Coding classes in Oegstgeest, where Descartes lived and a big problem becomes small ones

Multiplying the problem by a thousand adds only ten questions to the halving method, while the one-after-another method needs a thousand times more work. This is why a sorted list of a billion names can be searched almost instantly, and why so much of computer science is about finding ways to split a problem into halves or smaller parts. The same principle runs through sorting, where a large list is split, each half is sorted, and the sorted halves are merged, and through ordinary programming, where a task that seems impossible as a whole becomes a series of small functions, each simple enough to write and test. Descartes wrote about problems of reasoning, not about computers, and the page does not claim otherwise. His advice simply turned out to describe one of the most powerful ideas the field has.

This section uses the encyclopaedia's note that Descartes lived at Endegeest and the publication of his Discourse in Leiden as context, and standard computer science for the rest. It does not claim that Descartes wrote about computing.

So the case for a child in Oegstgeest learning to code in 2026 is not the castles or the famous resident. It is that someone who can split a problem into parts small enough to check will be needed wherever AI is handed tasks too large for anyone to verify whole. The longer argument is in why a child should still learn to code in 2026.