David Mikics in Tablet:
…I mentioned that children at my son’s elementary school in Brooklyn are taking coding classes in third grade. “It’s absolutely asinine,” Gelernter scowled. “You could also teach a third grader how to drive, using a miniature car, but why would you? Teach them discrete math, logic, graph theory, not baby coding. They have to work up to the coding. In America these days we don’t like working up to things.” Gelernter’s own classes sound very Italian Renaissance. He preaches the need for “elegance, boldness, surprise, and beauty” in graphical user interfaces. The ancient Greek vase painter known as the Berlin Painter figures in his computer interface class, as do Gothic cathedrals, Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio, and the trailblazing industrial designer Raymond Loewy. IBM, he said, introduced playfulness and beauty into computing in the 1960s. “Steve Jobs deserves respect,” he admitted. “He was an interesting guy. But there’s no way he was the father of bringing design to computers. IBM was the key force. They’re the ones who discovered that the computer was a way to communicate with people.”
More here.