Why Johnny Can’t Code Redux

  David Brin

A long time ago (BK – Before Kids) I was lucky enough to meet David Brin at Ad Astra, the Toronto Science Fiction convention. It’s easy to meet people who have opinions. It isn’t often that you meet someone smart enough to explain to you exactly why the opinion is right. David Brin is one of the few I’ve met who are that smart.

A long time ago in Internet Time (2006) David wrong an article for Salon called Why Johnny Can’t Code. It’s a great article, and I recommend everyone read it, and share it.

Got reminded about the article when Michael (our oldest – he’s 28 now) and I were out yesterday picking up plumbing parts – the downstairs bath tub faucet was leaking hot water.

While he was driving (I wasn’t in shape to drive yesterday – heck, I barely managed to get into the car) we were talking about games. Michael is good at games. Really good. And he reminded me of one of the reasons why.

Apparently (I’d forgotten) a long time ago I’d taught Michael how to use a hex editor to view (and change) save game files. We’d done a lot of fooling around with the old Gold Box AD&D game Pool of Radiance, making things like a ‘Shield of Fireballs +5’…

Why does this all hang together?

Because it is getting harder for kids to learn how to code as David Brin pointed out, and it is getting harder for kids to learn how to use a hex editor too. I’m serious. The big growth area for games is phones and tablets. Have you ever seen a hex editor for IOS or Android? How about for any of the Playstation or XBox game consoles?

So we are moving further into a culture where people use things that they don’t understand, can’t play with to understand, and where it is often illegal to play with stuff in that matter (read up on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – it makes it illegal to modify ‘copyrighted works’ without the consent of the ‘owner’ and yes, this does include save game files).

Which is sad. Really sad.

Regards

Wayne Borean

Tuesday June 2, 2015

 

Market Share vs Total Units Sold

Here’s an important point – sometimes market share isn’t all that important.

Apple – An Analysis

Apple iMac G3 1998 with thanks to Nafije Shabani

 

There was a discussion on the Communities Dominate Brands blog, Baron95 (don’t know his/her real name) and Tomi Ahonen were discussing Apple. It was obvious that there were a couple of things about Apple that they were missing, so I’m writing this as an explanation.

Computer Industry Numbers

Commodore 8296 Personal Computer

There’s some interesting numbers coming out of the computer industry. Let’s take a look at them.

Microsoft Death Watch – OHHHH, SHINEY!

Me and my junior editor, Kleopatra

Kleopatra and I have been laughing ourselves silly. Everybody got the Apple announcements from Tuesday September 10, 2013 wrong.

Not just wrong, DEAD WRONG.

NSA Spying Scandal – An Analysis

NSA Logo

Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the NSA Spying Scandal closely. In fact, I’ve been following it for several years, since before I first ran into Barrett Brown. Seriously. The leaks about go back a long way, and most writers appear to have missed the implications.

The Charge of the Tablet Brigade

With apologies to Alfred Lord Tenneyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Shops
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Tablet Brigade!
Charge for the consumers!" he said.
Into the valley of Shops
Rode the six hundred.

Let’s talk about tablets.

Microsoft Death Watch – Fall 2012 Update, Part One

This article is way overdue. A lot has changed since I wrote Microsoft Death Watch – Forbes Weighs In back in March of 2011. Some things I’ve guessed right about, others, well I didn’t do so well.

iPad Failures

Me and my junior editor, Kleopatra

I have a confession to make. Kleo and I own an iPad.

Amazon Backstabs Apple – Will Apple Break HTML5 Capabilities in Safari?

IPad - the most successful tablet PC to date

Amazon has decided not to put up with Apple’s attempt to make IBook the only application with in-application book purchasing. Amazon’s work around was to build an HTML5 Kindle Application replacement.