Why Learn About Programming?
According to 2016 statistics from the US magazine Business Insider, based on the demand from the market and salary level of the role, the top 20 jobs in the future will be related to computer software and by 2024 the United States is expected to have one million jobs related to computer science. Many jobs will likely disappear in the future, but it seems that the demand for software development and programming will only increase at a faster rate.
In Taiwan, we have seen that the government is finally starting to follow the world-wide trend and included software-related education as compulsory courses for primary and secondary schools. Taiwan also has a number of academic and non-governmental organizations who are actively supporting this with a variety of tools and methods to help promote education in this area.
Programming is a comprehensive study that cannot be taught, tested, and evaluated in the traditional way. Most experts agree that learning Computational Thinking (CT) is essential to software development. In addition, the primary way of learning needs to be by creating programs to solve a variety of problems. To solve these problems, students will need to understand and deconstruct the problems, find solutions, and continually experiment with improvements. In the process of creating the program, students will also encounter many sub-problems (bugs), that will force them to find information, communicate with technical experts on the Internet, think for themselves, or collaborate with others on the team to find a solution. By solving one problem after another with software programs, students gain a cumulative understanding. The experience built of how to solve problems with a computer also helps programmers learn how to solve a variety of problems in real life.