the logic, models and math required for programming will serve well for emerging technologies like robotics, biotech and other pursuits.

Comments

[Jeff Williams]

I am a huge advocate of this position. My son was not doing well in required 8th grade Spanish class, but I talked the school in to letting him do an independent study in Java instead. In the 8 months since he has written several decent swing apps, has an app in the android store, and is learning web apps. His goal is to be Java certified by the end of 9th grade. What's more important to society?

[Kevin Wall]

Computer programming would be cheating. I was required to take some dull and boring language that I would never likely use, so everyone else should have to suffer too. Can't give kids something that they actually might enjoy. ;-P
Signed,
Forrest Grump

[LonerVamp]

I fixed this for you:

" We could have an army of young people capable of writing half-assed software, enabling them to easily join a work force that is woefully short of quality programmers."

(This is me being half-humorous, half-serious. I certainly am sypathetic to computer education early as it can only help, but it amuses me how many homegrown "programmers" there are and they keep churning out crap.)