Just to be superclear, my problem isn't Chris's thesis, but that somehow learning programming is "learning how to code", which, given any decent computer science education, is definitely not the case (maybe a few weeks in an intro CS class, that's it).
So with that in mind, I don't get how they are going to shortcut 2 or 3 years of intensive specialized training with this realization, given that we already base our education on this anyways?
He also brings up something like Sherry Turkle's* software bricolage argument, which I also totally agree with. HCI was also founded on these premises (starting as a fork of the PL community focusing on VPLs). Obviously there is not much new under the sun, it's all in the execution, and I hope they succeed with that.
So with that in mind, I don't get how they are going to shortcut 2 or 3 years of intensive specialized training with this realization, given that we already base our education on this anyways?
He also brings up something like Sherry Turkle's* software bricolage argument, which I also totally agree with. HCI was also founded on these premises (starting as a fork of the PL community focusing on VPLs). Obviously there is not much new under the sun, it's all in the execution, and I hope they succeed with that.
* not surprising since...MIT