I do agree with this. However, I think most online tutorials and books are skewed towards being not intellectually stimulating. Very much, "This is a loop. This is how you print." Barf.
The Stanford 106a track for CS freshmen is excellent. The curriculum is more bite-size than doing a project from top to bottom, so they introduce elements slowly (arrays only come up 3/4 into the class for example). However they design problems that really poke your problem-solving brain and challenge you to solve it with the limited tools you've learned.
Here's the first assignment. A former TA says that problem (3) from this book is the most intellectually challenging of the whole course, and it's from before you've learned anything about any language: http://see.stanford.edu/materials/icspmcs106a/07-assignment-...
I think a (good) class teaches depth while a project gets you up and teaches breadth. If you do a web project, you'll learn about frameworks, hosting, using different libraries, etc but the actual code you write will be rudimentary. Both are important of course.
I also work in a non-tech role at a startup (I run support at Twilio) and am teaching myself to code. My sentiments are quite the same as James's; it's fun and rewarding but there's so much to learn before you even know what you don't know, before you know what to Google to get help. It's like being illiterate and you don't even know enough to look up words in a dictionary.
I do think that knowing how to program and how computers work is a new form of literacy. Teaching kids programming is certainly more useful and stimulating than, say, long-division. One day people will (hopefully) say, "Wow, can you believe that in the past, only a tiny percentage of people knew how to program?"
Until then, I show my programmer friends my learning-to-program blog (http://reneecoding.blogspot.com), and they say, "This is so cool! It reminds me of what I did when I was twelve."
I disagree. I've heard Bill Gates speak and spoken with profs who worked with him; he is deeply informed on the health and edu issues he works on. If we can get smart, creative people tackling those, all the better. Some problems don't have a market solution.
I like that it's about thinking how to give responsibly and effectively, pledging early in life so they can put their creativity to good use, as the article says. People who sign are trading ideas and logistical advice, it's like a book club for philanthropy.
We hear ya loud and clear! SMS outside the US is tough to get complete coverage of, since carriers vary so widely, but it's definitely one of our top requests.
Hi, I work at Twilio and wrote that FAQ. Clarification; Canadian customers can definitely get toll-free numbers that US and Canadian users can call. However, Canadian callers often will get misreported in caller ID, which is a deal-breaker for many use-cases. But these numbers are available and functioning for Canadian customers.
That's neat. I used to live in Ann Arbor, which is a quiet student town that gets very crowded on football weekends. It would be interesting to make up a game that makes users match unlabeled traffic graphs to the towns or neighborhoods where the graphs were generated.
The Stanford 106a track for CS freshmen is excellent. The curriculum is more bite-size than doing a project from top to bottom, so they introduce elements slowly (arrays only come up 3/4 into the class for example). However they design problems that really poke your problem-solving brain and challenge you to solve it with the limited tools you've learned.
Here's the first assignment. A former TA says that problem (3) from this book is the most intellectually challenging of the whole course, and it's from before you've learned anything about any language: http://see.stanford.edu/materials/icspmcs106a/07-assignment-...
I think a (good) class teaches depth while a project gets you up and teaches breadth. If you do a web project, you'll learn about frameworks, hosting, using different libraries, etc but the actual code you write will be rudimentary. Both are important of course.