The aim must be for the next generation to learn to control computers, rather than be controlled by them
It is an irony of technology that the deeper it sinks into everyday life, the more remote it can come to seem. When motor cars were a rarity, early drivers had to crank up their engines, but today we can cruise without the faintest concern about what's happening under the bonnet – until something goes wrong. A generation ago computer users had to type commands in technical syntax to achieve the simplest things; nowadays a finger can press on a screen and open an app to do just about anything.
Easier computing makes for an easier life, but it could leave the next generation both more dependent on and more clueless about the microchip. The Raspberry Pi – the low-cost computer that went on sale yesterday, and could soon break into schools – responds to this prospect. It is sold as a few uncased components bolted on to a credit-card-sized board, so we really are talking back to basics, though not quite back to Basic: the clock speed would put any 1980s machine to shame. But the cohort who learned the programming craft back then are the project's greatest enthusiasts. They're only human, and so it is partly nostalgia – having copied out code from magazines and wired technical Lego engines up to their Spectrums, they go gooey at the thought of their children getting similar hands-on experience. But there are also two really serious objectives.
The first and more obvious point is – to go back to the car analogy – that the next generation of mechanics will have to come from somewhere, and they will require a degree of exposure to the nuts and bolts of computing. The difficulty of manufacturing hardware is already such that, despite hopes of keeping it at home, the Pi is stamped "made in China". As for software, no one, no matter how bright, can flower into a boffin without the chance to tinker around with code. Proprietary platforms like Windows make that difficult – the bonnet is welded shut – so the Pi will run on open-source Linux.
While those few who will go on to devise meta-languages and wizardly games may dive into the bowels of operating systems, it must be admitted that this will remain a minority sport. But the second advantage of hands-on computing applies more widely. Where new engine components embody new principles in sealed units, every computable language must – as Turing proved – embody the same essential logic. With a little sense of how to manipulate it, perfectly ordinary brains could dispatch everyday tasks better, by for example aligning diaries, reordering information, or recrunching bank statements from a format that makes sense for banks to serve up, into a format that is easy to read. In sum, as the sponsoring charity puts it, the aim must be for the next generation to learn to control computers, rather than be controlled by them.