You are jumping to a conclusion that — just because the parent taught something about "git", they didn't get to do anything else. Where did you get that idea from? Nowhere did the parent say that this is the only thing their kid does. They may very well engage in a hundred more childhood activities in addition to this.
It seems to imply that the rest of childhood is lost because of git. You may want to correct or clarify your comment.
Btw, childhood is a lot about throwaway exploring many things where we don't have to invent a purpose or utility for every single thing. It's all about spare time and trying things out with no strings attached. It doesn't matter if in some of their spare time they watch TV together, or go to movies together, or build a robot together, or code together. I think you're getting downvoted not because whether the utility is right or wrong, but because utility doesn't need to matter.
I downvoted this comment as I disagree strongly with that statement:
> git has absolutely no meaning for a child, it's a professional tool used for work
It's not just a professional tool for work. It's a version control system to version whatever you might think needs versioning. What's this attitude that software engineering tools and skills are just valuable for work?
> you don't teach children how to operate a chainsaw, do you?
A chainsaw is very dangerous to the kid. My dad certainly told me how to use a hammer, handsaw and many other tools. We built a lot of things together like wooden remote controlled airplanes. It was certainly neither to train me to become a woodworker or aerospace engineer. And I will certainly build computer games with my kid some day which will involve git (or its future equivalent) as one of the first lessons.
> like do you really think children are bothered with not being able to version-control files?
I've used lots of "...-1.zip" files to preserve my files when learning coding for fun, so yes, someone showing me git (if it existed at the time) would help. It took me a few extra years to discover CVS/SVN. (the system itself was exciting)
> yeah, why not also teach them law and performing a surgery?
There are kids actually interested in law and finding the concept fun. You may be also shocked that I was really into accounting my allowance and spending in a double entry system. Surgery would be hard for practical/legal reasons, but I know two really young kids, one obsessed with the idea of performing medical procedures, the other with being a paramedic. (and not in a silly "I wanna grow up to be a doctor", but rather "I've found a first aid course for kids I want to do")
What I'm trying to say is, don't assume kids are pushed / forced to do things like that. Some of them really enjoy things adults find hard / boring / too work related.
I agree with everything viraptor said in the sibling comment and just wanna add:
> yes, work is still work, it doesn't matter if you're doing work as a fun hobby or as a job
No it's not work. You do work to get paid if you like a particular task or not. You do your hobby for yourself because you enjoy doing it and you just stop if you want to. I certainly won't force my kids to do that. I will try to get them into the subject with patience and let it go if they gave it a fair shot and don't like it. It matters a great deal if you do something for work or fun.
> like do you really think children are bothered with not being able to version-control files? is this an issue a lot of children are having?
Of course, everyone wants an "undo" button and lower consequences for experimentation. I really wanted one from the very first programs I wrote when I was 9 years old and don't have one. I had no intention of making a career of it and had no one to share programs with. Completely irrelevant.
First of all, teaching someone git isn't necessarily job training. We don't have the broader context. Maybe the child initiated it because they were interested in what their parents are spending their time on.
Secondly, teaching a child how to use git doesn't mean the child isn't learning other things too.
Thirdly, I learned version control (SVN, before git existed) as a child too. Not as young as primary school, but I learned it on my own because I was interested in it. It wasn't done in the context of job training.
Fourthly, your comparison with a chain saw is just plain vacuous. Git won't kill or maim you. Holy hell buddy.
So at least in my case, your speculation about the reasons for downvotes is wrong. And also, stop whining about downvotes. :)
It makes sense if the kid’s already into programming, and is starting to run up against the sorts of problems a VCS is designed to solve like “oh no it was kinda working and my attempts to make it work better broke it and I closed the editor so I can’t undo my way back out of this”.
A kid in first grade is not very likely to be having these kinds of problems, but a site like this full of professional programmers is certainly where you’re most likely to find parents whose kids are having these problems because they’ve been genuinely interested in learning what Mom and/or Dad do all day, and have been taught some of it.
Until a couple years ago, I didn't use Git at work (it was SVN at work). However, I used it all the time for personal projects.
Come to think of it, SVN was the same way; I used it for personal projects while using CVS at work.
Also, as an aside, my dad taught me how to use a chainsaw, including mixing the fuel for the two-stroke engine when I was 12. As an electrical engineer, he certainly didn't use a chainsaw at work.
Why not? I got my first programming manual (for C64 Basic, of course) when I was 7, read Stroustrup at 14, and wrote x86 assembly as 16. I started working with CVS only at university, and wished that I'd known about it years before.
But thank you for gratuitously denigrating my childhood.
Everyone is part of some tiny, tiny minority. It's the best thing about us. It doesn't matter if it's coding, aikido, collecting sea shells, or keeping ferrets.
Denouncing one such tiny minority just because you don't see the value in it makes you sound very closed-minded and bigoted.
That's a huge assumption here. At the base of what a human needs are the physiological needs. Do humans need art? Fun? Maths? Git? Where do you draw the line?
That's not the only context. I would likely appreciate git at 12yo. I definitely enjoyed programming already and I believe that was the time I learned more about maths to code some music visualiser plugins and was sending fun examples back and forth with a friend. Git would've been useful.
Some of the best experiences of my childhood were learning how to code, which ultimately turned into a career that has opened up more opportunities and experiences than I would have known otherwise.
I think your premise that coding is bad for kids is incorrect. Coding is not typing. It's an art of solving problems.
My childhood was coding, it was(is?) something I was good at and I thoroughly enjoyed doing.
My initial days were just writing random macros on Excel or coding out my maths problems on BASIC.
That has what shaped my career
i myself started at 12 (actually with BASIC!) and while there’s no denial that it has helped my career at later point in life, it has completely alienated me from the rest of people
my schoolmates still introduce me as “nerd” to other people (not in front of me of course)
So, if you discovered your (hypothetical or not) kid being interested in solving puzzles and programming, would you stop them? Instead of encouraging them to find some offline hobbies and spending time with other people to balance it out?
Also, people can be a**holes to others for any and no reason. Being different is just the most common and a seemingly rational one. It's an important life lesson to learn that it's often not possible to change people, and frequently not even worth trying. Adapting to them to fit their small worldview is even less promising.
I too learned BASIC when I was 12 and often felt alienated from my peers.
Turns out the alienation was from being a know-it-all, argumentative asshole and had very little to do with my programming skills. Most of my classmates probably would have found the programming somewhat interesting had I not lofted it over their heads as a badge of self superiority.
it just so happened that my knowledge helped me perform better at IT class than anybody else, so they got pissed at me for being able to comprehend something they themselves don't
For what it's worth, it sounds like you had a childhood that was very different than what kids today are growing up with, at least in my area.
By around 2014 the cool kids in my local high school were the nerds, and it's pretty much stayed that way. I worked with a neighborhood youth group where the kid who was at the center of everything was super into fortnite and coding. When he introduced himself to me the first thing he said was "I'm pretty much a nerd"—and he said it with pride! A few of the other kids felt the need to establish their nerd cred, too. This was in a neighborhood in the poorest part of a nearly-rural town. Their parents were mostly in trades, not tech.
"Nerd" has become a badge of honor that is sought after and claimed by kids, not a derogatory label assigned by others.
