If you are 40 years old with zero programming experience, you can be employable in the field in a matter of 3-4 months assuming you're computer literate

Big, big, big stretch. Up against younger, more flexible, more knowledgable, and more experienced programmers, you'll stand no chance at 99%+ of job applications. That's not really "employable". For most jobs you'll need to know several languages, which you can't achieve in 3-4 months, even on a degree course, and the "computational thought" takes years to develop properly.

Yes but it's not about just the resources. You need the time, the time to dedicate to learn them. And after high school, that's incredibly limited. I know several people, one of my housemates in fact who does comp. sci., and anyone who doesn't start early on programming is going to have a very rough time. Learning early means you basically always pick up languages and comp. sci. things faster, easier, better, since the brain gets rapidly less able to learn new languages and literature syntax after the age of 12.

away from the specifics of any particular programming language

But no comp. sci. course or any other computer-related course will teach you just one language. Also, comp. sci. courses already include lessons on "computational thought", i.e. understanding of object-based languages, etc.. The article and what it proposes is totally useless and obselete/irrelavent.

"Computational thought"? Yeah, sure, and that'll look great on a CV...When the interviewer asks you what programming languages you know fluently and professionally, "computational thought" will come in handy for sure. /s

As a note to anyone who is still in high school and is wanting to go into software design, you should get learning programming languages ASAP, and as many as you can. By college you're too busy, it's too late, and you'll find it incredibly hard when you start university to keep up with the comp. sci. course.

C++ is easy, it's basically C and C# without the bullshit, and with aliases.

Also, HTML is pretty easy, it's very repetitive, especially the basics.

Also, Python is basically C++ but without a few brackets and some little changes here and there.

Also, I don't code for money. I didn't say I know them through and through professionally. I know them well enough to do some interesting stuff.

I think you overestimated my age to be fair.

Lastly, I did struggle. It took me years. But I enjoyed it and got the basics pretty quickly. Good author, good programming languae :)

You've gotta have the right upbringing, brain, and interest for it. If you've been brought up in a dull, uncreative, unstimulating environment; are apathetic in life and don't enjoy learning new things; and simply is born with a brain that doesn't remember well, doesn't learn well, i.e. low cognition and memory...then yes, coding will be hard and boring to learn.

But I Iearnt Java and C++ in the early years of high school (Year 8 onwards, or for you american folks, uh, Grade, well I dunno your weird ass system so I was about 12yo), and it was great fun, actually one of the best things I ever chose to do. I was playing minecraft like the dweeb I was, and thought "wouldn't it be cool if I could make things like this and make mods for this!". So I went to my local library one day in the summer when I was bored, and picked up a book, Java for the Absolute Beginner, and I was hooked.

Now I can code in Java, C++, Python, HTML, etc., and still enjoy it.

Poor journalism on the article's front, writer clearly has no idea what they're talking about.

FORTRAN. My uni makes us learn it because professors are stubborn dumbasses. It's an obselete and outdated language.

One thing is be responsive. Nothing's worse than a slow/delayed interface. Another thing is obviously the organising of information, putting things into well-defined catagories.

I guess. It's a cool though though. I don't think you can know everything about a system and still observe truly random phenomenom.

Something about true randomness involves infinities (infinitely complex RNG's), and I don't really believe in infinities in nature (everything would blow up somehow).

Well, I can only offer a Physics POV. From a laws-of-nature standpoint, nobody knows if true randomness exists. We simply don't know yet. I have a feeling we will never ever know. It probably requires us to know everything about nature and reality and everything else. I mean, quantum fluctuations (which seem completely random to us atm) could be as a result of chaotic motions of things we don't yet know of.

Basically, the Universe is either deterministic or truly random, or in other words, pseudorandom or random.

But I think all this drivel isn't what you wanted so sorry, I'll see myself out.

Seems like a good idea for people who have lost the use of their fingers but not their voice.

Other than that however, it doesn't really improve over a keyboard. So it's a pretty damn niche market it's going for no?

Mentally Defective? Ooo ooo, what about lamebrained?

I like lamebrained.

I'll post this again...

.

.

You said rape?

You made me think of rape!

I feel raped.

Ergo you're a rapist.

Reported...

You cis white male scum.

Oh well let me explain.

Urm, the Github dev team are absolutely, completely, utterly, retarded.

You said rape.

You made me think of rape.

I feel raped.

Ergo you're a rapist.

Reported...

You cis white male scum.

To be honest, it's more the fact that they have to actually put it down as a rule. I mean, you learn about gender pronouns when you're, what, 1 or 2?

Basically they shouldn't have to tell people 99.5% of the rules on the page. It's basically "be nice kids" written in 78 different ways.

Hehe. Sarcasm tab wasn't even neccessary. No-one who would actually be that stupid would comment here. They'd archive.is this page, link it on some BS SJW subreddit, and have a huge bitchy circlejerk on how cis white males are going to destroy the world.

YOU SEXIST WHITE CIS MONSTER

It's in there, about how to refer to people with the "correct" gender pronouns.

Hehe, there's a bit in there which says that you can't send someone text that "represents" physical contact, i.e. "hug" or "touch", without consent.

So, to GitHub, the words "hug", "touch", and anything to do with contact, are banned without consent.

EDIT: Also, saying someone is a "he" or "she" is banned apparently, when referring to transgenders/fantasists.

EDIT2: hehe, check this out from the page...

Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding:

So, hey, guys, you hear? If someone for example is "white", or has lots of money, you can be racist and everything and it's okay, because apparently you're "privileged"!

EDIT3: TBH, OP should have renamed the title "Github begins the outlawing of all language."

EDIT4: I've just realised, how do you ask someone for consent to say something to them? I mean if I ask "Can I say to "touch" to you please?", then haven't I just said "touch"? It's just so fucked up.

And watch the downvoats horde in like a frenzy of rioting goats...

On a serious note, I think you feel like this because the front page for the last few days has been very full of censorship and SJW stories, which maybe you have gotten tired of a little.

I feel like you could really benefit from not viewing the front page, but getting into some subverses on topics which you find interesting.

I mean I downvoated you because you added nothing to the discussion whatsoever. I feel like you're gunna get some flame for this so put on a hazmat.