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The terms ‘coding’ and ‘programming’ are often used interchangeably and some parents may wonder if there are any differences between the two. Before I answer that question, I would like to throw ‘computational thinking’ into the fray and spend the rest of this blog post dissecting these three terms so parents get a better understanding of what each one means.

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This is one of those questions that splits opinions. There’s a camp out there which advocates that coding is low level work – basically translating logic into code so that your application can run. Programming is higher order work – designing logic to solve problems. This camp can basically be summed up in four words – ‘Coders cheap. Programmers expensive.’ The other camp, unsurprisingly, argues there is no difference between coding and programming. Engineers, coders, programmers, hackers, developers (devs) are all pretty much the same thing. It’s just branding. I personally don’t see much difference between coding and programming and tend to use the two words interchangeably. If you’re really interested, there is an ongoing debate on Quora about coding versus programming. What I am more interested in as a STEM educator is computational thinking.

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What is the difference between programming and coding?

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Answer (1 of 49): Coding On to coding. I don't like this term personally, but sometimes I am a coder too - it's part of the job - When I'm a coder I'm like this guy: So a coder is someone who codes from one language to another.

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According to Carnegie Mellon Centre for Computational Thinking, “computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behaviour that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science.” Jeanette M. Wing wrote a seminal piece on computational thinking in 2006 and prefaced the essay with this line. “It [computational thinking] represents a universally applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use.” She goes on to add, “To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child’s analytical ability.” Clearly Wing believes computational thinking is linked to skills beyond the ability to write code.

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Why focus on Computational Thinking when teaching computer science?

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Why focus on Computational Thinking when teaching computer science?

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At Saturday Kids, our belief is that problem solving starts with the user (to Wing’s point, ‘understanding human behavior’) and understanding user needs. That is why we are huge advocates of the human-centered approach of design thinking.

Understanding user needs is step 0 (in computer science numbers start with zero instead of one), knowing what problem to solve for is step one. In Saturday Kids classes, we ask students to break a problem down into smaller problems (e.g to build an animation in Scratch, start with one sprite, make the sprite do something, move on to the next sprite when you’re happy wth the first one). The ScratchEd team calls this ‘experimenting and iterating.’

Whatever you want to call it, this much is clear. Computational thinking is not about writing code machines can understand. It is about solving problems efficiently for human users. Wing listed down a number of characteristics of computational thinking. I leave you with the most important. “Fundamental, not rote skill. A fundamental skill is something every human being must know to function in modern society.”

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Saturday Kids started in 2012 as a programming school for kids in Singapore. Since 2012, Saturday Kids has taught over 2,000 children programming, electronics, design thinking and 3D printing. To learn more, visit http://saturdaykids.com/.

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SaturdayKids | We teach kids to code & do awesome stuff

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Home | SaturdayKids | We teach kids to code & do awesome stuff

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I've been meaning to write to you to let you know that my son loved his workshop with Saturday Kids in June and I will be enrolling my daughter too for the beginners course that you are doing in October