AI and programming classes in Swindon

The learner types the 36 rows of Williams's table into Python, or better, writes a few lines to pull them out of the Project Gutenberg text. There are only 14 different wages among the 36 trades; 28 shillings alone is shared by eight trades, from carriage finishers to bricklayers. Sorting by wage and numbering the rows 1 to 36 puts the carpenters 22nd. Reverse the list first, sort again, and they are 17th. Nothing about carpenters has changed; only the order in which the rows were typed.

Three honest rules replace the arbitrary row number. Competition ranking gives every tied trade the highest position they share, so all eight 28-shilling trades are 16th and the next rank is 24th. Dense ranking counts distinct wages, so they are 7th and the lowest-paid trade is only 14th. Fractional ranking gives the average of the shared positions, 19.5, which is what statisticians use. The same carpenters can be called 7th, 16th, 19.5th or 22nd, depending on the rule.

The learner then asks a practical question: which trades are in the top quarter, the highest-paid 9 of 36? Numbering rows gives exactly nine names and quietly drops Forgemen or Smiths, whichever happens to come later. Competition ranking says ten trades have rank 9 or better, because two share 33 shillings. The program must either admit ten or state a tie-break. A final column converts each wage to pence per hour over the fifty-four hours: 34 shillings is 7.56d an hour, 20 shillings is 4.44d. Every rank is a rank of trades, not of men, because the book gives no headcount for each trade.

Spotting the hidden choice inside every ranking is one more reason Swindon teenagers should stick with code in 2026. The longer argument is in why teenagers should still learn to code in 2026.