Reply to: Don't teach the little beggars Office, teach them to code.

[Spacecadet]

It won't be after the Tory government has finished.

They're only finishing with competence what Labour started with incompetence etc etc...

[SueEllen]

Medicine is where the money is.

It won't be after the Tory government has finished.

[TimberWolf]

Medicine is where the money is.

[Doggy Styles]

Been there, done that, doesn't pay well and doesn't last beyond about 25 years old.

Really? Sod it. That's another plan B out of the window...

[Mich the Tester]

Male model.

Been there, done that, doesn't pay well and doesn't last beyond about 25 years old.

[Lockhouse]

Times change. 40 years ago there wasn't much of an IT industry outside those making the hardware, just a few boffins. What would the IT people on here have been doing instead?

Male model.

[zeitghost]

I just remembered about this stuff:

Plated wire memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Used in the Shuttle.

Box 4-7: Shuttle Engine Controller Hardware

The computer chosen for the engine controllers is the Honeywell HDC-601.

The Air Force was using it in 1972 when the choice was made, so operational experience existed.

Additionally, the machine was software compatible with the DDP 516, a ground-based Honeywell minicomputer, so a development environment was available.

Honeywell built parts of the controller in St. Petersburg, Florida and shipped those to the main plant in Minneapolis for final assembly; within a couple of years, all the construction tasks moved to St. Petersburg.

By mid-1983, Honeywell completed 29 of the computers177.

The HDC-601 uses a 16-bit instruction word.

It can do an add in 2 microseconds, a multiply in 9.

Eighty-seven instructions are available to programmers, and all software is coded in assembly language178.

The memory is 2-mil plated wire, which has been used widely in the military and is known for its ruggedness.

It functions much like a core memory in that data are stored as a one or zero by changing the polarity in a segment of the wire.

Each machine has 16K of 17 bits, the seventeenth bit used to provide even parity179.

Plated wire has the advantage of having nondestructive readout capability.

[Doggy Styles]

And it was all made out of TTL and ECL (for those who wanted it to go a bit faster).

And they had mother-racks instead of motherboards.

[doodab]

The point is not to make programmers or IT staff. The point is that understanding computers & digital technology at a fundamental level drives a deeper understanding of the modern world of things around you, in the way that basic latin and greek knowledge confers a better understanding of language. It's the sort of fundamental stuff that every schoolchild ought to know.

[Mich the Tester]

Times change. 40 years ago there wasn't much of an IT industry outside those making the hardware, just a few boffins. What would the IT people on here have been doing instead?

I think I'd have been a test engineer of some sort seeing as I'm only really any good at breaking things.

[Doggy Styles]

Times change. 40 years ago there wasn't much of an IT industry outside those making the hardware, just a few boffins. What would the IT people on here have been doing instead?

[BrilloPad]

I completely disagree - David Cameron admitted "we're not doing enough to teach the next generation of programmers", and said there would be action on that.

Linky (3 minutes in)

I trust him implicitly to do just that. In the same way I trust him to cut the deficit, not the NHS.

1. I never trust a politican. Especially when the duopoly have almost identical policies.
2. There has been a war on contractors for several years. Have the Tories repealed IR35?
3. IT has been used as a proposed sacrifice to get access to BRIC markets
4. It seems to be very easy to get visas to work in the UK if you are in IT

But if there is action then I will be the first to give credit where it is due.

[TheFaQQer]

I can't see the government backing IT. It has become clear that we are seen as glorified typists. And we can all be offshored. Yet another reason why the government are totally out of touch.

I completely disagree - David Cameron admitted "we're not doing enough to teach the next generation of programmers", and said there would be action on that.

Linky (3 minutes in)

I trust him implicitly to do just that. In the same way I trust him to cut the deficit, not the NHS.

[NotAllThere]

I've encouraged my kids to learn to program, but I've firmly discouraged them from entering the world of IT.

[BrilloPad]

Stone me.

BBC News - Coding - the new Latin

What a good idea.

Maybe I'd get esteemed customers who could actually program then.

Or not as the case may be.

One of the current intake had to be shown how to get capital letters out of the keyboard.

I can't see the government backing IT. It has become clear that we are seen as glorified typists. And we can all be offshored. Yet another reason why the government are totally out of touch.