Obama said a thing? Let the arguing begin...

Yes, this is a very good idea, that also motivates them to learn math, since it is very useful in programming.

I took several computer classes in high school and junior high and there were all like "This is a mouse, this is a keyboard," even the one on web design. Jealous that today's kids might get good classes.

Huh. For once I'm happy with one of his actions.

*jealous* I never had cool classes like that :(

If he tries to make it happen though legislation, he will be blocked by congress for trying to indoctrinate the children with the devil's C++ techno-witchcraft secret language.

Le of the only things I enjoyed hearing from him

Oh please change the picture to SOMETHING other than that. Google + maybe?

Nice idea. I'm hoping to learn programming myself with Raspberry Pi (once I get my hands on it), and a class would definitely help young children learn it too.

Well i'm attending college for computer science in the hopes that I will get a programming job in the gaming industry... too bad my high school didn't start offering programming classes until the year after I graduated. It sure would have helped a lot.  

Think it's fine the way it is. Learning to program is hard. Very hard. And kids will need to have had algebra by then to get a handle on the concept of substitution by variables. I was one of the 5 people who didn't fail the AP Computer Science course I took in high school... and even then, all 5 of us got a 1 on the AP exam. As far as college goes... on Intro to Programming, we had maybe 30-40 people. By the end of Advanced C++, we had a maximum of 7 students left.

Not to mention that good teachers are REALLY hard to find... one of my COLLEGE professors has forgotten how to code properly since she doesn't do anything but lectures; TAs do everything. My AP CS teacher was a veteran programmer, but he did a pretty lousy job of explaining things.

Giving kids in general (i.e., like taking any other required class like English or math) programming classes would probably be counterproductive since it's a very tough subject for mostly everyone K-half of high school. Right now, kids actually can take a programming class in the form of the Computer Science AP class, which does a fairly decent job in getting them acquainted with the principles of programming.

Its only the next logical movement. Kids who can program can accomplish so much more. This shouldve started a while ago.

Please stop staring at me, Mr. President.

Makes perfect sense to me. I majored in IT with an emphasis on software development due to my love for video games. I just graduated last year with a bachelor degree and got certified in java. Haven't regretted yet and don't think I ever will.

Sorry, but future American generations will be consumers of Asian tech. Nice sentiment though.

Don't know if there's more to the quote, but the article makes it seem like he was praising programming more than video games. He said, quoting from the article, that children are "knowledgeable about the internet and video games". That doesn't equal "Obama *credits* video games", as the article's title says. If he did praise gaming, that's nice. But if not, I'm not seeing a point here.

Course it can attract computer programming I was aiming to work on animation myself and I look up video games for inspiration :)

Not a bad idea. I would like programming a lot more if I grew up with it or had it in high school. Getting into stuff like PHP with just basic HTML knowledge really sucks. I'm definitely not a fan of programming, I'll just stick with networking.

Wow. I actually agree with this.

As a major in computer science, I agree.