We know that coding is the future in terms of necessary skills to succeed in the globalized economy. However, what’s the future of coding? BBC tackles this question in a recent article titled “Coding the future: What will the future of computing look like?”
Padraig Belton of BBC writes, “The spread of computing to new platforms – down to your car and toaster – will bring new challenges in building bigger, more connected systems. Scripting languages tend to be loosely typed, allowing a single variable to contain a number, a bit of text, or other character. This makes writing small programmes easier, faster, and more fragile. Agile development has been another new trend, with frequent feedback between programmers and users – the gov.uk website is an example. But then you have the million-line behemoth programmes, with more opportunities for inconsistencies and bugs to creep in. Another trend has been an increased number of languages coming out of the corporate world, rather than universities. This permits companies to have more control over which direction the languages take. ‘Nowadays, by accident, Facebook have a million lines of PHP, and they wish they didn’t,’ says Alan Mycroft, professor of computing at Cambridge University.”
Belton also gives a glimpse into the future of Britain’s students in terms of coding. He writes, “Worldwide, the number of people working in programming is in the order of 15 million. This number is not rising fast enough, even though the number of things to be programmed is. India produces roughly 100,000 computer science graduates annually. By comparison, Britain produces roughly a tenth of that. Good news for qualified programmers, less so for tech companies facing talent shortages. ‘That’s why we work with organisations like Code Club, Young Rewired State and Raspberry Pi to inspire young people to get involved with coding and digital technology,’ says Eileen Noughton, managing director of Google UK.”
Here in Santa Monica, we’re doing our part at CodeREV. Our CodeREV Kids program offers customized coding education to students through afterschool programs and summer tech camps. All of our Tech/Coding classes and camps are project-based, meaning students are applying computational thinking to each coding skill they learn. Also, they are using the highest level processing skills as identified by the Common Core for true comprehension of the material they are learning to use and apply.
Contact us and make your child a CodeREV Kid today!