@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Denial of Senses:
But thinking through a problem algorithmically, and then writing sufficiently detailed/explicit instructions, and how to recognize gaps in instructions and places where they are vague, is a useful skill in other endeavors as well.
It's probably possible to teach this skill to schoolchildren by having them do computer programming exercises.
But then thing you're teaching them isn't "programming" in the sense that most people understand the term, and certainly not in the sense that the article means when it claims to refute that "programming is hard."
Ironically, algorithmic thinking is the hardest part of being a software engineer. It's certainly harder than actually programming.
This! Exactly this!
Coding is relatively easy, once you catch on to the syntax of the language you are working in. Most languages follow common paradigms, with minor variations as to syntax. If you can express an algorithm, you can code it. The hard part is in expressing that algorithm.
There's a vast difference between what people now call "programming" (but I would call "coding") and programming of old: we oldsters were, by circumstance and lack of the all-helpful toolkits now available, forced to learn how to think through a problem "algorithmically".