Can everyone learn to program computers? A Camas High senior believes they can, and he’s hoping to help them on their way with a free “Everyone Should Learn to Code” class at the Camas Public Library.
“I believe anyone can learn it, as long as the person is willing to think a little harder, and if the teacher explains it in a way that is clear,” Shile Wen, 17, said about learning the basics of computer coding, or developing the set of instructions that make computers, robots and apps do the things they do. “I think the main problem with many programmers is that they’re not very good at speaking about what they’re doing. They’re too far into the (computer programming) world and they talk in a way that beginners can’t understand.”
Wen grew up in a family comfortable with the inner workings of technology. Both of his parents — mother, Shuping Chen, and father, Ling Wen — are software engineers, and his older brother, Shicon, a 2014 Camas High graduate, just became an electrical engineer.
Wen started to follow in his parents’ footsteps after a Saturday Academy class during middle school taught him about computer coding, but it wasn’t until his sophomore year at Camas High, when he joined the robotics team — Team Mean Machine — that Wen really started getting into the language of computer programming.
“The summer after my sophomore year, I taught myself Java (a popular computer coding language) by reading a book about it for eight hours straight.”