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Re:The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones by textminer on Thursday October 24, 2013 @03:54PM (#6607508)
This is a common generational worry, right? We learned X a certain way, that pedagogy was necessarily linked to the technology at the time, we worry in retrospect that that specific technology was a necessary condition for ever learning X.

I'm only 28, and I do it, too-- e.g., how will kids expand their imagination and learn about the world without only having paper books to immerse themselves in for hours at a time? How will anyone learn the basics of programming without finding QuickBASIC on an old Packard-Bell 386, playing around with Gorillas or Snakes, or entering their own code from books in the library?

I think there will be a sufficient number of hacker types around for the cynical and simple reason that corporations need to inspire kids to learn how to code so that they can hire folks in two decades. This ought to inspire a token amount of educational support and tool building so that entry-level development will always be accessible to kids.

Re:The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones by kazagistar on Thursday October 24, 2013 @03:57PM (#6607528)
These days, everyone has access to an excellent cross platform learning platform for programming: the browser. So yeah, I think if anything programming is more accessible then ever.
Re:The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones by jl6 on Thursday October 24, 2013 @04:06PM (#6607602)
Not that I disagree with what you've said, but browsers aren't a platform for learning to program on a tablet.
Re:The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones by davidsong on Friday October 25, 2013 @09:34AM (#6611455)
The worry isn't unfounded though and in the case of programming it has actually been measured, the decline in quality of CS students is what inspired the Raspberry Pi project:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/about