I ran across this post on something called plusplusbot today.  Basically, it is a way to assign points to people/things on twitter by using ++ or --.  So to take the example from the quoted post...

  1. Make sure you have a Twitter account
  2. Follow plusplusbot
  3. If you love something add ++ after it like this:
coffee++ because it keeps me alert

Now I couldn't be less interested in the functionality of this program but what does interest me is the use of the incrementor. 

(for those who don’t know, in most programming languages “++” increments and “—“ does the opposite.  So if you have a variable called NumOfVisits and it holds a 5 putting “NumOfVisits++” would make a six)

I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if we could find some way to sneak programming syntax into everyday life.  It would seem to me that kids who used plusplusbot above would instinctively understand how to increment if you tried to teach them C#.  So I wonder if we could make a generation of kids primed to learn programming by sneaking the concepts into their day to day life at an early age.  Anyway, that is my random thought for the day.