learn to code? but what about engineering

[R_G_B_]

Why does Engineering which is  very important to our future always seen as something second rate. In the Uk they are trying to push for the buzz word learn to code, to Learn computer code in schools. Yet Engineering in schools is almost none existent. Sequential programming won't help a Person to program who learned to code sequentialy program an FPGA, neither would it teach them to interface analogue electronics with digital systems.
So we end up with people that can code but nothing other than that I think the governments got this wrong in its initiative.

Maybe I have miss understood the importance of just coding alone?

[R_G_B_]

Just to add FPGA are programmed concurrently.

[hikariuk]

I would point out when they say "learn to code" they pretty much exclusively talking about website development.  They're not talking about real software development (I'm a software dev with a background in control systems development and a bit snooty about web development). 

They also have no idea what they're talking about even with web development.  The person responsible for the whole initiative has zero development experience and has said such gems as "you can make a website in an hour" and "you can learn to teach coding in a day".  Which is news to most of us.

So yeah, you're right.  They're entirely chasing buzzwords.  I don't think they're willing to invest the actual time and money they need to teach things properly.  Bringing back technical colleges wouldn't be a bad start.

[electronics man]

I wish they could teach electronics, the only electronics we ever did was a 555 timer thing in year 9 they didn't even tell us how it worked. Apart from that I have never had an ee lesson I am completely self taught. I think we have destroyed are future in electronics   

[hikariuk]

I wish they could teach electronics, the only electronics we ever did was a 555 timer thing in year 9 they didn't even tell us how it worked. Apart from that I have never had an ee lesson I am completely self taught. I think we have destroyed are future in electronics

Aye, same here.  The only electronics we did was a single thing in CDT and it was literally just "copy this circuit on to this board with a marker pen, dunk it in the etch tank, drill holes here, solder these components here..."  There was no explanation as to what anything actually did.  At least not as far as I can remember.  I think part of the problem was it was CDT teachers doing it and they probably didn't know themselves.  Most of them came from mechanical engineering and carpentry backgrounds, afaicr.  The physics teachers might have been more useful.

[AndyC_772]

Why does Engineering which is  very important to our future always seen as something second rate

Because amongst the general public, nobody has a single clue what an engineer actually is.

The person who fixes your car when it breaks is not an engineer. Nor are the ones who clear paper jams from printers, or install cable TV, or sell things. The fact that a computer has to be designed from scratch in the first place, as opposed to switched-off-and-on-again when it misbehaves, is so completely lost on them that it's little wonder engineering isn't taught properly.

[Nerull]

Building a few simple circuits wouldn't put the students any closer to engineering than writing a few simple programs.

The fields are really not all that different - both focus on different areas, but the ways of thinking and solving problems are similar, which is why a lot of universities have an Electrical Engineering & Computer Science department.

[BravoV]

So we end up with people that can code but nothing other than that I think the governments got this wrong in its initiative.

Interesting, if this is the real fact, is it possible that this as the results of :

- Low interest (subjective of course, engineering is seen as in the society and/or by the govt that it has low contribution to the economy in the future ? No hope for manufacturing sector ?) 
- Probably high cost (as in lab infrastructures + gadgets and hiring qualified lecturers)

Again, this is just my guessing as I don't know how is it in UK.

[IanB]

See here for a soul destroying train wreck:

http://youtu.be/-7x7GYItzS4?t=5m30s

Ms Dexter does a perfect impersonation here of Jen from The IT Crowd. She has no clue what she is doing in that seat.

[IanB]

Maybe I have miss understood the importance of just coding alone?

I think you have it right about engineering. It was my thought also.

Learning to write and run simple programs is like learning to make a nut and bolt in metalwork class. Learning to write simple programs won't teach you how to design complex systems just as making a nut and bolt won't teach you how to design a car. However, either one may spark your interest and encourage you to go on and learn how to do those things for real.

[BravoV]

See here for a soul destroying train wreck:

http://youtu.be/-7x7GYItzS4?t=5m30s

Ms Dexter does a perfect impersonation here of Jen from The IT Crowd. She has no clue what she is doing in that seat.

I guess this is heart breaking for you, to watch this as you are a chemical engineer by trade originated from UK ?  cmiiw

[IanB]

I said it is soul destroying, as it might be for anyone who cares about the state of education today. But is the UK alone in having useless and incompetent government?

[BravoV]

I said it is soul destroying, as it might be for anyone who cares about the state of education today. But is the UK alone in having useless and incompetent government?

Let alone government, what is the current trend or believe in the society currently there ? I think this matter the most.

[electronics man]

Everything today is electronic it is so massively important who the hell is going to design stuff in the future
 

I said it is soul destroying, as it might be for anyone who cares about the state of education today. But is the UK alone in having useless and incompetent government?

I don't think it is fair to call our government incompetent I just think there are some incompetent people running our country like any other country.

[RRobot]

I don't really understand why learning to code in school is a bad idea.

"When I was a boy" in the 1980's my school had Commodore Pet computers which we were expected to learn basic programming. I don't feel it made my later experience in Engineering school any worse and I actually feel its been far more useful/interesting than most of the stuff I learned in jr/high school.

[electronics man]

I don't think it is a bad idea I just think it is not enough we need programming and ee

[IanB]

I don't really understand why learning to code in school is a bad idea.

It's not a bad ideal! I think most people would say that it is a good idea.

What is wrong is the idea that learning a little bit of programming at school is going to train people for the workplace, rather than simply encourage them to learn more.

[zapta]

Just to add FPGA are programmed concurrently.

And so are Excel spreadsheets.

[R_G_B_]

Some interesting comments
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/07/google-code-club-pro-teachers

[sync]

Everything today is electronic it is so massively important who the hell is going to design stuff in the future

China and maybe India. It's cheaper. And for the big corporations cheaper wins.

[R_G_B_]

Real world problem solving is what is required. Not just simple abstract concepts like learning to just code. I guess the government notion is if you learn to speak a pertcular language and then visit the country you learned to speak in you will get by.

[BravoV]

Everything today is electronic it is so massively important who the hell is going to design stuff in the future

China and maybe India. It's cheaper. And for the big corporations cheaper wins.

This is a fine example, if parents starting to believe this is the future, then just say goodbye to Engineering in the education field, parents and school council them self will start to alter the direction either direct or indirectly.

I guess coding as in software shows good examples since these figures like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and etc still stealing the show now, hence perceived as its promising, again, just guessing. 

Imagine this conversation ... "You just can not feed your family with that, let alone getting rich, so GO STUDY LAW !!! Patent trolling is the business of the future, as nobody is going to spend money on R&D/innovation anymore ...." 

[R_G_B_]

Patent trolling. Reminds me of the phone calls you get from injury lawyers telling you how you can file a claim for an accident you never had. Morality has been blinded by opportunistic greed.

[Rick Law]

Look, guys, schools and colleges teach you the fundamentals.  Until you get to late college or graduate school, most of it is still learning preexisting methods and knowledge.  Typically, it is in late college years and graduate school where one begins to develop new knowledge.  "New" being something that has not been done before nor known before.

Almost too obvious to state is: How well the school or college teach fundamentals depends on the school. How well of course will differ by school.  Not too obvious to state is: government run school system is at a disadvantage at the get go.

A mathematical certainty is for one to be "above average" means there must be one or more "below average".  When "equal out come" is desired as most government run system would be, ,such desire will inevitably stifle "outstanding" and leads to "lowest common denominator" results.

Teaching you how to "develop web sites by drop down menus and by filling out web forms" wont make you into a creative programmer.  Teaching you how to operate a solder iron will not make you one who can visualize or realize the next generation of opti-tronics that may be the technology of the future.  But, understanding the fundamentals is critical in successfully climbing to the next level.

The question is less on "how school teaches programming", the more interesting question is "what is programming" or "what is computer science".  When I in college, many if not most schools don't even have a computer science major.  Those interested in computer programming major in math.  Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars developing an accounting system for themselves.  Now companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars merely "gluing" an off-the-shelf package to the companies' operation, and gluing one off-the-shelf package to other off-the-shelf packages.

Personally do not even call that programming just as I would not call web-form based web page development as programming.  Most non-computer and non-technology companies no longer look for "programmers" in the sense of the word in 1980.  To them, programmers are there to just glue stuff together.  Some companies actually do programming in the 1980 sense of the word.  Companies such as embedded system developers and Google and the likes.  But they are the minority.

It is understandable that "lowest common denominator" type stuff fills the air.  Adding up all the "real programming" occupations in the world, it would be but a fraction of the "gluers".  So we can expect more of  "lowest common denominator" type stuff.

[nuhamind2]

I guess coding as in software shows good examples since these figures like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and etc still stealing the show now, hence perceived as its promising, again, just guessing. 

IT or CS student = cool kid
EE student=  nerd
Web developer adn programmer = neat and clean
Guy who do solder = messy

[Bassman59]

Just to add FPGA are programmed concurrently.

Pedantic point: FPGAs aren't "programmed," although their configuration memories are.

An FPGA design is an implementation of synchronous digital logic design, no different really from a board full of 74xx or 4000-series CMOS logic parts.

[IanB]

Pedantic point: FPGAs aren't "programmed," although their configuration memories are.

An FPGA design is an implementation of synchronous digital logic design, no different really from a board full of 74xx or 4000-series CMOS logic parts.

I think that's no different from a general purpose computer, which is also equivalent to a board full of logic chips. What you have is a flexible piece of hardware that is uncommitted in its base state and available for any specific purpose you can apply it to. Programming then becomes the process of defining a machine (in its most general sense) to perform a desired task, and installing this machine within the general purpose host environment.

Programming, therefore, is the process of taking some general purpose hardware and committing it to perform a specific desired task (or tasks) by loading data into its configuration memory. It really doesn't matter what the hardware is or how it works as long as you can direct it to perform specific tasks that where not designed into it as a sole purpose at manufacture.

[R_G_B_]

Pedantic point: FPGAs aren't "programmed," although their configuration memories are.

An FPGA design is an implementation of synchronous digital logic design, no different really from a board full of 74xx or 4000-series CMOS logic parts.

I think that's no different from a general purpose computer, which is also equivalent to a board full of logic chips. What you have is a flexible piece of hardware that is uncommitted in its base state and available for any specific purpose you can apply it to. Programming then becomes the process of defining a machine (in its most general sense) to perform a desired task, and installing this machine within the general purpose host environment.

Programming, therefore, is the process of taking some general purpose hardware and committing it to perform a specific desired task (or tasks) by loading data into its configuration memory. It really doesn't matter what the hardware is or how it works as long as you can direct it to perform specific tasks that where not designed into it as a sole purpose at manufacture.

IanB. A*

Bassman59 d-

The difference between  a very good student

And a very poor student.

Although Bassman59 can be awarded an A* for sarcasm.

[Sigmoid]

We should crowdfund a children's cartoon series about engineering. In Japan, children's cartoons have been really successful at creating interest in fields of education and sports.
The Go game, which is seen as an "old man's game", has seen a huge revival after a cartoon about Go players in national television, with school clubs forming and all...

[electronics man]

i think that is quite a good idea

[FJV]

Why is a surgeon who saves people's lives on a regular basis paid less than an athlete playing a game?
Sometimes it is more about perceived value than real value.

That being said, there is no need to look down upon coding and programming.
Good coders are very much indispensable nowadays for instance in avionics, medical applications, space, programmed factories.

 

[edy]

My take on this thread is that engineers especially in R&D, at least from my father's generation, were the first to be kicked to the curb by management when times were tough .... leaving only the blue-collar factory assembly people churning out the same products while management stuffed their pockets with cash. Engineers were valued when times were good, with management profiting off their hard work and ingenuity, but when times were tough they were the first to be booted.

Thus a whole generation of kids in my area were shown through the experience of their engineering parents that it was not valued. In fact, electronic engineers, mechanical, HVAC... many of the smartest people around, university educated and often experienced in broad fields, were continuously being gutted from middle-management aka "white collar" positions, at least that's how I saw it in recession-prone 80's North America. Especially Canada, where all the best engineers were migrating to the USA (the"brain drain") while Canadians were left battling it out for the few firms remaining.

Who is surprised that many university-educated professionals, including engineers, are findings their job prospects a hit-or-miss, with wildly varying salaries and job security? I guess the situation is better now, but still with what I believe is undervalued, kids feel that they are better off going into another profession, into sales, or who knows what else.

I am certainly glad with the internet and many startup engineering projects, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Kickstarter and so on, my kids today will have a better experience with engineering and want to pursue it and make a living from it. I think things will change for the better in companies where engineers have top-management positions (those started by engineers)... They may be the best companies to work for, not when management has no value or understanding of the engineering field.