For the commenter's applauding Jimmy Wales' new language skills, he's referring to the story of Amy Mather and her adventures with python and the Raspberry Pi. Linked video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a35XINnYFtA
I don't share his enthusiasm about this. Doesn't everyone interested in computers/computing start programming things that are actually useful at roughly that age?
Also, is an early start a guarantee that someone will choose a career in computing?
Nope! But it would be great if the general population had some proficiency in programming, even if they don't choose a career in computing.
My partner is an aspiring film maker, but knows how to parse a CSV in python and do pattern matching, he was looking for funding and needed to pull all of the "x.com" domains out of a giant spreadsheet .. for him, simple, export as CSV and string match the email field.
This simple skill alone, put him miles ahead of the other film makers in his class, the others were using "find" in excel and copy pasting, he was done in 15 minutes, the others took hours.
There's so many examples where account managers, secretaries, business analysts, chemical engineers etc benefit from simple data matching. They're not going to write the next facebook, and are not interested in a "programming" / "computing" career, but data extraction and simple programming is becoming a basic skill like reading and writing, and it's all good I say!
I don't doubt the usefulness of programming to the non-technologist, but Excel proficiency can be even more useful. It's so much more than just a container for CSVs!
A fair percentage of people who start developing software early end up being passed by people who started later. A seemingly large factor of this is kids learning bad habits on their own and not being able to correct them later, or having a much more difficult time correcting them. (I'm not saying that is the case here, just generally.)
I hear this a lot, but I've never seen actual evidence of it. Everyone who started early that I've seen in computer science classes has been better than people who started later.
I concur. And it's not just mere ability that's at issue, here. Kids who enter computing at a young age are typically motivated more by genuine interest/passion than the later entrants who are more likely just picking a career.
Caveat: we're both dealing purely anecdotal evidence and a fair bit of conjecture. We could easily be wrong.
I started myself when I was in grade 6. I've always been ahead of others that started later as well when I've been in the same class.
But I've also spent a lot of time correcting bad habits, reading on good habits, and relearning a lot of things I did as a child -- and most of the code I wrote as a child was pretty awful.
Still, it's something that I've heard often and I can understand the logic behind it.
You're missing the point. This is about reducing the barrier to entry to programming; not just by abolishing the standard stereotypes that only boys do it but by providing affordable computing for children in a way that they could feasible save their pocket money to buy a machine and get going.
I saved for my first machine when I was 14 by keeping my lunch money and only eating a bag of crisps a day for over a year; this kid doesn't have to do that..
I wrote my first Hello World when I was 23 years old. I didn't write anything that could be described as "useful" (i.e. not a trivial practice exercise or a homework assignment) until I was 25. now I've got a degree in computer science and I'm a professional developer.
Jimmy Wales is a role model, you must have modesty and defined objectives to build that humongous platform and refuse to monetize, his quotations of "The Fountainhead" made me read it, awesome, the man really is a Howard Roark.
Jimmy Wales did not build Wikipedia. Thousands upon thousands of unpaid volunteers did.
As for Howard Roark, who is supposed to epitomize Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" ideal, I don't remember him being any kind of philanthropist. If anything, he (like Rand) has nothing but contempt for the masses.
Wikipedia would be the antithesis of what Roark would want to build. The Encyclopedia Britannica would be more to his liking, except that even it would require too much cooperation and would be made to help others and instead of himself.
Rand's ideal is the lone visionary designing his brilliant artwork for his own pleasure, and to the gnashing of teeth of the ignorant horde who are jealous of his genius.
Hmm, I don't know. Seems like much of Wikipedia is by smart people for smart people (like NPR). We all think of Wikipedia as the commons but it's far from it. Most people are on perezhilton.com all day.
Anyway, Ayn Rand was more against the falseness around giving and the betrayal of the recipient when he is given something he could never earn.
You could say the same about any business owner if you said thousands of paid employees built their business. Almost nobody builds something that lasts by themselves.
I don't think that's the same. A business needs a lot of coordination that is not (currently) possible with a crowdsourcing approach and people work for money. Founders of a crowdsourcing endeavor have its merits but at the end is the community working hard (many times harder than in a business) who owe the praise.
Not to take away from his achievements but like Sal Khan (who has done similarly with Khan Academy) he'd already made his money in investment banking before entering the tech world.
It makes a huge difference when choosing to go the non-profit vs profit route when you're already personally well off.
Eh, Sal Khan was a 30-something hedge fund analyst when he started Khan Academy. He's intelligent, hard-working, and could find work somewhere else, but he wasn't exactly "set for life" if the Khan Academy thing didn't work out. So don't let that stop you going the non-profit route!
Jimmy Wales tweeted, "This is super cool!" about a girl presenting her Raspberry Pi story, "I started to learn Python...".