| > No it's not a good idea to make programming more accessible. We don't have easy literature, we don't think someone who reads and writes solely with fridge magnets (#) has mastered the language. You're mixing up the content of writing with the methods of writing them. Writing "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is still as poetic when using fridge magnets. Because of that, you fail to see that modern writing systems were massively improved by making it more accessible than what came before it, and that this has had a major impact on literacy levels as well. We started with Scriptio Continua[0]. We had to invent spaces and punctuation. Originally we just had capital letters. And so on. And if we look beyond the West (which we should), you will encounter Hangul, which is a phonetic alphabet that points out how arbitrary our letters really are and replaces it with something more systematic and easy to learn[1][2]. Sure, mastering writing is hard. Basic literacy and writing systems do not have to be. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptio_continua [1] How Korea crafted a better alphabet - History of Writing Systems #11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9hzK0K1L4I [2] Learn to read Korean in 15 minutes, http://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/ |
it does not matter if one is born in china or UK or korea - children are given huuuuge amounts of training to become literate. We don't dumb down the writing system, and we don't dumb down the literature written in the system, we spend more on training the kids.
Similarly with programming - we should not look for some uber click and go system that makes it easier - we just have to work harder.
Fridge magnets are just a placeholder for "trying to make reading and writing easier without actually learning to be literate". I mean if someone writes in korean no one suggests they are not literate because it's easier. but if someone can only communicate by drawing, like some ultra-fast pictionary competitor, it's hard to say they are literate.