Why Johnny can't code

Now, I have been complaining about this for three years. But whenever I mention the problem to some computer industry maven at a conference or social gathering, the answer is always the same: "There are still BASIC programs in textbooks?"

At least a dozen senior Microsoft officials have given me the exact same response. After taking this to be a symptom of cluelessness in the textbook industry, they then talk about how obsolete BASIC is, and how many more things you can do with higher-level languages. "Don't worry," they invariably add, "the newer textbooks won't have any of those little BASIC passages in them."

All of which is absolutely true. BASIC is actually quite tedious and absurd for getting done the vast array of vivid and ambitious goals that are typical of a modern programmer. Clearly, any kid who wants to accomplish much in the modern world would not use it for very long. And, of course, it is obvious that newer texts will abandon "TRY IT IN BASIC" as a teaching technique, if they haven't already.

But all of this misses the point. Those textbook exercises were easy, effective, universal, pedagogically interesting -- and nothing even remotely like them can be done with any language other than BASIC. Typing in a simple algorithm yourself, seeing exactly how the computer calculates and iterates in a manner you could duplicate with pencil and paper -- say, running an experiment in coin flipping, or making a dot change its position on a screen, propelled by math and logic, and only by math and logic: All of this is priceless. As it was priceless 20 years ago. Only 20 years ago, it was physically possible for millions of kids to do it. Today it is not.

In effect, we have allowed a situation to develop that is like a civilization devouring its seed corn. If an enemy had set out to do this to us -- quietly arranging so that almost no school child in America can tinker with line coding on his or her own -- any reasonably patriotic person would have called it an act of war.

Am I being overly dramatic? Then consider a shift in perspective.

First ponder the notion of programming as a series of layers. At the bottom-most level is machine code. I showed my son the essentials on scratch paper, explaining the roots of Alan Turing's "general computer" and how it was ingeniously implemented in the first four-bit integrated processor, Intel's miraculous 1971 4004 chip, unleashing a generation of nerdy guys to move bits around in little clusters, adding and subtracting clumps of ones and zeroes, creating the first calculators and early desktop computers like the legendary Altair.

This level of coding is still vital, but only at the realm of specialists at the big CPU houses. It is important for guys like Ben to know about machine code -- that it's down there, like DNA in your cell -- but a bright kid doesn't need to actually do it, in order to be computer-literate. (Ben wants to, though. Anyone know a good kit?)

The layer above that is often called assembler, though there are many various ways that user intent can be interpreted down to the bit level without actually flicking a series of on-off switches. Sets of machine instructions are grouped, assembled and correlated with (for example) ASCII-coded commands. Some call this the "boringest" level. Think of the hormones swirling through your body. Even a glimpse puts me to sleep. But at least I know that it is there.

The third layer of this cake is the operating system of your computer. Call it BIOS and DOS, along with a lot of other names. This was where guys like Gates and Wozniak truly propelled a whole industry and way of life, by letting the new desktops communicate with their users, exchange information with storage disks and actually show stuff on a screen. Cool.

Meanwhile, the same guys were offering -- at the fourth layer -- a programming language that folks could use to create new software of their very own. BASIC was derived from academic research tools like beloved old FORTRAN (in which my doctoral research was coded onto punched paper cards, yeesh). It was crude. It was dry. It was unsuitable for the world of the graphic user interface. BASIC had a lot of nasty habits. But it liberated several million bright minds to poke and explore and aspire as never before.

The "scripting" languages that serve as entry-level tools for today's aspiring programmers -- like Perl and Python -- don't make this experience accessible to students in the same way. BASIC was close enough to the algorithm that you could actually follow the reasoning of the machine as it made choices and followed logical pathways. Repeating this point for emphasis: You could even do it all yourself, following along on paper, for a few iterations, verifying that the dot on the screen was moving by the sheer power of mathematics, alone. Wow! (Indeed, I would love to sit with my son and write "Pong" from scratch. The rule set -- the math -- is so simple. And he would never see the world the same, no matter how many higher-level languages he then moves on to.)

The closest parallel I can think of is the WWII generation of my father -- guys for whom the ultra in high tech was automobiles. What fraction of them tore apart jalopies at home? Or at least became adept at diagnosing and repairing the always fragile machines of that era? One result of that free and happy spasm of techie fascination was utterly strategic. When the "Arsenal of Democracy" began churning out swarms of tanks and trucks and jeeps, these were sent to the front and almost overnight an infantry division might be mechanized, in the sure and confident expectation that there would be thousands of young men ready (or trainable) to maintain these tools of war. (Can your kid even change the oil nowadays? Or a tire?)

The parallel technology of the '70s generation was IT. Not every boomer soldered an Altair from a kit, or mastered the arcana of DBASE. But enough of them did so that we got the Internet and Web. We got Moore's Law and other marvels. We got a chance to ride another great technological wave.

So, what's the parallel hobby skill today? What tech-marvel has boys and girls enthralled, tinkering away, becoming expert in something dazzling and practical and new? Shooting ersatz aliens in "Halo"? Dressing up avatars in "The Sims"? Oh sure, there's creativity in creating cool movies and Web pages. But except for the very few who will make new media films, do you see a great wave of technological empowerment coming out of all this?

Next page: I want my son to see the lines that weave through the fabric of cyberspace