TITLE: At Least It's Not Too Easy
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 20, 2009  9:09 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Tim Bray talks about how
<A HREF="http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/03/04/Too-Easy">
   photography is too easy to learn</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Quoting from <EM>About Photography</EM> (1949)
by American photographer Will Connell (hat tip
Brendan MacRae): "Every medium suffers from its
own particular handicap.  Photography's greatest
handicap is the ease with which the medium as
such can be learned.  As a result, too many
budding neophytes learn to speak the language
too long before they have anything to say."
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Programming doesn't seem to suffer from this
problem!  Comments to Bray's entry about books
like "C for Dummies" notwithstanding, there are
not many people walking around who think
programming is too easy.  Mark Guzdial
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK2A6PETK9V7CUA">
   has described the reaction</A>
of students taking a non-majors course with a
computational economics theme when they found
out they would have to do a little scripting in
Python.  Most people who do not already have an
interest in CS express disdain for programming's
complexity, or fear of it.  No one likes to feel
stupid.  Perhaps worst of all, even students who
do want to major in CS
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-08.html#e2004-08-20T14_05_33.htm">
   don't want to program</A>.

We in the business seem almost to have gone out
of our way to make programming hard.  I am not
saying that programming is or can be "easy", but
we should stop erecting artificial barriers that
make it harder than it needs to be -- or that
create an impression that only really smart
people can write code.  People who have ideas
can write.  We need to extend that idea to the
realm of code.  We cannot make professional
programmers out of everyone, any more than piano
and violin lessons can make professional musicians
out of everyone.  But we ought to be able to do
what music teachers can do: help anyone become
a competent, if limited, practitioner -- and
come to appreciate the art of programming
along the way.

The good news is that we can solve this
"problem", such as it is.  As Guzdial wrote in
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1VTB7QIX91BSE">
   another fine piece</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
An amazing thing about computing is that there
are virtually no ground rules.  If we don't
like what the activity of programming is like,
we can change it.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

We need to create tools that expose powerful
constructs to novices and hide the details until
later, if they ever need to be exposed.  Scratch
and Alice are currently popular platforms in
this vein, but we need more.  We also need to
connect the ability to program with people's
desires and interests.  Scripting Facebook seems
like the opportunity <EM>du jour</EM> that is
begging to be grasped.

I'm happy to run across good news about
programming, even if it is only the backhanded
notion that programming is not too easy.  Now
we need to keep on with the business of making
certain that programming is not too hard.
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