[dinkumthinkum]

Ok, fine "algorithms" have been around for centuries. There is no disputing that. But without the notion of "programming," you're missing an entire style and class of algorithms.

Generally, algorithms are described in terms of pseudo code using programmatic language as well as terms of set theory or graph theory.

That said, I don't see why it is shocking to people that 12 year olds aren't learning CS in school.

[lliwta]

> But without the notion of "programming," you're missing an entire style and class of algorithms.

And if you focus on programming, you miss the forest for the trees.

You can teach CS without teaching programming, and it will still be valuable.

You can teach programming without CS, but the skills you end up teaching will just be skills -- they're non-transferable and aren't going to be useful in 10 years.

> Generally, algorithms are described in terms of pseudo code using programmatic language as well as terms of set theory or graph theory.

I think the latter semantic descriptions are almost always the more important ones.