
Please don’t learn to code - drubio
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/please-dont-learn-to-code/
======
imgabe
I never interpreted "everyone should learn to code" to mean "everyone should
get a job as a software developer". Coding is a highly useful skill that can
be applied in many professions. It doesn't mean everyone has to write
professional quality software in the hottest language du jour.

"Learning to code" just means recognizing when a problem can be solved by
applying a discrete series of repeatable steps and then learning how to tell
the computer to do those steps rather than doing it yourself. The productivity
boost we could get just by eliminating people manually copying and pasting
(or, dear god, re-typing) things from one spreadsheet to another would be
enormous, let alone other applications.

~~~
superqd
Exactly this. I think the article misunderstands, and/or misinterprets, the
Learn To Code "movement". It's not a call to enlist more people as software
engineers, it's a desire to teach powerful problem solving techniques and
tools to everyone.

~~~
Kalium
I have often seen it pitched as "Software engineers make a lot of money!
Everyone should learn to code!". It's not quite an explicit link, but it's
often strongly implied.

~~~
caseysoftware
And all the studies showing software developers or "IT people" make the most
money.

Individuals can understand nuance, people don't.

I'm reminded of that exchange from Men In Black. J (Will Smith) insists that
people will understand about aliens, K (Tommy Lee Jones) disagrees:

J: "Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it."

K: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know
it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the
universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and
fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine
what you'll know tomorrow."

------
ThomPete
This advice is as good as someone saying "please don't learn to play music".

Not only is is bad advice since there is obviously value in learning to play
music even though you are never going to become a professional musician.

But saying don't learn to code it's like saying "please don't learn this
category of language which will make you able to communicate with the very
ecosystem that is increasingly dominating your life.

It's like saying. "Please be illiterate in the most important language you can
learn besides your native one for the future"

In Denmark there is an expression "fagidiot" meaning idiot of their trade.
I.e. people who are so puritan about what they do that any mistake is
considered almost fatal.

It's like going to the movies with your friends from the army who can't enjoy
a war movie because a gun doesn't really sound like that or you can't fire
that many rounds of your M-16.

The probper advice is of course' "Please learn everything you consider
interesting, and keep learning even if you suck at it and will never become a
professional. Learning something means growing as a person."

~~~
kafkaesq
_This advice is as good as someone saying "please don't learn to play music"._

The analogy is quite strong, here - perhaps more than the author realizes. I
get the basic point about not expecting just pick up a book or two and crash
the gates, overnight. But there's something fundamentally disheartening about
a statement whose core message boils down to: _" Don't try"._

~~~
ThomPete
Exactly. Coding is one of the first really really important industries which
have as much foundation outside academia as it does inside to allow for people
to become masters beyond any comparable education the might take.

It's so important that even learning to pseudo code is going to take you a
very very long way.

Code is IMO language. It's the language if you'd like of the future, how
cliché that might sound.

Understanding even the basics of code (as of music) is almost of value way
beyond becoming an expert in the field.

------
stevetrewick
> _The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a
> profession is not an easy line to cross. Really. It took me more than a year
> of self-taught study before I got a freelance gig._

That actually makes it sound easy.

~~~
ef4
Yup.

"With no credentials I was able to work hard on my own for a year and then
landed an entry level position with very good future prospects."

What other lucrative professional industry is this easy to break into?

~~~
jtnegrotto
Well, there are other skilled professions that pay well and are relatively
easy to get into. Welding for example.

~~~
rubidium
US avg. salary welder: $37,000

US avg salary software developer: $99,500

~~~
LyndsySimon
A simple mean doesn't fully illustrate what's going on there. Most welders are
self-taught, and while their skills are more than adequate for what they're
doing they likely don't have the skills necessary to (for instance) weld
stainless steel or aluminum.

A welder who graduated from Tulsa Welding School with a year or so of training
is likely going to start out somewhere around $50k. I have a friend who went
there and specialized in underwater welding, and now he works for BP in the
Gulf somewhere. His job consists of mostly inspecting the work of his juniors,
and he makes about three times what I make as a software engineer.

~~~
loco5niner
> specialized in underwater welding...

> ...and he makes about three times what I make as a software engineer.

Hazard pay is coming into play here. For me, that's not worth it.

~~~
coev
I was scuba diving at age 12, it's not as hazardous as you'd think with proper
training.

~~~
loco5niner
Yep, I'm open water certified so I understand the hazards. People still die
doing it all the time.

------
pavel_lishin
1103: "Please don't learn to read."

1527: "Please don't learn to write."

1965: "Please don't learn to type."

2012: "Please don't learn to code."

~~~
insulanian
Actually when I see that stream of events, it makes me really wonder what's
the next step...

~~~
Null-Set
Please don't learn to train AIs

~~~
Terr_
"Please don't feed the humans."

------
emodendroket
This seems like a ripoff of the old Atwood article, down to the plumbing
analogy.

[http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-
code/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/)

~~~
neogodless
Not sure if this applies to everyone - the home page loads, but that page does
not. I can, however, read it via cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m8BHxct...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m8BHxcttCiAJ:blog.codinghorror.com/please-
dont-learn-to-code/)

------
tsumnia
I think this what people really are looking to stop:

"Tim just got a new phone. Tim needs his IT friend/family member to help him
add wifi to his phone. However, by help, Tim hands the friend/family member
the phone and now it works!"

Like others have said, the layman wants "computer science", but really wants
"computer literacy". Phones, software, technology changes so fast that current
teaching methods become outdated in years (I'm looking at you Intro to
Computers classes). As computer literate users, we get you go to "Settings"
and poke around til you see something like "Network" and then something like
"Wireless" or "WiFi" and are set. However, would I do this same behavior with
a car? Pop the hood and poke around?

Computer Science seems like the route to people because of the side benefit of
"figuring it out on your own" comes naturally after 3 weeks of programming.
Don't understand something? You have to pool every resource you have
(instructor notes, slides, books, websites, etc.) to 'get' it. And even then
its not an 'AHA' moment. Its a pray and 'whew' when whatever you did works.

But somewhere along the way, most programmers pick up that 'it', that computer
savvy-ness that people are looking for. They want to stop being dependent on
IT people because all we do is huff and puff about how simple a task is
(regardless of program, if someone asked you how to bold text, how would you
get them to bold the text WITHOUT pointing at the screen?).

Personally, it doesn't have to be "learn computer science", but it needs to be
a complete redesign to the "Intro to Computers" style class.

~~~
DonHopkins
The fad when I was taking CS 101 in 1985 was "program verification", so the
first thing they taught all the freshmen was "programming calculus" [1], to
write code in a stripped down "CF Pascal" dialect, along with proofs of its
correctness.

I suspect the real reason was to weed out as many people as possible from
perusing a degree in CS, because at the time everybody was signing up for CS
because they thought it was the ticket to make lots of money.

If you didn't already have practical programming experience, you were fucked,
because you had no frame of reference for what the proofs they wanted you to
write were about.

If you already knew how to program, it was frustrating and useless, because
you already had an intuitive understanding of the concepts they were trying to
teach, but you'd never actually use those "programming calculus" proof
techniques in real life -- the scope of the proofs was microscopically small,
and couldn't scale to real-world non-trivial problems.

[https://www.cs.umd.edu/~basili/publications/proceedings/P39....](https://www.cs.umd.edu/~basili/publications/proceedings/P39.pdf)

------
wobbleblob
> "with President Obama pushing for legislation to include computer science in
> every public-school curriculum."

Computer science or computer literacy? The latter would probably be quite
useful.

~~~
nervoustwit
> "I would no more urge everyone to learn to program than I would urge
> everyone to learn to plumb."

Agreed, but I would expect everyone to know how to flush a toilet. I think
computer literacy is essential, not for your kid's career, but for your kid's
life.

~~~
bittercynic
Similarly, plumbing literacy is very broadly useful. Even if you never become
a professional plumber, you will probably benefit if you can figure out why a
toilet or sink is not working as expected.

~~~
javier2
Yeah, if you turn the pressure off and are careful, you can do a lot of poking
around. Like with computers. Turn the power off, and you can poke around quite
a bit. Not so much with phones and modern day laptops though :/

------
zekenie
"Everyone should learn to code" makes at least as much sense as "everyone
should learn trigonometry." To me, it makes much more sense, actually.

I'm a software engineer. I might not be if I wasn't exposed to it in high
school. Exposing more people to software is a decidedly good thing because it
gives people agency. Teaching coding in high school also can enhance math and
science that's already being taught. It gives students another interface to
the curriculum that's far more exploratory than pen and paper. Everyone should
learn to code.

Everyone should not be a software engineer. Obviously. People should do what
interests them. That doesn't mean bootcamps are bad. Actually, I work at one!
I think we do a really good job. There are problems with the market that Basel
correctly identified. Its hard for consumers to assess the quality of
bootcamps. There are certainly are snakeoil salespeople out there. But, I've
watched hundreds of my students go on to start fulfilling careers in tech
because of their hard work and ours. The market will sort itself out. The bad
actors will eventually go out of business.

~~~
logfromblammo
Every high school should have a calculus teacher. That doesn't mean that all
graduating students will know calculus when they leave.

And at least since 1990, every high school should now have a computer science
teacher.

It's not so much that everyone should learn to code, but that everyone should
be able to have enough of an introduction to it that they will then know
whether they need to learn the rest of it or not. Even if they don't, they
will still have a better idea about what it entails, and technology will be
less arcane magic and more like something that anybody could learn if they had
the time and motivation.

~~~
zekenie
I agree. I'm not sure everyone should be forced to learn for loops, or
whatever. I also don't think high schoolers should have to memorize the krebs
cycle or the fact that pv=mrt for gas systems.

I don't know. I really think young people should be in an environment where
they can explore and grow passion for things. I think coding is fuel for that
fire. I think its not enough to have CS teachers around. I think people should
be exposed. It should be in the ether. You should see it in chemistry. You
should talk about genetic programming in biology.

I just think HS should be so different from what it is now.

------
cturner
Could it be that the future will value the ability to read code highly, where
where writing it will be a specialisation?

Consider the discipline of western music. Many accomplished people learn to
read music, but fewer to write it. Particularly to write at sophistication.
Code is written to be read: when you compose choral music you need to be
mindful of an individual chorister's ability to pitch intervals, and to find
notes within the scale. (Handel and Haydn and Mozart are far easier to
sightread than Bach and Beethoven.)

Strangely, our education system around computer code focuses on ability to
write code first, and read code either as an afterthought, or not at all.

Our traditions come from programming languages which were very difficult to
read. Unless you understood the tools for composition purposes, you probably
couldn't read them. Even the early scripting languages were impenetrable.

Composition-focused languages like python and golang change that. Whitespace-
orientation and named parameters/purpose-build-arg-structures help a lot.
Also, you can write sophisticated python/go without understanding complex type
systems. Compare to the mental checklist you run when you need to work out
where a Java or C++ method call is being dispatched to.

Note that western musical system is far from general-purpose when it comes to
the building blocks of sound waves. It has no mechanism for the rich world we
call subtones, and it's not fantastic at rhythmic sophistication. Its strength
is in the power you get within the tradeoffs between the notation and
standardised instruments.

~~~
lmm
A lot of programs are single-use throwaway scripts customized for a specific
use case, or at best have a lifetime measured in months or years. Whereas with
music there are centuries-old pieces that are still perfectly usable and
probably better than what a composer would produce as a replacement. So no
wonder our attitudes towards reading and writing are different.

> Composition-focused languages like python and go change that. Whitespace-
> orientation and named parameters help a lot. Also, you can write
> sophisticated python/go without complex type ontology.

This is backwards. Languages without (or with limited) type systems are very
hard to read, because you have a lot less reliable information about what's
going on.

~~~
cturner

        > Whereas with music there are centuries-old pieces that
        > are still perfectly usable and probably better than
        > what a composer would produce as a replacement.
    

As I see it, reverence for traditional composers comes from the culture where
more people read than write. Other factors too - humans bond through sharing
of specific tunes, and copyright makes manuscript artificially expensive and
sparse.

Good composition is engineering.

When you study grades for composition or improvisation or kodaly teaching, you
are taught systems by which you can write music. And you are taught to look
out for ways to find new systems for yourself.

This surprised me. Up until then my mental model was that all art was
subjective. But in western music, if you're doing something weird you're in
trouble. Particularly in an exam.

Once you're trained in the art, you can hammer out good pieces on demand.
Sophisticated pieces take time, as with coding.

By way of example, Kodaly would write exercise problems for his students on-
demand, just to demonstrate a point during a lesson. He'd sit down for two
minutes and scratch out a new piece, which they'd them perform. Faster than
having to find an example in something that's in your existing library. Some
of these exercises have lived on. This isn't evidence of genius. Rather, he
was an engineer of the John Carmack school. Someone focused on an outcome,
dismissive of the "don't reinvent the wheel" crowd. He had a need, he followed
a system, a neat minimal piece was born. He considered it throw-away code.

We'll never know, but Mozart Coronation Mass shows signs of aggressive corner-
cutting to get a product out the door. He reuses a lot of ideas across
movements, he reuses an idea from one of his operas for one of the features.
And - because it's a mass - he got his structure and words for free. It's good
music, but we shouldn't put it on a pedestal.

    
    
        > This is backwards. Languages without (or with limited)
        > type systems are very hard to read, because you have a
        > lot less reliable information about what's going on.
    

In the hypothetical I describe, it would be the author's responsibility to
make it clear with the restricted tools they have available. Code would truly
be written for the reader.

------
Udo
I think (and have often said) there are too many software developers.

However, I also believe that way too few people are technologically literate,
and if anything that number seems to be going further down. To live
effectively in an information society, people should not only be aware of what
computers do, but they should also be able to write small programs that help
them in daily life, as opposed to relying on the umpteenth horrible web
service to accomplish trivial data processing.

So, more people who know how to code basic stuff can only be a net-positive as
our society is moving away from manual labor. At the same time though we need
less people becoming actual programmers. Our profession is absolutely flooded
with people who are less than competent.

~~~
FilterSweep
I agree with you - but I believe there are too many developers because there
are, in general, not enough jobs.

There are millions of above-average to quite-high intelligence people on
Earth, and computers are now so accessible, one used to be able to be bought
for _$5_ (rpi zero), before supply ran out. In many other fields (especially
ones requiring soft skills), "Who You Know" often is the only determining
factor between you getting a job and being unemployed and (incorrectly) being
deemed useless by society.

Humanity is unfortunately growing increasingly redundant, to the point where
even specialized areas of medicine which take _7-13 years_ of additional
schooling are facing automated extinction within the next 25 years. There are
some industries, such as Accounting, which could have been automated years
ago, but artificial barriers are put up between computers and clients of
Accountants.

Unfortunately also, the people in power, seeing this, are just after a massive
cash grab before it all falls down.

~~~
Udo
_> but I believe there are too many developers because there are, in general,
not enough jobs_

True, but that is sort-of hidden under development methodologies and
frameworks that enable untalented people to do less with more. It's also
compounded by the fact that companies are _horrible_ at hiring and making
software decisions.

 _> the people in power, seeing this, are just after a massive cash grab_

Well, people are always trying to do cash grabs, but in this context I can't
help but wonder if the software development ecosystem is maybe exhibiting an
unconscious immune reaction to our increasing obsolescence. I've seen
different fields react differently to it.

In a typical office environment, there is _maybe_ 1 hour of actual work going
on per person per day, yet companies are not getting rid of those people. You
already mentioned medicine, here the immune reaction is generally a quasi-
religious aversion to change, even where that change saves lives or improves
quality of life.

In software, it's on-site basketball courts and clueless people with
meaningless university degrees spending their days tricking bloated frameworks
into performing trivial tasks.

~~~
bittercynic
Regarding the cash grab, it seems like some industries have a large number of
players after a cash grab which will destroy their reputation, but the cash is
worth it to them. In other areas, most people seem to value their reputation
and will act with integrity most of the time.

------
mschwaig
In my opinion there would be two benefits to widespread coding literacy. The
first one is that a wider range of people get in touch with the concept of
programming and can consider it as a career option. This would IMO also help
diversity. This does not mean everybody has to make a career of it, just like
with all other subjects. The second benefit would be that a lot things people
do manually right now could be helped along by simple ruby or python scripts.
If more people had that tool on their belt, they could use it when it's
beneficial for them. They don't have to be a full-time dev for that.

------
jernfrost
This is attacking a strawman, as someone who will enthusiastically promote
coding in schools and who try to teach my kids coding, my idea has never been
that everybody needs to become a software developer.

To me learning coding is like learning math or history. It is an essential
skill for modern society even if our primary job is not necessarily centered
on those skills.

I believe done right, programming is a good way for many to understand many
concepts in mathematics better. Many fields would benefit from just minuscule
amounts of automation, yet they are not doing it because those working in the
field have no understanding of the possibilities of automation. Having basic
understanding of programming would let you understand better when and where
tasks can be automated, even if you aren not necessarily the person doing the
automation.

Almost everybody today use some form of software for their job. This software
could offer better forms of automation of repetitive tasks if there was a
basic general knowledge of the principles of programming.

Understanding how a task can be divided into multiple steps, which can be
repeated by loops or conditionally performed by if statements does not require
deeper understandings of singleton patterns, factory objects, strategy
patterns, open closed principles, linked lists, binary search trees etc.
Useful things can be done with simple programs.

------
shostack
Agreed on not just doing it for the money, but learning for the sake of
learning can be very rewarding and valuable.

I'm a marketer, but I consider myself a technical one. I taught myself HTML
and CSS years ago, picked up some JS, learned quite a bit of Ruby and RoR,
some database stuff, and genuinely enjoy learning about computers and how they
work.

I don't use the bulk of it in my day-to-day, but knowing how to break down a
problem into individual components, and more importantly, knowing the scope of
what is possible with technology, has been a huge benefit for me (particularly
on the analytics side of things).

I'm learning guitar now after having been pretty decent at clarinet when I was
younger. It is humbling, and a slog, but it is making me think about music in
new ways, and now I'll never look at a talented guitar player again and think
"yeah, that looks easy, anyone can do it" when I know I physically can't
stretch my fingers to play half those chords yet.

Learning a new discipline, even just the basics, is often enough to expand
your world view, give you newfound respect for those that are experts, and can
help you grow as a person. Being a "Renaissance Man" is something a lot of
people have given up on but an idea I still think has quite a bit of merit.

------
11thEarlOfMar
>an even greater number are run by modern snake-oil salespeople tapping into
the average American’s desperation.

I need to see some data on this.

It is true that whenever code is being written, someone on the team needs to
understand the problem well enough to ensure that the requirements are being
met with an appropriate architecture and design. In many organizations, these
roles are filled by experienced persons, and the project just needs
programmers.

Boot camps should do two things: 1) Identify persons with a mind for
programming and the will to learn it; 2) accelerate that learning far beyond
what a person can self-teach, with a focused curriculum that will enable them
to contribute to a team on completion.

The point of the 'everyone learn to code' movement is to address the long term
loss of better-paying manufacturing jobs with jobs that pay better than
minimum wage. For sure, not everyone qualified for manufacturing is going to
be a good programmer, but manufacturing automation is expanding, our
competitiveness will depend on it, and the manufacturing robots and systems
need to be programmed by someone.

------
tmptmp
>>Meanwhile, my friend wrote his code only after thoroughly understanding the
problem. He used almost all the allotted time to think about the problem. He
did not write code until minutes before the deadline.

I fully appreciate this. Indeed, coming up with good idea of exactly what the
problem is and then getting an idea of a computational solution are the most
crucial steps to programming. Once you get a fairly clear picture of a
computational solution, you can very easily write the code.

But coding is what must be done ultimately. If you do not write code that can
be executed on an electronic (till now) computer, you haven't actually solved
the problem, period. No amount of hand waving can do away the coding. I think,
a child who learns to code can get many cognitive benefits out of it.

Of course, jumping right into coding without giving a thought as to what the
problem is is a sure-shot way to frustration and other ill-effects. It's like
getting a soldering gun and trying to build a complex circuit without doing
any analysis and design first.

------
astazangasta
This is like writing 'Please don't learn algebra', to me. Life revolves around
computers; they are not merely appliances.

~~~
titzer
I hate to be so negative and come down hard here, but no, no it doesn't. Life
does not revolve around computers any more than it revolves around movies,
cars, or food. Life is about experiences and relationships, happiness...(and
love too with a bunch of mushy other crap). The sooner we all realize this,
the better.

~~~
eyko
Computing explains the technological world around us. The same reason it's
very beneficial for society to have a solid understanding of basic science
(and that doesn't mean being scientists), today society should expand its
horizons and have a basic understanding of computing (without being software
engineers).

I don't need to be a mechanic in order to fix my car was used a few decades
ago. Today, cars may very well be black boxes, but if society had a basic
understanding of computing, perhaps they'd advocate for more open car
technology. It's beneficial for everybody.

------
gheeohm
As someone with zero previous experience who attended an 8-month "Software
Developer" program (not at a bootcamp but at a locally well-known public
school in Vancouver) 2 years ago, for the hyped-up reasons the author mentions
in the article (job availability, the "cool dynamic startup" factor,
flexibility), I certainly agree with the premise that coding is simply not as
easy as some people advertise it to be, and is not for everyone.

Now in a Junior Dev role working on complex ETL applications for the last year
and half, I certainly feel like I am running on thin ice in my role due to my
lack of knowledge about data structures, algorithms, and general computer
science basics.

Certainly, the internet offers many resources for the right learner, but for
those like myself who are not particularly gifted individuals, it would take
another number of years to think about calling myself a "software developer"
instead of a "coding technician".

~~~
vonseel
Keep at it. What you can learn on-the-job from experience is much more
valuable than anything you can learn in a dev bootcamp or through other
avenues, IMO. I doubt you need many fancy "algorithms" to write complex ETL
applications.

------
leroy_masochist
> Basel Farag is an iOS Engineer (he thinks). Besides GPU processors, robits
> and AI, Basel enjoys learning about computer science, astronomy and
> philosophy. He was once referred to as "the Daft Punk of people," a phrase
> whose meaning eludes him to this day, but which he's pretty sure is a
> compliment.

Please don't learn to humblebrag.

------
LukeB_UK
I see it more as offering the opportunity to people to have an interest in it.
I learned to code in my own time, by digging around and finding tutorials and
snippets.

Part of my secondary school (high school) education was mandatory science
classes where we covered biology, chemistry and physics. The majority of that
stuff I haven't used since. With computers being more and more a part of our
daily lives, why shouldn't coding be part of what we teach our kids? If they
don't take an interest in it then that's fine, but there'll be a good chunk
that will then use it later on in life.

Not to mention that it's actually great for teaching problem solving. Showing
that breaking down a problem and solving it in a number of steps really helps
grasp how to solve a problem.

------
traviswingo
I think the article title and body are a bit disconnected. The author doesn't
_really_ want no one to learn to code. They do, however, want to make sure
people understand it's not going to be their golden ticket to the Wonka
factory.

------
USNetizen
I feel like I've read this article before somewhere. Regardless, it's about
2-3 years too late. This "learn to code" stuff was all the rage up until about
a year ago but has since died down a bit.

~~~
neogodless
Yes - I don't know if it's a trend, but it seems like plagiarism in internet
journalism has been gaining steam lately. I think the internet is full now; we
can stop creating new content.

~~~
emodendroket
The neat thing about the ease of searching news sites is you can see the
incredible proliferation of news articles that are just rewriting someone
else's scoop.

------
pdxgene
"Please don't learn to code" keeps echoing in my head as "Please don't learn
to read and write music".

There's intrinsic value in understanding the technology on which our life now
fundamentally depends, as well as value in the intellectual rigor and skill
development that "learning to code" requires.

I worry that the ultimate end of the "don't learn to code" path looks likely
something like Economics -- a sadly esoteric subject on which those ignorant
of it are nonetheless dependent, to their detriment.

------
nrjames
It is useful for people to understand what goes into developing software in
the same way that it is useful for people to learn geometry in high school.
Code is the most tangible form of algorithmic thinking that is accessible to
most people. If a few hours of coding help people understand what it means to
think that way, then it's a good thing for them to do. I took a drawing class,
as an adult, to help me understand artistic perception. I'll never make a
trade of it, however.

------
izzydata
It would probably more beneficial for everyone to learn the logic used in
coding rather than the less important syntax of coding. The logic is what is
applicable to other fields.

------
dominotw
>The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a profession
is not an easy line to cross.

I think if you are a women then going to bootcamps is still a good choice. I
convinced my cousin to quit her job and get into a local bootcamp in chicago
in 2014. Fast fwd 2016 she finally founds job as a junior dev at a local web
dev consulting company. You also get scholarships for women/minorities.

Learning to code is still a good choice if you see yourself enjoying it as a
profession.

------
CMYK5
I fully enjoy "knowing" how to code (hacky js/html/css/sql, mostly from
stackoverflow). It helps me understand and communicate problems in my day to
day job, it's fun to mess around with for creative projects outside of work. I
don't think I'd enjoy it as a full time job. I do think the analytical
aspects, along with the ability to create something from "nothing" makes it
worthwhile to learn for most people.

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hanief
I think adult can do whatever they want. But every kid should be given the
chance and opportunity to learn coding, and it should not be mandatory.

~~~
Nursie
Why not mandatory? Lots of other core, useful skills are.

~~~
hanief
Because I believe it is not an essential surviving skill for everyone (at
least for now).

~~~
Nursie
Neither is literature, nor languages, nor history, nor geography, nor
mathematics over simple addition and subtraction.

But we teach these to kids so that they have a greater chance of understanding
the world around them.

~~~
hanief
Fair point. But what subject should we replace from the current curriculum?
Adding another subject seems like another burden for students.

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nxzero
Dream of the day everyone decides to "Learn to Hack" \- since learning to code
will only go so far.

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danso
> _Software engineering is a lucrative field, but the transformation from
> “coder” to “engineer” is challenging._

And in other news, going from "I know how to read and write" to "I just wrote
the next Harry Potter" is also lucrative yet challenging.

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ryao
The learn to code movement created to get more H1B visas for Microsoft rather
than fulfill an actual need:

[http://www.slashdot.org/story/275175](http://www.slashdot.org/story/275175)

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meeper16
"Learning to code" is a lifelong endeavor. You don't pick a laptop and set
aside a few hours. You can't do that if you wanted to learn how to write
poetry in French while only knowing English.

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kordless
The author of this article is as much as admitting he was expecting strong
reactions from the post title. I believe we should remove this click-bait
headlined article from this (mostly) non-polarized place.

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x5n1
Learn to code. Coding is a horrible profession from many perspectives. Many
people have tried and failed to do it as a full time job. Many people who do
it don't do it well.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Many people on a lot of professions provably don't do it as well as the
superstars in each field. Are University of Oregon law school grads as 'good'
as Stanford law grads?

~~~
x5n1
I know the bar is pretty high in terms of what is passable as a programmer
that works actual gigs. It's higher than a lot of other professions, where
credentials mean more than actual performance and you can fudge/bs your way
out of many situations. So it's fine if someone wants to try more power to
them. Anyone can potentially do it, but to do it at a commercial level you
can't just pass yourself off you have to be relatively good at what you do...
otherwise you won't get hired or get fired rather quickly.

~~~
jcadam
Oh there are plenty of (usually large) companies that love to hire legions of
mediocre (or worse) "programmers" to work on large projects.

How do I know this? I work in the defense industry. I've seen some things :'(

~~~
logfromblammo
Yep. I've seen those things, too.

If I weren't politically libertarian already, they probably would have pushed
me in that direction. Beware the military-industrial complex indeed.

Part of the reason why I support UBI is the number of people I already see
receiving a basic+ income and benefits in exchange for doing a job that
doesn't really have any rationally justifiable reason for existing.

------
lefnire
Please DO learn to code -
[https://jobpigapp.com/blog.html#/4](https://jobpigapp.com/blog.html#/4)

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timwaagh
this does not really fit my experience. If you've got a decently sized brain
you can learn to code and get a job doing it. it wont be the best job and
certainly to me, developer is not a dream job. its not even a very high paying
job. but it pays the bills and can get you a mortgage and there is enough
work. software development will be the working class of this century.

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mrzool
I'm sorry, but didn't this same article get posted two or three years ago?
Looks incredibly familiar.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
I've heard that in Japan programming is just another job. Are they ahead of
the curve on this?

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andrewfromx
okay but should high school really have required classes for Calculus but NOT
intro to programming? I don't understand why our kids _must_ learn math at a
high level, but even basic programming is not required.

