When we discuss coding, we often talk about it in the context of jobs and competing with other countries. But that’s only part of it. At CodeRev Kids, we embrace the fun and wonder of coding. There are so many wild things people can do. Consider a recent article for Motherboard titled “This 70-Year-Old Programmer Is Preserving an Ancient Coding Language on GitHub.”
Jordan Pearson of Motherboard writes, “Dave Shields is trying to save a dying machine language. Shields has been coding for more than 50 years, and over the decades he’s worked at both NYU and IBM as a research programmer—someone who pushes the boundaries of software design. Shields has racked up a few accomplishments worth bragging about over his long career, including being one of the developers behind Jikes, a Java compiler that was also IBM’s first open source project. But Shields, now 70 years old and retired, is mainly interested in just one thing these days: an obscure programming language called SPITBOL that he worked on in the 1970s and then abandoned for 30 years. SPITBOL is, Shields says, a ‘quick and dirty’ implementation of a 60s programming language called SNOBOL4, written by Robert Dewar. It’s terse and to the point—28,000 lines of code altogether, half of which are comments—and is chiefly meant to manipulate text and symbols, and recognize patterns. While SNOBOL4 was seen at the time as powerful but slow, SPITBOL was built for speed. Now, Shields is trying to keep SPITBOL alive as an open source project hosted on GitHub, all by himself. Since taking the project online in 2009, Shields has been the sole contributor to SPITBOL’s code. So far, he’s succeeded in reconfiguring the language, which he at one time ported for a 60s supercomputer called the CDC 6600, to work on modern Linux and Mac operating systems.”
Once upon a time, Dave Shields got a coding education that forever changed his life. At CodeRev Kids, we want to provide that experience to as many young students as we can.
Our lessons emphasize computational thinking, which ecompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. These lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. As a result, the entire curriculum is customized.
We are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there but we also keep the focus on having fun. When the lessons are fun, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.
If you’re interested in providing your child with a customized coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids!