Reading GEB is sort of like getting a comp sci degree- You learn what can and cannot be done with computers. There are a lot of folks who learned coding by doing, but there is deeper knowledge. It's the the difference between going to coding bootcamp and really being able to explain, for instance, The Halting Problem, or why P != NP. So GEB probably won't make you a better programmer but it will give you deeper insight into the fundamentals of computation.
