back to article Google hops into bed with Brit red-top: Cooks up 'draw an app' coding compo for kids

British red-top The Sun is running a campaign to “Get Kids Coding” in collaboration with Google that demonstrates failures of judgment and technology that have reduced my family as well as some Reg staff to helpless laughter. The tabloid is, of course, a contentious choice for promoting any academic activity - teachers mostly …

  1. jake Silver badge

    Google ...

    ... The Sun of the networking/computing world.

    They said it, I didn't ...

  2. Buzzword

    Coding != Programming

    For my tax money, I'd rather see kids taught programming than coding. The broad principles of programming can be applied in many domains, not just computing; whereas coding is too narrow and likely to turn off many students.

  3. Arachnoid

    Given how kids think

    It might have got more <input type="submit" value="Submit"> </form> had they called it "Get Kids hacking"

  4. mythicalduck

    "We do need to get more of our kids studying IT"

    "We do need to get more of our kids studying IT"

    As much as I think I'd like this, I rather them be taught to understand money/finance.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    I'm just amazed...

    ....The Scum didn't get some 16 year old* to get her tits out whilst holding a tablet to illustrate the point, whilst on the next page telling us of some evil pedofile (sic) teacher has run off with a 16 year old girl.

    *Sam Fox was 16 when she first appeared topless in The Sun.

    1. Amorous Cowherder
      Facepalm

      Re: I'm just amazed...

      I love our gutter press, front page screams "STRING UP THE SICK PEADO SCUM!", little advert in the corner of the page, "Phwoar lads! Get an eyeful sweet 16 Debs posing topless!".

      1. returnmyjedi

        Re: I'm just amazed...

        Didn't they have a countdown a few years ago, ticking off the days until some 15 year old was old enough to adorn their pages topless?

        Stay classy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I'm just amazed...

          That was Lindsay Dawn Mckenzie who is still in the same profession except with more than just her boobies on show.

          ANON for obvious reasons

        2. Elmer Phud

          Re: I'm just amazed...

          "Didn't they have a countdown a few years ago, ticking off the days until some 15 year old was old enough . . ." to shag.

          Yes, Charlotte Church (might not have been the Scum but same lowlife pondslime scumsuckers)

  6. frank ly

    From the Sun article

    "You’ll get to build a game and start hacking with a Raspberry Pi."

    It's an evil plot to raise a hacker army. Or maybe an evil plot to pre-screen citizens for hacker tendencies?

  7. RyokuMas
    FAIL

    Doesn't bode well...

    "You’ll get to build a game"

    ... except that you ask kids these days what they think of as a game and you'll probably get answers of GTA, Modern Warfare, TitanFall, Assassins Creed, etc., or possibly Candy Crush, Angry Birds...

    Tell a kid that they'll get to build a game and the chances are that this is what they'll expect to end up with - and then not bother when they realise the gulf between their creations and AAA titles.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: when they realise the gulf between their creations and AAA titles.

      There was a fair old gulf between the terrible/barely-working/dull games that I used to code up and all those old 8-bit titles too. Not really sure it put me off... I could do day long play/debug/"improvement" sessions quite happily, and I didn't care at all that they were obscure, inefficient, and of no interest to anyone else. In fact, I still kind of miss them (the cave adventure, the wargames that couldn't be lost, the outdoor explorer/combat thing, the abstracted civilisation games, or even the totally abortive "captain caveman" that Mark and I never even started planning properly.

      I expect the floppy disks they are stored on - in my parents basement - have died by now, and even then, getting them off the bbc-b (assuming it agreed to power up) might be non trivial.

      Mind you, I didn't end up in IT. Is that good or bad?

    2. Elmer Phud

      Re: Doesn't bode well...

      unless they are total Minecraft nuts who are building processors and are about to pwn the internet - but only in daytime.

  8. MJI Silver badge

    NSFW warning required

    We do not want to see that paper!

  9. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

    IT is not Programming; Programming is not IT

    A country that's short of bridges and motorways is encouraging its kids to become mechanics.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the article: "so many of your kids won’t have proper jobs when they grow up"

    So what is a "proper job" then?

    I don't think many of the Sun's demographic work in "meedja" or "social", which are often stereotyped as the "not proper jobs".

    Of the Sun's actual readers - 31% of the readership are in the ABC1 and 68% are in the C2DE.

    C2 typically features skilled trades (plumbers, sparkys, chippys, fitters, mechanics). D features semi-skilled and labourers. Are none of these "proper jobs"? What should they be doing instead?

    Or are you referring to the E category, who aren't in any jobs at all - in which case why not remove the word "proper" from the original sentence?

    Shame to have such a jarring end to an otherwise fairly well elucidated article.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sun/scum readers + White Vans == Watchout for them

      Quote

      C2 typically features skilled trades (plumbers, sparkys, chippys, fitters, mechanics).

      Yep, that is why most of the White Vans who tailgate almost every me on the road has the mandatory many copies of the publication on the dashboard.

    2. DaneB
      Mushroom

      ???

      Pretty sure I detected some strong notes of sarcasm in that last para of the offending article. Might be wrong though.

  11. Crisp

    "Last year 15 times as many boys took the [Computing] A level as girls."

    That's probably because more boys did the course than girls.

  12. graeme leggett Silver badge

    slightly different approach needed?

    "...that you can learn something useful about programming from scratch in an “Hour of Code”.

    Perhaps the first thing useful to be learnt about programming could be a half-hour beforehand in which it is explained what programming is, and how it is used.

    [My son - 9 - has been using Scratch at his school. And has shown a passing interest in it outside of school. He also learnt the name "C#" somewhere along the way. I couldn't explain what C# is or how it differs from Scratch, let alone any other C-language, but he can now namedrop "Assembler", "Fortran", "Pascal" and "BBC Basic" as well (it's the least I could do)]

    1. Just Enough
      Boffin

      Re: slightly different approach needed?

      Congratulations. He's now equipped to code at the cutting edge of 1986.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @JustEnough (was:Re: slightly different approach needed?)

        Not yet. But when he graduates from Uni, he'll have the know-how to keep the existing infrastructure that drives the Western World running. He will be able to cut his own ticket quite simply because he seems to be more interested in work than toys.

    2. AbelSoul

      Re: slightly different approach needed?

      "... you can learn it in an hour, afternoon or whatever. Hands up those who think you can."

      Obligatory learn to programme in 21 days

  13. Elmer Phud

    Same again?

    Once upon a time pupils were encouraged to go for 'business studies' as that would make them all in to rich little entrepeneurs.

    Those going into insolvency parctices did well out if it.

    Looks like the same is happening now, one or three people make a mint out of apps and it's yee-ha! goldrush time.

    And those who did best out of the goldrush were not usually the prospectors.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    i think id tell my kids to do business studies if I had any. It might be parasitical, beurocracy, paper shuffling ,double dealing, not actually producing anything, and profiting from the sweat of others ....

    But why bother learning to do anything useful when you can go and do business studies and get to wear the chief hat straight away

  15. Buster

    Watch out Google. It will be the “Sun wot did IT”………….

    Oh good, tax fail Google get to appear to do something to boost tech skills of the young through the most populist organ to the demographic least likely to be boosted. Even less likely on Merseyside where the Sun is not welcome. What has Google got against Liverpool?

    Google can now get polishing its philanthropic credentials, to the extent that they becomes entirely composed of shine. And its friends in the Government can claim to be doing something without ever having to understand the question because they have the best brains in the tech world to do that for them. They must be ...look at how rich the are......... and they are American.....and they pay SFA tax....now that is really clever.

  16. nowster

    F Y CN RD THS Y CN GT A GD JB N CMPTRS

  17. Flymo
    Thumb Up

    Firefox won't display it, but....

    ...Midori 0.5.8 does show the recalcitrant page!

    Both running in Linux, natch.

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