[FRIAM] coding versus music

[David Eric Smith]

Nick, I think you should fine the perspective advanced here very congenial.

https://opendocs.github.io/sicp/sicp.pdf <https://opendocs.github.io/sicp/sicp.pdf>

I know the people who code for a living will sigh and say “how quaint, what the guy who doesn’t know anything about this work thinks is our literature”.  Granted.  My younger colleagues, whose work I have forwarded to this list, have never read it and many have never heard of it.  Yet for (I think) well more than a decade, it was a core standard at MIT.

As an outsider who knows nothing, I find it a terrific introduction, and do not yet understand why anyone would recommend _against_ taking at least a little time to read within it.

Eric



> On Jan 27, 2021, at 12:56 PM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This flies in the face of my belief that you coders know something about life that we citizens need to know.   I imagine coding to be like trying to write an instruction to a person such that that person always does what you want them to do.  So, it is an act of communication in which the communicatee is always right, no matter how idiotic may be it’s response.  No boss ever says to a coder, “Your code was brilliant but unfortunately the machine didn’t understand you.”  
>  
> Am I right about any of that?
>  
> Nick Thompson
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,kv82v2yL8r5CGmB5BAQaLVxej2ui8eapdbb1d7UumyfRpbBQ2nULD7JCl18N64cpdGnc9uMxoPxf9DBSsxuL-xoGNdbJpsUURVjSCO-B31ShbYdu8st2-cYi&typo=1>
>  
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2021 11:41 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] coding versus music
>  
> For a while now there has been a huge push to teach kids how to code. Ostensibly because it enhances skills like language, logic, and math; plus, "computer literacy" is essential in a world filled with computers.
>  
> A study at MIT suggests that coding skill is orthogonal to reading skill and has little, if any, influence on development of logic/math skills.
>  
> An article in the Journal of Neuroscience argues that if you want to increase the "skills and brainpower" of kids you should teach them music.
>  
> I came across this information peripherally and have not read the specific research reported on. I want the reports to be accurate representation of the research because it confirms long held biases against the value of "computational thinking" and computer science as a fundamental knowledge domain.
>  
> dave west
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