文章摘要
尽管“学编程”不再是硅谷热词,也无法保证高薪,但学习编程仍有教育价值。作者通过自身经历说明,编程能激发对数学等学科的热爱,其意义在于探索式学习而非单纯职业培训。
文章总结
学习编程依然值得
在“氛围编程”盛行的时代,学习编程还有意义吗?硅谷已鲜少有人再提“学编程”这句曾被视为不朽的口号。作为一家编程与部署初创公司的创始人,我依然坚信每个人都应该学习编程。
“学编程”不再是脱贫捷径,就像数学、文学或科学一样,编程的价值在于教育本身,而非仅仅职业用途。我小时候讨厌数学,但通过一个编程课后班爱上了数学,并取得了超乎想象的成绩。后来我才知道,这源于教育研究者西摩·佩珀特的设计。他主张像学说话一样通过探索而非指令学习数学,并创造了LOGO编程语言——通过给屏幕上的乌龟指令来画画,让学习者“像说母语一样说数学”。我最近制作了一个在线版本,你可以试试如何画圆。
通过编程,我学到了调试、组合和逻辑等元技能,最重要的是,我明白了没有什么是学不会的。这种元学习或许解释了计算机科学家为何自信能解决世界上的所有问题。
编程是融合写作的创造力、数学的精确性和电子游戏即时反馈的愉悦活动。它像施法一样,将你的想象转化为计算机能执行的精确语言。LLM能像写代码一样写英文,但我们并不担心人文学科的价值,编程也是如此。许多人像看待法律术语一样轻视代码,但代码正是世界运行的基石,优雅的代码能改变世界——想想E=mc²或“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的”。最后,编程本身就是一种乐趣。如果你对学习编程有兴趣,欢迎给我发邮件。
通用编程素养的梦想,即使在LLM时代也依然存在。
评论总结
根据评论内容,总结如下主要观点及论据:
观点一:学习编程仍有价值,AI无法替代基础理解 - 评论3:学习任何东西都有价值,知道CPU如何处理指令或内存如何管理并非无用。"The excuse that we don't need to know how things work because AI will take care of it is going to bite a lot of people on their asses" - 评论6:学习本身仍有价值,LLM能做大部分事不意味着应停止学习。"Just because an LLM can do most things better than I can doesn't mean I should stop learning" - 评论29:每个劝你不学编程的人自己都会编程,且能推理代码。"Note that every single person telling you to not learn to code currently knows how to code"
观点二:编程是创造性表达,AI导致智力懒惰 - 评论5:代码是美丽的创造性表达,LLM让人智力懒惰,亲手构建才有成就感。"I find that LLMs are making me intellectually lazy and making things with them feels unfulfilling" - 评论21:学习编程是永无止境的旅程,把一切委托给AI会让自己退化为初级开发者。"if I delegate everything to the slot machine I feel like I'm being retro actively turned into a junior"
观点三:AI时代编程角色转变,但核心能力仍关键 - 评论17:AI主要替代外层开发(如应用、仪表盘),但编译器、框架等关键领域仍需人工。"No one wants to build on code that is 99% accurate or bloated" - 评论23:专业程序员现在需像照顾初级贡献者一样"照看"模型,但编程作为职业前景堪忧。"the job is increasingly babysitting models like they were junior contributors" - 评论28:问题不在于学习本身的价值,而在于是否值得为职业路径背负巨额学生贷款。"it's whether it's worth going into massive student loan debt to pursue a career path"
观点四:编程被过度神化,应回归实用定位 - 评论7:编程被推销为万能药(失业学编程、坐牢学编程),但实际应像焊接一样被视为实用技能。"Coding is like welding in that it's a useful skill, a craft unto itself" - 评论19:编程将变得像肖像画或制作玩具一样小众,有更便宜简单的方式获得优质产品。"Coding is going to become a niche activity like portrait painting or making toys"
观点五:学习编程有助于培养问题解决思维 - 评论12:学习编程=理解问题、分解问题、整合问题、调试、迭代,这些技能可迁移到其他领域。"All these are amazingly valuable skills/mindsets that can be highly portable to other 'problem solving' domains" - 评论8:要充分利用AI这一人类最强大技术,必须学会读写代码。"If you want to fully understand / contribute to / fully leverage the most powerful technology humanity has ever devised (AI), you must learn to read and write code"
观点六:AI时代编程教育面临挑战 - 评论11:"知道如何编程"定义模糊,AI可能对教育产生负面影响。"LLMs might even be negative progress on education" - 评论22:谁有时间学编程?当打两份工时哪有空闲。"Who in the world has time to learn how to code? Who has that much copious free time when they're working two jobs?"
观点七:AI无法替代对代码的深度理解 - 评论15:无法理解AI输出就完全信任它,这比经验教会我的更乐观。"To create things via AI without being able to comprehend the output is to trust completely in the agent(s)" - 评论16:LLM前就不擅长编程的人,用旗舰模型仍产出糟糕代码。"the people who I know who were not particularly good developers pre-llms still manage to produce bad code even using flagship models now"