commentary Should school students learn programming just for the sake of it?

Thirteen years ago - probably not to the day, but there's always the possibility - a wise man said a terribly profound thing:

"Have you ever seen a turtle get down? Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go!"

Said learned fellow was, of course, the one and only Vanilla Ice. You probably realised that. What you may not have realised was that the self-styled "Iceman" was only reporting on something that I'd done around 10 years earlier. His style was, of course, a more lyrical (some might say poetic, although those some probably need serious counselling) retelling of the original. My original read something like this.

Now, for those of you not familiar with LOGO, it's a more or less moribund programming language - I'm sure there are people out there still using it, but you're unlikely to score a job - in which students can learn simple programming techniques through the metaphor of - and here's where the Iceman comes in - moving a turtle around the screen, drawing patterns and, depending on the skill of the student, quite a bit more. Enter the above program into any LOGO system, and you would, indeed, see a turtle 'get down'.

I did some elementary LOGO programming (I was going to write basic LOGO, but that's two languages for the price of one) in the mid 80's on what were, at the time, some pretty cutting edge Apple II machines. At the time, most of my classroom compatriots did the same thing - computers were 'new' and exposure to them, however peripheral, was seen as a good thing, educationally speaking.

Cut to the modern day, however, and things are a bit different. It's hard for me to get out my front door without seeing at least five objects more powerful than the Apple II - six if I include my electric razor - and most students have probably had more exposure to computers by the time they're out of primary school than I did in twelve years of learning. Things could no doubt be better - perhaps by properly funding public schools and maybe paying teachers an adequate wage - but that's another argument. So in this computer age, besides the students who gravitate towards what used to be called Computer Science when I were a lad, is there any call for getting students into this kind of logical programming?

I'm sure that my colleagues at BuilderAU.com.au would have something to say about this, but that's on the developer side of things. At the non-programming IT end of the spectrum, however, I'd say there is still a point. Sure, my ability to quickly sketch out squares, circles and enough other assorted polygonal shapes to make a spirograph cry doesn't come into play every day (writing this column notwithstanding), but the basic logical principles, in terms of working out sequences of effect, and developing thinking skills have an impact on all sorts of daily tasks.

At the absolute pure consumer end things are a little murkier. I could show the above LOGO program to my mother, and she'd more than likely just look at it blankly before returning to the comfort of (eugh) Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. Then again, when that happens, I can fall back in comfort on the fact that Vanilla Ice, once again, predicted this, when he sang in "Ice Ice Baby", undoubtedly his signature tune:

"Word to your mother"

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