The Final Stretch, plus an Interview with Gene Kim
over 9 years ago
– Tue, Jun 09, 2015 at 05:42:18 PM
Hi backers,
The project is already a pretty wild success, but we have a few more days left, if you could let more of your friends know about the project with tweets, shares or good old fashion word of mouth it could make a big difference for us.
We are in the final stretch of our campaign, and we figured we should add one more stretch goal: larger-sized posters! These will be available as a $10 add-on (including US shipping), which you will be able to buy once the campaign has funded through Backerkit. And don't forget, you can also add on the tee-shirts and additional copies of the book now to help us reach the new stretch goal.
A bit about Gene Kim
Actually, one of our friends, Gene Kim, was really excited about the project. He is a pretty prominent IT author and we sent him an advance copy of Programming Languages ABC++. He was cool enough to sit down with us and give some of his thought on the book, kids, and getting them excited about programming early on.
Here is what he had to say:
Most of us know about Gene Kim, the author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win, but you’re also a father! Tell us about your children.
Holy cow, kids completely changed my life. I have three sons, age 7, 5 and 5—yes, they’re identical twin boys.
One of our favorite things to do together is to read. In fact, I still get endless delight that my they can recite from Seth Godin’s picture book, “V is for Vulnerable.”
It’s a book by the famous Seth Godin on the creative process, and the inevitable pain involved in any creative act. I love knowing that my twins, at the age of 3, all knew that “P is for Pain,” “A is for Anxiety,” “Q is for Quality,” and “R is for Remix.”
I have no doubt that “the ABC++” will be our favorite, especially since my seven-year-old will be going to Scratch programming camp this year! Just as Seth Godin introduced the language and emotions involved in the creative process, I delight in the fact that soon my kids will be reciting, “E is for Erlang,” “C is for Clojure,” “P is for Perl,” and “R is for Ruby.”
Your bio says that you’re “CTO, researcher and author.” That’s a somewhat vague job description to most adults. So what do your kids think you do at work all day?
Do they think it’s exciting? For me, the ideal week is spending half the time writing and the other half studying how the exemplars in our industry work, whether they are a DevOps unicorns (e.g., Google, Amazon, Etsy, Netflix) or a large, complex horses (e.g., Target, Nordstrom, Disney, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services).
I am so delighted that when asked at school what their dad does, they say “author.” They’ve all created their own books, complete with “about the author” and dedication pages.
There are already more jobs than there are IT pros, and that gap is expected to grow in the next couple decades. Do you think it is more useful to spark a child’s interest in this subject, or try to train them in the fundamentals at an early age?
Many researchers believe that education is one of the most powerful levers in society—it reduces inequality, it creates economic opportunity, and is one of the top predictors of health, wealth, and longevity.
For this and many other reasons, I think providing education opportunities is one of the most important things parents can do for their kids. This is something I undoubtedly got from my parents, who like many immigrants made many sacrifices to enable my sister and I to go to good public schools and go to college, and later, graduate school.
One of the things I’m excited for this summer is that my oldest son is going to Scratch programming camp. Although I don’t think it will be as fun as Minecraft camp, I think it could be as transformative as the first computer camp I went to when I was a kid. (Back then, we learned Logo programming and BASIC on an Apple ][.)
That's all for now folks, I'm sure you will hear from us in a few days before the campaign wraps up!
Alex
