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Learn to Code, It's Harder Than You Think

171 points by mikehadlow 11y ago

Kaotique 11y ago
Many politicians and policy makers think that anyone can become an engineer of any kind with just a course of a couple months. Good example is the politicians who argue that a high influx of Syrian refugees can solve the lack of available IT and mechanical engineers in the Netherlands. It doesn't matter that they don't speak the language, it doesn't matter that they have no engineering education, it doesn't matter that they don't have any experience. Anyone can do it right? Being an electrical engineer is just connecting 2 wires, right? Being a programmer is just booting up your text editor, right? Becoming a good programmer doesn't require a degree but it helps to set a good base for your knowledge. On top of that you need thousands of hours of self teaching.
rdlecler1 11y ago
If a only a small portion of the population will be adept at programming, and training is less important, then it's likely that most of the potential talent does not have formal training incompetent science. Therefore, coding schools should give a second opportunity for those tho did not study computer science in a formal university setting. Learning to code may help reveal those very people.
- gmfawcett 11y ago
  I assume you meant, "formal training in computer science," not "formal training incompetent science". Autocorrect!!
  - kazinator 11y ago
    Autocorrect has real AI now, complete with topic-relevant opinions!
- lloyd-christmas 11y ago
  I was a Math/Econ double major with a minor in applied statistics. I did the finance path for 6 years before choosing to go back and do a boot camp. I've done very well since then, although it's likely due to my educational background. None of this describes the average student, but I think my case reinforces your point about opportunities. If the program didn't exist, I'd still be trading equities and contributing very little to society.
hashkb 11y ago
Also, shoveling bootcampers into the industry is bad for real engineers and the quality of their software. Management everywhere is lowering the bar so they can hit their hiring goals and pretending the consequences are natural.
- sotojuan 11y ago
  It really hurts new CS grads too. They usually go for similar jobs as Bootcamp grads, but may get rejected because they don't have the "practical" experience (i.e. latest frameworks) Bootcamps grads may have. So instead of grooming and training students with a four year foundation in Computer Science, they go for the cheap route and hire someone who just knows APIs. I admit my post has a lot of generalizations and I know Bootcamp people that are great engineers and CS grads that are not, but I think you get my point. I see a lot of frustration over this in /r/cscareerquestions.
  - dudul 11y ago
    I would argue that CS grads who do not spend some time learning practical skills on the side are idiots and completely misunderstand the industry they are trying to enter. Bootcamps claim that they can help people who lack the proper foundations or the discipline to learn on their own, these are assets that CS students should have, they should therefore apply their knowledge and training to learn on their own the tools that are used in the industry.
    - sotojuan 11y ago
      > I would argue that CS grads who do not spend some time learning practical skills on the side are idiots and completely misunderstand the industry they are trying to enter. I agree, but then I realize I live in a bubble. Here and in /r/cscareerquestions, everyone knows to do side projects. In my school, most people don't. Neither do my friends in other schools. They may get one internship but that's the only "practical" thing they do (usually good enough to get a job though). A lot of my friends are much busier than me and don't have time to teach themselves stuff on top of school and life, at least not well enough to get a job. Perhaps we need to stress a bit more practicality in CS curriculum?
jkot 11y ago
> There’s another problem with software development that’s the flip side of the low barriers to entry mentioned above, and that is there is no well established entry route into the profession. Try Googling for ‘how to become a doctor’, or ‘how to become a lawyer’ for example: ... and it only takes 10 years to become a doctor.
- scotty79 11y ago
  So you basically are set up for next 10 years. No more doubt. No more decisions. Probably good choice for smart people who have trouble with answering the question "what do you want to do with your life?".
- sotojuan 11y ago
  Like scotty79 says, at least you know what you're doing in those ten years. Perhaps an easier analogy would be a lawyer or engineer (ABET degree + coop)? For programming, you get the following "advice": * Get a degree * Don't get a degree, go to a bootcamp/teach yourself * Do side projects * Get an internship * Network and go to meet ups * Learn algorithms and data structures * Practice brain teaser questions * Learn these languages * Learn these languages' frameworks I'm exaggerating and people can get hired by not know all (or any!) of these, but you get my point. It can be a confusing and overwhelming path both for people who want a career change or are graduating from university. For some, the path to being a doctor is "easier".
  - deleted 11y ago
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mgirdley 11y ago
I loathe these type articles. They're complex arguments to justify the attitude that "only we chosen few (men) with serious tech degrees are gifted enough to do important work in code." Tech is a big, prosperous industry and will be bigger if we act welcoming rather than creating complex arguments to protect our turf. Disclaimer: Am a white male with a CS degree who runs a coding bootcamp.
- mikehadlow 11y ago
  Actually the article very clearly says that the majority of professional developers don't have 'serious tech degrees', and that a large number of those that graduate from such degrees can't code. it makes the argument that there aren't any artificial barriers to entry, it's purely about aptitude.
- dandare 11y ago
  The article arguments for the very opposite. Did your bias prevented you from reading it till the end before commenting? :)
  - klunger 11y ago
    No. The last paragraph of the article: "The majority of the population can not learn to code at all, no matter how much training they receive. I doubt very much if the plethora of quick learn-to-code courses will have any impact at all on the skills shortage, or the problem of unskilled low pay and unemployment. Let’s stop pretending that there are artificial barriers to entry and accept that the main barrier to anyone taking it up is their natural aptitude for it." This is very clearly another (tasteless) "we chosen few" type article.
    - douche 11y ago
      When I was a young man, I dreamed of being a center for the Boston Celtics. Unfortunately, my growth spurt stopped at 6'3", rather than the 6'8" or 7' that I'd need to have a chance to even attempt it. I practiced my skyhook for at least 10000 hours in high school, but I'd still get destroyed trying to post up on Brian Scalabrine or Brian Cardinal. Sometimes, you either have the capabilities to do the job, or you don't.
wawi 11y ago
On the one hand, I wish to concede defeat in this argument, that indeed this is a very British argument being made, one that is, essentially, "an excuse for class", whereby a subject requiring high-order adept facilities is available only to "a select few", 'because class system'. On the other hand, beyond the borders of the colonial-imperial mindset, we have kids in the slums who - precisely because they were not given the 'golden ticket' of opportunity presented to a select few - had to actually .. you know .. do the work of becoming a very good developer. Good developers are not limited by class. (disclaimer; have lived and worked with many good developers around the world, and it has nothing to do with education and everything to do with spirit..)
- fmstephe 11y ago
  I suspect that you have had very similar experiences to the author. The author is quite clear that education is no indicator of ability to program. I think the author would be very happy admit your hard working very good developer friends into the set of 'good programmers'.
conductr 11y ago
I liken coding to playing a musical instrument. Some people are musically inclined, they can learn easily and fast and they tend to the best. But most people require some level of training complimented by the dedication of what amounts to mostly self-practice. So in a way, you're self taught. The vast majority of people are willing to buy an instrument, just to see if they are musically inclined, but when they find out they aren't they don't have the dedication to do it the hard way.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  This is a pretty fair comparison. Music has a pretty standardized format, relatively speaking, in what 'sounds good' and what sounds 'bad' based on one's cultural upbringing. As in, certain tonalities are pleasing to the ear. From basic understanding and competency comes the ability, in theory, to 'compose' pieces. My experience with coding is similar in that there are good ways to structure a composition, and not-so good ways. In coding, a compiler or testing the program is what reveals if something works or not, much in the same way that playing back a recorded version of a composition can reveal what's good or not good about a musical piece.
- spooningtamarin 11y ago
  Learning anything will result in a similar process. "Talent" gives you reasons ("wow, i'm good at this") to persist in learning, without it you either persist, or not.
- amelius 11y ago
  > I liken coding to playing a musical instrument. Except with a musical instrument, anybody can judge whether you are good at it. Not so with programming. Everybody who ever wrote one line of HTML can call themself a programmer, but only trained people can tell whether you are a good one. You might say at this point: so what? But I think the distinction is important, because it may be the reason the "driving force" is missing for a lot of people. If programming really had "rock stars" we might have had a lot more good programmers.
  - teh_klev 11y ago
gabemart 11y ago
I feel like the discussion around this post will suffer from a lack of specificity over what a 'software developer' is. Someone who works primarily on small javascript web applications has a really different job from someone who works on a large application built on a LAMP stack, or someone who writes complex iOS applications, or someone designs self-driving car software for Google, or someone who works on embedded software for pacemakers, or someone who writes operating systems or designs programming languages. Each of these jobs probably have a particular set of paths that lead to them. Two people who are both 'software developers' don't necessarily have similar skills, training or education.
- sbov 11y ago
  Yet all of those jobs have one thing in common: you have to know how to code. Being able to code is the baseline for all of them. If you can't code on some level, you can't do any of those jobs. The article is about coding, not engineering, the software process, reliability, etc. All of that just further raises the bar.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    I think gabemart threw in "small javascript web application" as an example of a job where you don't need to know how to code, where you can get by copying & pasting from Stack Overflow. A more interesting example is his "pacemaker embedded software" example. There's actually not very much software in a pacemaker. So that's an example of a field where engineering, process, testing & reliability skills are much more important than the ability to actually code. The coding in something like a pacemaker is usually done by an electrical engineer. A good EE may not be a good coder, but they should have the other skills you mentioned.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  > Each of these jobs probably have a particular set of paths that lead to them. I think the commonality is that at the minimum you need to be able to read English at a proficient level, which weeds out the vast majority of American adults.
mei0Iesh 11y ago
Where was the proof presented for this? That idea doesn't sit well with me at all. Maybe they meant to say that it's hard for most people to want to sit still and stare at text all day. It's hard to ignore urges to go out rather than stay inside and read tutorials on the web. I don't think programming itself is hard. Most people program. It's just that they do it without thinking about the steps they're programming, and they do it without a computer. Parents program all the time, "If you don't finish your homework before 7 PM, then you will not get dessert!" I think this is an article, and one with votes on here, because it's flattering the audience. Maybe say complicated mathematics is hard. But not "coding". That's what dumb people like me do who prefer to stay inside and play around with text on a computer. Of all the possible jobs I can think of, coding is near the bottom of the list in terms of difficulty. Anything involving a jackhammer is much rougher.
- teach 11y ago
  Your perspective is incorrect. I've made my living by teaching beginners to code. I have been doing it for the better part of two decades, and I specialize in teaching students that have little aptitude for it. I make my students code FizzBuzz. It is literally the 106th project I make them do. That is, they have completed 105 complete computer programs before getting to FizzBuzz. And many of them still struggle with it. The nuance of else/if needing to be ordered in a certain way is something they still don't have a good grip on. Programming a computer is very very hard for most people.
  - wes-exp 11y ago
    The ill-conceived notion that parents giving children procedural instructions is somehow like programming brings me to a question for you as a teacher. I've noticed that the industry really prides itself on algorithms and this is commonly reflected in interviews. However, it seems to me that merely discussing algorithms, however clever they might be, is actually an intuitive human activity not unlike the example of the parent verbalizing procedural instructions to their child. Therefore, I would argue that algorithm design, though clearly an intellectual challenge in its own right, does not target the essential part that makes programming hard and inaccessible to so many people. (Disclaimer: a high-level algorithm discussion is usually followed by whiteboard coding, which I'm ignoring in this critique as a separate kind of activity). Do you agree with this claim that algorithm design is not actually the thing that makes programming so difficult for laypeople? Can you give your take on what does make programming hard or what students struggle with the most?
acconrad 11y ago
Hard programming is harder than you think. Coding schools are mostly teaching CRUD web development and a watered-down version of data science aimed at business analysts, which isn't that hard. You're not going to get folks lining up to take an embedded systems, graphics, or compiler bootcamp.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Web development (it's more than just CRUD) is hard. Even with the best web development framework, the state of the art in tooling, you're looking at at least a year of focused study before really being able to take a job. It doesn't require hard math, but it's still hard in that the sheer number of languages, tools, best practices, technologies is daunting. And they keep changing. My father is an electrician, after learning the ropes from him, I went into low voltage, which he wouldn't learn how to do because it "keeps changing", meaning you had to take a little bit of time every year to learn some new things. Full stack web developers have to take significant amounts of time every day to learn new things. I've seen devs who were perfectly comfortable with all the math and "real dev" practically break down when presented with a web project. More than one of them admitted to me after beating their heads against it for a few weeks that it was harder than it looked. I can understand if you can't appreciate the difficulty. But try taking on a significant project before calling it easy.
  - geebee 11y ago
    I agree, strongly. Lately, I've been involved in the shift from server-side MVC with a sprinkling of javascript to web services API with javascript based front end. I'm inclined to to with rails-api, and probably Ember on the front end, but it's a moving target, and I tend to agree with people who say this has led to a very complicated stack with too much duplication (routing on front and back end, and so forth). But should I use React, Angular? Should I write the backend in node? My current guess that the trend toward "isomorphic" systems will probably resolve this, but again, that's just a guess. What can I say? There is a tremendous amount of reading, trying, cursing, debugging, evaluating, forecasting what will be valuable later. Some of it is churn, true, and it is unnecessarily complex, but what isn't? (tax law, anyone?) Simplifying things is in itself a huge organizational, social, and mental challenge. All in all, it's pushed me past the edge of my abilities, and I constantly feel very ordinary in this field.
deleted 11y ago
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dandare 11y ago
I am really entertained by the note that there are high barriers to entry to learning to code. Almost all coders I know are self thought or chose a school as an afterthought because they were experimenting with coding from early age.
Paul_S 11y ago
Driving is hard. Or not. Driving an F1 car is hard. Driving an 18 wheeler is hard. Driving a Fiat is not. You can probably learn to "move" an 18 wheeler or an F1 car but bets are off whether or not you're going to go on to win any races. Have I run this analogy into the ground yet?
paulcole 11y ago
There's a big gulf between knowing how to code and working as a professional software developer. I'm a writer for a marketing agency, but I write Google App Scripts, JavaScript, and PHP on a regular basis to automate tasks, try out ideas I have, etc. There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, but I know how to code enough to help make my professional/personal life easier and more fun. Isn't there something to be said for that? Not every skill needs to lead directly to a job. Can't it just be another skill to have when you need it? I learned to code through Codecademy and trial and error with frequent Stack Overflow searches. If I can figure it out, anyone can. Edit: For anyone saying they would hire me, I'm flattered but am very happy working as a writer who gets to program occasionally. If you're interested, here are two little projects I've put together: http://playRollo.com http://playRollo.com and http://WriteByNumbers.com http://WriteByNumbers.com. Feedback? Email me, paulcole@gmail.com.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Err, yeah, you could work as a professional programmer if you wanted to. You can code. The whole point the article is trying to get across is that a lot of people are simply unable to learn how to code. You've learnt. You CAN become a professional. You just don't realize it. The step you've taken is the hard one. In fact, there's another big dirty secret in programming. A load of professional programmers aren't able to do what you can do, they can't make new programs. They can only modify existing programs. Making new programs is beyond them (or at least takes them an inordinate amount of time). Automating scripts to make their job easier is something that they would take weeks to do. EDIT: I'm not sure I agree with the article though, I've heard several arguments that we simply teach programming badly. Especially in universities.
  - irishloop 11y ago
    Definitely. Maybe not a senior level dev at Google, but if you can do enough to automate tasks, you can almost certainly do enough to get hired as a junior dev somewhere.
  - mildbow 11y ago
    Random dude who learns basic scripting says he's not good enough to be a software dev -> people chime in disagreement. But, try to actually take them up on the offer and you'll probably find yourself jumping through programming interviews that will scoff at your basic skills. Most of us got started writing little scripts. It's definitely a great start. To say that he could work as a professional programmer now is ridiculous. Could he have a career if he put in the time? Maybe. Can he get a job? Maybe. But, it's not the slam dunk these people are suggesting. Note that I'm not even differentiating getting past interviews vs actually doing the work. I think either would be a stretch from writing a few scripts.
discardorama 11y ago
Coding requires a mindset that some people just don't have, or haven't developed yet. Ask any TA who has taught the basic "intro to CS" courses, and you'll hear lots of anecdotes which show that some people just don't get it. Here's an example: Q: write a program that reads 2 numbers from standard input, and outputs their sum. For example: First number: 3 Second number: 7 Sum is: 10 Here's a solution someone submitted: print "First number: 3" print "Second number: 7" print "Sum is: 10"
- joshcanhelp 11y ago
  There was a paper published about exactly this, summarized by Jeff Atwood [1]. Essentially, there appears, according to the authors, that there is a mindset that people either have or don't have that allows them to understand the very basics (variable assignment, iteration, etc) before they've had any training at all. Students were tested before 3 weeks of education and after and the results were essentially the same: the ones that got it in the beginning were the same ones that got it at the end. This supports the original article in one way by saying that it's not for everyone and bootcamps for the general public are not going to help much, but it contradicts the secondary point which is that we should be convincing potential doctors and lawyers to start learning CS. Programming aptitude doesn't start with intelligence or background, rather from something innate. [1] http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-fr...
  - gyardley 11y ago
    I really wish people wouldn't link to ten-year-old drafts without checking on current research. The article Atwood links to makes some totally bombastic claims - here's the retraction and clarification of them: http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/r_bornat/papers/camel_hump_retraction.pdf http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/r_bornat/papers/camel_hu... While a consistent mental model for things like assignment is a good sign, not initially having it doesn't mean you can't learn how to code. Lately, researchers have found that certain pedagogical techniques (especially pair programming) are pretty effective at overcoming these deficiencies. I wish I could understand why so many programmers are eager to assume their skills are due to something 'innate'.
yarper 11y ago
I agree with the author that boot-camps and the learn-to-code attitude teaches people generally that they could easily "do it if they wanted". This is slightly different to the intended message which is "you should do it, we can help". Historically for me, I'm sure that kind of attitude pushed my clueless bosses into thinking I'm some kind of semi-skilled lackey that can readily be replaced with outsourced staff or graduate hires. It's kind of a self feeding one, because if they do outsource it works for a while, until a kind of critical mass happens and it starts falling apart. The confirmation bias after making this call also makes it almost impossible to undo. I'd disagree on one point - and that is that programmer is a synonym for software developer. It's one thing coding yourself up some scripts at home, another thing altogether building a reliable, scalable technical solution within a (possibly large) team. All software developers are programmers, but not all programmers are software developers.
bcg1 11y ago
The article makes good points but is a little harsh... of course mastery takes aptitude and practice and it is ridiculous to think that you could learn anything even remotely complex in an hour or a day. But the "learn to code" efforts that are referenced serve the important purpose of exposing people who might have aptitude to the idea that they can realize that aptitude. I imagine that people without the prerequisite aptitude would just quit because it wouldn't interest them, and those who can cut it would continue on auto-didactically. I'm not trying to be too critical, but criticising those efforts with the idea that "it is hard, you probably can't do it" is unhelpful at best.
sklogic 11y ago
> All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess. No such evidence, at least not in any respectful sources. > will do nothing to help the skills shortage Who said that this is the immediate goal of teaching as many people as possible to code? > Given the skills shortage one would expect graduates from computer science courses to have very high employment rates. This logic is broken on so many levels that it's even embarrassing to comment. Let's start with a trivial nitpicking that Computer Science education got nothing to do with the Software Engineering. > there are two populations: one that finds programming a relatively painless and indeed enjoyable thing to learn and another that can’t learn no matter how good the teaching It is really embarrassing that the guy who wrote it calls himself a programmer - i.e., someone who is supposed to be logical and rigorous. There are far more categories that these two. And the most important category, targeted by all the programmes he's mocking, is the people who do no even know if they'll find programming enjoyable, because they never tried.
Cshelton 11y ago
I think a large number of your 'self-taught' results come from the fact that developing software is a profession where you always have to be learning, or you won't be good. I have not met any programmer who has said competently (and who actually are) I know everything about X. There is always learning to do in this world, and in most cases, you are either learning as a group, on the job training, or self taught. To an extent, being self taught will fall into all of those categories. The people who show up to meet ups to learn are the ones who want to go home and experiment with new things and practice their craft. The programmers who expect to just learn something then shut off and treat their day job as a 9-5 gig are the ones who fall behind quickly and become 'bad'. This is not the industry that allows for that. For example, the Web right now is the wild west, 6 months ago you built something yet now, that's no longer the best way to do it. Many other professions are the same way, even the doctor example. They constantly have to be learning to be great and the ones who stop 'learning' and teaching themselves are the doctors I wouldn't want to treat me. I also see, across many professions, the ones who are at the top of their profession are the ones who have the ability to teach themselves. In college, you learn very quickly how you learn. Some students have a very hard time learning new concepts on their own, they must attend a lecture and have interaction with the professor. However, on the other side of it, some students get very little benefit from lecture. I would know, I was that way. In a lecture I would always be doing something else, that's if I even went to the lecture. I much preferred to teach myself, and when I run into something I didn't understand, I found the resources that made sense to me to understand something. This is what you have to do in the real world. Every student needs to have the ability to do this in any profession. There is no, 'I finished school, I'm done learning...'. You will be mediocre at your job at best if you have that mentality. So yes, programming is hard, being a doctor is hard, being the top percent of ANY profession is hard.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  Many "professional" educations require continued learning to maintain your license. While I don't think a "programmer license" is a good thing, a voluntary way of demonstrating this would be good
tsunamifury 11y ago
" The majority of the population can not learn to code at all, no matter how much training they receive." What an arrogant, false, and self-aggrandizing fiction. Stop over-valuing yourself -- coding isn't some ultra-difficult natural selection process equivalent to winning an NBA Championship. Designing complex services, scaling and maintaining them on a server stack is hard. Developing, training, and shipping a useful deep-learning network and making it into a useful product is hard. Coding is not hard. I get sad when engineers, especially ones who's tone seems vaguely threatened, start writing up these discouraging blog posts belittling 'noobs'. Its a pleasing fiction that software engineers are just 'naturally better' and therefor their jobs are ensured. I think that anyone who says this has likely not been in the industry for very long -- because they would have seen scores and scores of devs left behind due to not training up and getting beaten out by upstarts who teach themselves and do well.
- Kurtz79 11y ago
  I agree that the statement "The majority of the population can not learn to code at all" is very questionable: what is the basis of that assumption ? Are there studies that took n people from different backgrounds, completely unfamiliar with coding, and tried to teach programming over the course of several weeks/months, and found that the majority were not able to get to an acceptable level ?
- teach 11y ago
  Coding is, in fact, quite hard. But that doesn't mean no one can learn it. Playing the saxophone is quite hard but a lot of students learn how every year, to varying degrees of skill.
  - tsunamifury 11y ago
    You're right -- the finer point seems to be that coding is not a binary state. Its a lot of things along a spectrum and a lot of people make money at all points.
- randcraw 11y ago
  First, I agree that the statement presumes a lot without offering any evidence. Second, I essentially agree with it; I believe most people cannot code and can't be taught it. Coding requires a turn of mind that at least half of the population lacks: abstraction. You must be able to map a problem space into a form that is amenable to decomposition and solution using data and instructions. I think most technically inclined folks would be surprised how many smart people lack this ability (like doing basic high school math). Many others lack basic skills in logic, or the ability to define a reliable procedure. (I say this after 60 years of life, working in both white collar and blue collar settings). It's not that these people are stupid. Their minds just don't welcome abstract thought and the hierarchy of formal sequential models that is code. In my experience, the set of skills peculiar to writing software well is surprisingly uncommon.
jdiez17 11y ago
This article reflects my experience at University very well. I'm a self taught programmer that ended up pursuing a CompSci degree. I'm in the last semester of my BSc, and in hindsight I should have studied something else, like Physics or Electrical Engineering. The standards are ridiculously low. Most of my coursemates (final year CS students) are literally unable to write software. They can write a single-file cpp file in Code::Blocks on a good day. In my experience (and having talked to plenty of other CompSci students, their experiences are similar to mine), formal education in programming is generally reduced to teaching students all about recursive functions, bubble sort and those kinds of things. There has been a grand total of 0 lectures or labs about unit testing, version control, API design, interoperability, etc. Let alone trying to communicate the idea of "clear, maintainable" code. Only a very small minority of people can write code, yet most of us will graduate. I have a module called "Software Quality and Process Management" (formerly known as "Large Scale Software Engineering". Good thing they changed the name, at least now it's not such a blatant lie). In this module, we learn all about COCOMO, and how we should estimate the number of lines of code a project will use, and use that to figure out how many man-hours are required to complete it. WTF. I'm preaching to the choir here, but that's like estimating the amount of effort it will take to design an airplane based on the number of grams of aluminium in it. When someone raises their hand and disagrees about the relationship between SLOC and person-hours (or even about whether person-hours is a reasonable unit - it's not), the lecturer responds with a blanket "you're entitled to your own opinion", but draws blanks when asked about whether they know anyone who actually uses these methods in real world software engineering and finds them useful. It's the same story when they teach about the waterfall development process and other similar outdated practices that are known to be detrimental to healthy software. The vast majority of what I know about software engineering didn't come from my time at University, and almost all of the software engineers I know have had a similar experience. I know correlation does not imply causation, but it's definitely food for thought.
- bencollier49 11y ago
  This matches my experience. I was trying to hire a junior programmer, and got someone in for interview who ostensibly had a first-class CS degree from a Russell Group university, yet could not explain to me what Functional Programming involved. He didn't even recognise the term. (Incidentally, the university refused to corroborate his degree, on the grounds that it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act, which boggled my mind).
teach 11y ago
[I made a similar reply down below, but I think this belongs here, too.] I've made my living by teaching beginners to code. I have been doing it for the better part of two decades, and I specialize in teaching students that have little aptitude for it. In my experience, many students can learn how to code, but it takes a very long time! For example, I make my students code FizzBuzz. It is literally the 106th project I make them do. That is, they have completed 105 complete computer programs before getting to FizzBuzz. And many of them still struggle with it. The nuance of else/if needing to be ordered in a certain way is something they still don't have a good grip on. Programming a computer is very very hard for most people, but that doesn't mean they can't do it.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  Why do you do it, my guess is most people here would never knowingly hire someone who struggled with such a basic concept.
  - teach 11y ago
    Because my kids keep practicing for ten years after my class before getting jobs. All my students are aged 14-18.
mixturez 11y ago
I hate the hype about coding. It's not for everybody. I only code when i need to solve complex problems or design a product for money or my use.
codingdave 11y ago
The unasked question is whether learning to code is only useful if you intend to be a software developer. I believe that the logic and analytic skills acquired from learning to code are useful throughout your life no matter what job you take. The analogy people in my company like to use is that everyone learns to write, but not everyone becomes a novelist. Everyone learns arithmetic, not everyone is a professional mathematician. Everyone takes science classes in school, whether or not they intend to be a scientist. Coding is pervasive enough that is is worth at least learning the basics. If you turn out to like it and be good at it, go ahead and pursue it as a job. Otherwise, those basics are just a part of modern literacy.
Shank 11y ago
I'm currently in an undergraduate program for Computer Science at the University of Wyoming. At my level (third year Computer Science classes), I've had the following class composition: - 2 classes dedicated to learning C++ (COSC 1010 was skipped, but included here for numbers, and COSC 1020) - 2 classes dedicated to algorithms in C++ (COSC 2030, 3020) - 1 class dedicated to math (COSC 2300, discrete structures) - 1 class dedicated to functional programming (3015) (mostly proofs related to recurrence relations) In the future, it looks like my courses will be filled with networking, operating systems, compilers, and a couple other math topics. The problem is that most students only get a very foundational introduction to programming in this program. Students are tasked with writing code, but only limited quantities in very specific areas. That's algorithm development and implementation. The answer might be that students should be taking software development or some other degree, but right now CS is the route most students try to take to become developers. This isn't a good approach, because at the end they have very little development experience -- only some algorithms and knowledge of computers. I too would answer with "self taught" for how I learned to program -- definitely not from this program thus far.
- sgeisenh 11y ago
  In my opinion, it is very easy to teach the basic principles of software development and design. Algorithmic thinking is much harder to teach. A CS background sets you up to contribute ideas and produce efficient solutions to challenging problems. A software development background sets you up to implement ideas and solve problems quickly. Obviously these are generalizations, but that's what I have seen in my experience.
- sgeisenh 11y ago
  In my opinion, it is very easy to teach the basic principles of software development and design. Algorithmic thinking is much harder to teach. A CS background sets you up to contribute ideas and produce efficient solutions to challenging problems. A software development background sets you up to implement ideas and solve problems quickly. Obviously these are generalizations, but that's what I have seen in my experience.
fsniper 11y ago
In this matter, I'm not with the "everybody should know to code" camp. I believe people, ordinary do not need to do any task with computers or even if they do, they need not to teach it to the computers. This movement will create a few good coders from children, but also make more haters against the profession.
heydonovan 11y ago
I could not disagree more on the notion that software developers are looked down upon. In my experience, all those developers are treated as omnipotent. Having intelligence on another level. These are the people who wear hoodies in the elevators, and carry around a Macbook, while everyone else is forced to wear business attire (along with faces of misery and non-excitement). These developers are the people that created Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc and are known to have lots of cash, but never flaunt it. The same people that are seen headed to the bars with their team, and enjoy the freedom to code from anywhere that has Wi-Fi. Maybe it's just the fact that I've only ever worked at startup companies, but other professions are seen as simple, and clear cut as to how to go about it. "Oh, you're an accountant? Anyone can do that, just go to school, follow the steps, and a degree awaits at the finish line".
- teh_klev 11y ago
  > In my experience, all those developers are treated as omnipotent. Having intelligence on another level. These are the people who wear hoodies in the elevators, and carry around a Macbook, while everyone else is forced to wear business attire (along with faces of misery and non-excitement). These developers are the people that created Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc and are known to have lots of cash, but never flaunt it Not being rude, but I'm trying hard to figure out if this comment is parody/sarcasm or if you genuinely believe this fantasy?
dandare 11y ago
So large percentage of programmes are self thought (including me) yet I had to lie on my applications to companies that unanimously asked for a CS degree.
austenallred 11y ago
>All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess. >The current fad for short learn-to-code courses is selling people a lie and will do nothing to help the skills shortage for professional programmers. Outside the obvious lack of definition as to what a "programmer" actually is, this is a non sequitur (the conclusion doe not follow). There's an assumption built in that those who do possess a high level of aptitude already have CS degrees or are self-taught because it comes to them naturally. What if there are people who possess that high level of aptitude and they want something to help them learn in a structured way? Extrapolated, the author's argument could be seen as, "Sorry, there's no point in teaching programming, because everyone with the aptitude to program already knows how to program," and I think that is a recognizable falsehood, if only anecdotally. In other words, even given the assumption that programming does require a higher aptitude than some subset of the population does possess, there is no surefire way to determine who that subset is based on credentialing.
- serge2k 11y ago
  The lie they are selling is that anyone can learn to code in 10 weeks. While this maybe true if you are targeting the correct subset of the population (those who do have a natural aptitude), it's not true of a random sample of the entire population. Since these schools sample from the entire population, their chances of producing large numbers of skilled software developers are low, and therefore they will do little to help with the shortages of those developers. Sounds like a reasonable argument to me.
  - austenallred 11y ago
    I don't think anyone pretends like you can "learn to code" in 10 weeks any more than I "learned to speak Russian" in my three-month intensive Russian course. Of course I didn't speak fluently by the time I left. But I learned enough that when I lived in Ukraine I understood a bit of what people were saying, I could communicate somewhat, and a couple of years later I was reading Tolstoy. People think about bootcamps all wrong. You don't leave like "holy shit I'm a master programmer." You leave knowing, "OK, it'll take a while longer, but I can contribute a bit now, and I'll pick up more as I go."
moyix 11y ago
> Other research points to similar results. There seems to be a ‘double hump’ in the outcome of any programming course between those who can code and those who can’t. > “In particular, most people can't learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department's intake fail the first programming course.” Argh, I knew when I opened the article that its evidence would end up pointing to the "camel has two humps" study. That study has been retracted, and the author regrets the damage it may have caused to computer science education: http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-two-humps-programming-aptitude-test-canned-for-overzealous-conclusion/ http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-... > Though it’s embarrassing, I feel it’s necessary to explain how and why I came to write “The camel has two humps” and its part-retraction in (Bornat et al., 2008). It’s in part a mental health story. In autumn 2005 I became clinically depressed. My physician put me on the then-standard treatment for depression, an SSRI. But she wasn’t aware that for some people an SSRI doesn’t gently treat depression, it puts them on the ceiling. I took the SSRI for three months, by which time I was grandiose, extremely self-righteous and very combative – myself turned up to one hundred and eleven. I did a number of very silly things whilst on the SSRI and some more in the immediate aftermath, amongst them writing “The camel has two humps”. I’m fairly sure that I believed, at the time, that there were people who couldn’t learn to program and that Dehnadi had proved it. Perhaps I wanted to believe it because it would explain why I’d so often failed to teach them. The paper doesn’t exactly make that claim, but it comes pretty close. It was an absurd claim because I didn’t have the extraordinary evidence needed to support it. I no longer believe it’s true.
abathur 11y ago
There's a lot of back-and-forth over whether it is easy or not or whether one comparison or another works best. I think it's fine to compare learning to write code with learning to write human language. The best of us will still make mistakes; plenty of us will always be incapable of writing well. Once upon a time the idea that everyone needed to know how to write was laughable. These days, it's arguable how well everyone needs to be able to write, but there's a general agreement that it's worth giving people the opportunity to reach at least a basic level of competency, even if their daily lives require little writing. I had a miserable time learning to write (i.e., failed many assignments) until a few things fell into place, and I saw how writing could be an important part of thinking, learning, feeling, expressing, etc. I had a miserable time learning to code through coursework in highschool and college until a few things fell into place and I saw how code could be an important part of thinking, learning, feeling, expressing, etc. How did/do we sell everyone on trying to learn to write human language? AFAIK, with some superlative rhetoric about how useful/necessary writing can be without much dithering over what portion of the population will ever be good enough to make a living at it. So there are varying levels of irresponsibility when it comes to saying everyone should code. There's probably a big potential social upside to fudging things a little to suggest everyone should learn some programming throughout school; it's much more negligent to tell someone with a boring but stable job to quit and blow a few grand on a coding bootcamp without an inkling that they're prepared.
peteyPete 11y ago
I'm a bit torn on this one. Some languages and concepts are harder than others. Some people are more visual than others. Some people would excel in low level languages where others would excel doing front end web dev where things are a bit more visual and often a bit less abstract. The biggest thing with coding is finding something you like... Passion is the key here. Some things will come easier than others but if you're passionate, even if you're not a bloody genius and it takes you many times before you get something, you'll spend enough time and eventually get it. And over time you'll get better and better. In 12 years working in the field I can say I've worked with a fair amount of devs. I've worked in very small software companies, medium sized companies and fortune 500 companies. I've worked with self taught devs and people with degrees. The biggest difference between someone who's great at their job and not is not the education but the passion. Its not even the book smarts. Some people are smart as hell but just aren't passionate and don't enjoy what they do at all. Every year your job feels a bit different. Languages evolve, technologies evolve, libraries and frameworks evolve. You're constantly working with new things. Some don't feel 100% different, others do. Once you've learned a bunch, some new concepts are very easy to grasp. But at the end of the day, if you hate it, you probably won't keep up and will quickly be obsolete. Most new jobs will require a lot of learning. If not new languages then new processes, infrastructure, code bases, etc. If you're passionate enough to keep learning and patient enough to spend the time it personally takes you to grasp concepts, then you can learn. Its not for everyone. True. But not everyone will be developing physics engines for games or deep learning algorithms.. Some coding skills are easier to grasp than others and most people can, given time, become decent at some of it.
matthewtoast 11y ago
The article's main point is solid: Learning to code is hard mostly because coding is hard -- not just because there aren't enough learning opportunities and not just because we aren't welcoming enough. And learn-to-code merchants who say "Coding is easy!" are a bit untruthful in the infomercial kind of way. As those of us who do it professionally know, coding is often tear-your-hair-out difficult. Misery loves company! :-) That said, I have two problems with the article. #1 - I don't like the idea of qualifications. Sure, the lack of career-path guarantees sucks, but that anarchy also benefits us. If I can get my hands on a computer, I can learn to code on my own (with lots of hard work, yes), build what I dream of, change my life. I can sidestep red tape, bias, prejudice, and credentialism that might work against me elsewhere. #2 - I dislike the vague word 'aptitude', which the author uses many times. The idea of 'aptitude' may help distinguish Mozart from Salieri, but not Salieri from his cousin Fred. What I mean is, at the level most of us operate at, mightn't factors like motivation, persistence, and health affect us more than 'aptitude'? If the article replaced the word 'aptitude' with 'motivation' I'd like it better.
todd-davies 11y ago
Does anybody else think that Software Engineers might benefit from a master/apprentice learning style? Experienced devs could take on an apprentice for a year, kind of like an internship, and the apprentice moves does 3-5 of these before moving into a dev role themselves.
- yarper 11y ago
  Yes, Robert "uncle bob" Martin is a fan https://8thlight.com/apprenticeship/ https://8thlight.com/apprenticeship/
asQuirreL 11y ago
A lot of the observations in this article are very interesting, but personally, I drew different conclusions. The first one is the main thesis of the post which is that some people have an innate ability to program that others do not possess, and that this is a thing that cannot be learnt. As a result, telling people that it is "easy to code" is a lie. Firstly, it is actually not clear to me that this ability to pick up programming principles cannot be taught. All we know is that our current methods of teaching yield a double hump distribution for programming ability. Secondly, if people were actually saying "you will find coding easy" to anyone and everyone then I agree that they are probably concealing the truth. But actually, if you read the tagline on the example given (The Year of Code initiative) it says: > Start coding this year, it's easier than you think. "It's easier than you think" (emphasis mine). This is quite a different statement to a flat out "it's easy", and it's one I agree with. To most people, coding appears difficult because they simply don't know the answers to a few key questions (E.g. Where do I write the code? What do I do to run my code? How does the computer understand what I've written?). The (basic) answers to these questions are comprehensible to most people, and furnish them with the ability to write code (maybe not well, but that's a whole other story). Next observation: > Folks, which industries/professions give up their own free time to provide free/open training to people wishing to enter the sector? Curious The fact that only the software development industry seems to do this is painted as a negative thing in the article. Why is that? I ask because this is a fact I think we should be proud of. I personally enjoy what I do so much, that I happily spend time out of my week, teaching it to others for free. I don't do this because I think all the people I teach will go on to become successful software engineers, but rather because I want to widen the net, and expose more people to what we do, because for some of them (maybe even just one of them) this might be their "true calling". I got into programming originally from watching a cousin of mine editing the themes of his Wordpress blog. He went on to study English Literature and Psychology; To him, coding was just this tool that allowed him to publish his views, but to my 9 year old self, watching him, it really struck a chord and I was hooked. Now, there is not a thing in the world I could imagine myself doing rather than writing code and loving every minute of it (And no amount of "social status" is going to turn me to a life of law, medicine or architecture). What an opportunity I would have lost if I had not seen my cousin working on his blog... Every week-long learn to code course, and every "hour of code" initiative works towards bringing such opportunities to the wider public. Finally, on the role of Computer Science degrees: I am currently in my final year of a Masters in CS, which I have also enjoyed studying immensely. I would not say that it has contributed directly to my skills as a software engineer, but the things I have learnt have changed the ways in which I approach problems. Very few people write structural induction proofs, loop invariants or abstract specifications to prove the correctness of their programs, but I have found them to be great ways to think about how to write better code. These skills, however, are complementary to those that make a good software engineer, not a substitute. There's no way to prove yourself out of a rat's nest of class hierarchies and control structures.
makmanalp 11y ago
> There seems to be a ‘double hump’ in the outcome of any programming course between those who can code and those who can’t. In my humble opinion, this is because the pedagogy sucks. Intro CS classes tend to teach in a very weird way, with very conflicting goals. Is the point to teach your way around a linux shell? Tooling? Basic programming? Algorithmic thinking? Good engineering practices? To teach automata theory? Complexity theory? Most courses answer "ALLLLLL OF IIIIIIITTT!" Further down the article, you see that there is a large percentage of self-taught programmers. I suspect that this ratio goes through the roof if you ask "have you done a lot of CS / software learning on your own". This is because self teaching lends itself better to learning and practicing over and over the diverse variety of skills required to be a successful programmer. Intro classes go very quick and fail to instill any of that. So those who are successful are a lot of times those people who are already long exposed to computers, algorithms, programming or the ideas accompanying those in some shape or form. Or those who find it immediately fascinating and put in much larger amounts of time than a course would normally require. Those folks who simply haven't had a lot of time programming struggle, and eventually they drop out. And nothing changes to improve this because part of the class succeeds, and thus the conclusion made is that the part that dropped out must have been "bad". There's a false dichotomy here. Yes, programming is difficult. Yes, being successful in the real world requires a lot of work. And yes, like any craft, the rabbit hole only goes deeper. But the conclusion here isn't that most people just "don't have the aptitude necessary". Most people, given the same time and guidance, can succeed. The most important part is that getting somewhere immediately /useful/ can be quite quick. That's where programming shines - reasonably low investment costs for a moderate benefit for a lot of people, which eventually rolls into a high investment cost for a massive benefit.
Grue3 11y ago
On the contrary, evidence suggests that people naturally learn to code when faced with operating a programmable device (even if they don't know what they're doing is coding). Everyone pretty much had to be able code to operate a computer in the 80s. And they did, even lowly secretaries with no fancy degrees. Now that people have to deal with closed-down computer systems that come prepackaged with everything the user is supposed to need, the coding is not necessary to be able to operate them. And then of course you get a generation of people who aren't motivated to learn to code, because they don't have to. "Can't code" is the new "can't do math". What it really means is that the person doesn't want to code (or to do math), not that they cannot do it.
robotnoises 11y ago
For the most part I agree. However, part of the reason why other professions like "doctor" or "architect" don't permit crash course bootcamp-style training for its entrants is because, for the most part, the stakes are much higher. Sure, there are lots of high-stakes programming jobs, but for the most part, being a bad programmer won't kill anyone.
chad_strategic 11y ago
TLDR: I'm a self taught coder, due in part to the recession of 08. I would encourage anybody that has a desire an passion to learn, don't let anybody discourage you as there are a lot of "negative nellies" floating around out there. If your long term career goal is to be CTO at a big company, then you should probably go school. Other wise there is plenty of room in the market for all types of developers/codes. http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on-programmers-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on-programmers-20...
mattbgates 11y ago
I developed a website for anyone to practice their HTML, CSS, Javascript coding skills. It is a quick, user-friendly single webpage creation platform without having to deal with hosting or registration. Feel free to practice or make permanent pages. Feedback welcome! http://mypost.io/ http://mypost.io/

171 points by mikehadlow 11y ago

Many politicians and policy makers think that anyone can become an engineer of any kind with just a course of a couple months. Good example is the politicians who argue that a high influx of Syrian refugees can solve the lack of available IT and mechanical engineers in the Netherlands. It doesn't matter that they don't speak the language, it doesn't matter that they have no engineering education, it doesn't matter that they don't have any experience. Anyone can do it right? Being an electrical engineer is just connecting 2 wires, right? Being a programmer is just booting up your text editor, right? Becoming a good programmer doesn't require a degree but it helps to set a good base for your knowledge. On top of that you need thousands of hours of self teaching.

rdlecler1 11y ago

If a only a small portion of the population will be adept at programming, and training is less important, then it's likely that most of the potential talent does not have formal training incompetent science. Therefore, coding schools should give a second opportunity for those tho did not study computer science in a formal university setting. Learning to code may help reveal those very people.

gmfawcett 11y ago
I assume you meant, "formal training in computer science," not "formal training incompetent science". Autocorrect!!
- kazinator 11y ago
  Autocorrect has real AI now, complete with topic-relevant opinions!
lloyd-christmas 11y ago
I was a Math/Econ double major with a minor in applied statistics. I did the finance path for 6 years before choosing to go back and do a boot camp. I've done very well since then, although it's likely due to my educational background. None of this describes the average student, but I think my case reinforces your point about opportunities. If the program didn't exist, I'd still be trading equities and contributing very little to society.

hashkb 11y ago

Also, shoveling bootcampers into the industry is bad for real engineers and the quality of their software. Management everywhere is lowering the bar so they can hit their hiring goals and pretending the consequences are natural.

sotojuan 11y ago
It really hurts new CS grads too. They usually go for similar jobs as Bootcamp grads, but may get rejected because they don't have the "practical" experience (i.e. latest frameworks) Bootcamps grads may have. So instead of grooming and training students with a four year foundation in Computer Science, they go for the cheap route and hire someone who just knows APIs. I admit my post has a lot of generalizations and I know Bootcamp people that are great engineers and CS grads that are not, but I think you get my point. I see a lot of frustration over this in /r/cscareerquestions.
- dudul 11y ago
  I would argue that CS grads who do not spend some time learning practical skills on the side are idiots and completely misunderstand the industry they are trying to enter. Bootcamps claim that they can help people who lack the proper foundations or the discipline to learn on their own, these are assets that CS students should have, they should therefore apply their knowledge and training to learn on their own the tools that are used in the industry.
  - sotojuan 11y ago
    > I would argue that CS grads who do not spend some time learning practical skills on the side are idiots and completely misunderstand the industry they are trying to enter. I agree, but then I realize I live in a bubble. Here and in /r/cscareerquestions, everyone knows to do side projects. In my school, most people don't. Neither do my friends in other schools. They may get one internship but that's the only "practical" thing they do (usually good enough to get a job though). A lot of my friends are much busier than me and don't have time to teach themselves stuff on top of school and life, at least not well enough to get a job. Perhaps we need to stress a bit more practicality in CS curriculum?

jkot 11y ago

> There’s another problem with software development that’s the flip side of the low barriers to entry mentioned above, and that is there is no well established entry route into the profession. Try Googling for ‘how to become a doctor’, or ‘how to become a lawyer’ for example: ... and it only takes 10 years to become a doctor.

scotty79 11y ago
So you basically are set up for next 10 years. No more doubt. No more decisions. Probably good choice for smart people who have trouble with answering the question "what do you want to do with your life?".
sotojuan 11y ago
Like scotty79 says, at least you know what you're doing in those ten years. Perhaps an easier analogy would be a lawyer or engineer (ABET degree + coop)? For programming, you get the following "advice": * Get a degree * Don't get a degree, go to a bootcamp/teach yourself * Do side projects * Get an internship * Network and go to meet ups * Learn algorithms and data structures * Practice brain teaser questions * Learn these languages * Learn these languages' frameworks I'm exaggerating and people can get hired by not know all (or any!) of these, but you get my point. It can be a confusing and overwhelming path both for people who want a career change or are graduating from university. For some, the path to being a doctor is "easier".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

mgirdley 11y ago

I loathe these type articles. They're complex arguments to justify the attitude that "only we chosen few (men) with serious tech degrees are gifted enough to do important work in code." Tech is a big, prosperous industry and will be bigger if we act welcoming rather than creating complex arguments to protect our turf. Disclaimer: Am a white male with a CS degree who runs a coding bootcamp.

mikehadlow 11y ago
Actually the article very clearly says that the majority of professional developers don't have 'serious tech degrees', and that a large number of those that graduate from such degrees can't code. it makes the argument that there aren't any artificial barriers to entry, it's purely about aptitude.
dandare 11y ago
The article arguments for the very opposite. Did your bias prevented you from reading it till the end before commenting? :)
- klunger 11y ago
  No. The last paragraph of the article: "The majority of the population can not learn to code at all, no matter how much training they receive. I doubt very much if the plethora of quick learn-to-code courses will have any impact at all on the skills shortage, or the problem of unskilled low pay and unemployment. Let’s stop pretending that there are artificial barriers to entry and accept that the main barrier to anyone taking it up is their natural aptitude for it." This is very clearly another (tasteless) "we chosen few" type article.
  - douche 11y ago
    When I was a young man, I dreamed of being a center for the Boston Celtics. Unfortunately, my growth spurt stopped at 6'3", rather than the 6'8" or 7' that I'd need to have a chance to even attempt it. I practiced my skyhook for at least 10000 hours in high school, but I'd still get destroyed trying to post up on Brian Scalabrine or Brian Cardinal. Sometimes, you either have the capabilities to do the job, or you don't.

wawi 11y ago

On the one hand, I wish to concede defeat in this argument, that indeed this is a very British argument being made, one that is, essentially, "an excuse for class", whereby a subject requiring high-order adept facilities is available only to "a select few", 'because class system'. On the other hand, beyond the borders of the colonial-imperial mindset, we have kids in the slums who - precisely because they were not given the 'golden ticket' of opportunity presented to a select few - had to actually .. you know .. do the work of becoming a very good developer. Good developers are not limited by class. (disclaimer; have lived and worked with many good developers around the world, and it has nothing to do with education and everything to do with spirit..)

fmstephe 11y ago
I suspect that you have had very similar experiences to the author. The author is quite clear that education is no indicator of ability to program. I think the author would be very happy admit your hard working very good developer friends into the set of 'good programmers'.

conductr 11y ago

I liken coding to playing a musical instrument. Some people are musically inclined, they can learn easily and fast and they tend to the best. But most people require some level of training complimented by the dedication of what amounts to mostly self-practice. So in a way, you're self taught. The vast majority of people are willing to buy an instrument, just to see if they are musically inclined, but when they find out they aren't they don't have the dedication to do it the hard way.

6stringmerc 11y ago
This is a pretty fair comparison. Music has a pretty standardized format, relatively speaking, in what 'sounds good' and what sounds 'bad' based on one's cultural upbringing. As in, certain tonalities are pleasing to the ear. From basic understanding and competency comes the ability, in theory, to 'compose' pieces. My experience with coding is similar in that there are good ways to structure a composition, and not-so good ways. In coding, a compiler or testing the program is what reveals if something works or not, much in the same way that playing back a recorded version of a composition can reveal what's good or not good about a musical piece.
spooningtamarin 11y ago
Learning anything will result in a similar process. "Talent" gives you reasons ("wow, i'm good at this") to persist in learning, without it you either persist, or not.
amelius 11y ago
> I liken coding to playing a musical instrument. Except with a musical instrument, anybody can judge whether you are good at it. Not so with programming. Everybody who ever wrote one line of HTML can call themself a programmer, but only trained people can tell whether you are a good one. You might say at this point: so what? But I think the distinction is important, because it may be the reason the "driving force" is missing for a lot of people. If programming really had "rock stars" we might have had a lot more good programmers.
- teh_klev 11y ago

gabemart 11y ago

I feel like the discussion around this post will suffer from a lack of specificity over what a 'software developer' is. Someone who works primarily on small javascript web applications has a really different job from someone who works on a large application built on a LAMP stack, or someone who writes complex iOS applications, or someone designs self-driving car software for Google, or someone who works on embedded software for pacemakers, or someone who writes operating systems or designs programming languages. Each of these jobs probably have a particular set of paths that lead to them. Two people who are both 'software developers' don't necessarily have similar skills, training or education.

sbov 11y ago
Yet all of those jobs have one thing in common: you have to know how to code. Being able to code is the baseline for all of them. If you can't code on some level, you can't do any of those jobs. The article is about coding, not engineering, the software process, reliability, etc. All of that just further raises the bar.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  I think gabemart threw in "small javascript web application" as an example of a job where you don't need to know how to code, where you can get by copying & pasting from Stack Overflow. A more interesting example is his "pacemaker embedded software" example. There's actually not very much software in a pacemaker. So that's an example of a field where engineering, process, testing & reliability skills are much more important than the ability to actually code. The coding in something like a pacemaker is usually done by an electrical engineer. A good EE may not be a good coder, but they should have the other skills you mentioned.
Alex3917 11y ago
> Each of these jobs probably have a particular set of paths that lead to them. I think the commonality is that at the minimum you need to be able to read English at a proficient level, which weeds out the vast majority of American adults.

mei0Iesh 11y ago

Where was the proof presented for this? That idea doesn't sit well with me at all. Maybe they meant to say that it's hard for most people to want to sit still and stare at text all day. It's hard to ignore urges to go out rather than stay inside and read tutorials on the web. I don't think programming itself is hard. Most people program. It's just that they do it without thinking about the steps they're programming, and they do it without a computer. Parents program all the time, "If you don't finish your homework before 7 PM, then you will not get dessert!" I think this is an article, and one with votes on here, because it's flattering the audience. Maybe say complicated mathematics is hard. But not "coding". That's what dumb people like me do who prefer to stay inside and play around with text on a computer. Of all the possible jobs I can think of, coding is near the bottom of the list in terms of difficulty. Anything involving a jackhammer is much rougher.

teach 11y ago
Your perspective is incorrect. I've made my living by teaching beginners to code. I have been doing it for the better part of two decades, and I specialize in teaching students that have little aptitude for it. I make my students code FizzBuzz. It is literally the 106th project I make them do. That is, they have completed 105 complete computer programs before getting to FizzBuzz. And many of them still struggle with it. The nuance of else/if needing to be ordered in a certain way is something they still don't have a good grip on. Programming a computer is very very hard for most people.
- wes-exp 11y ago
  The ill-conceived notion that parents giving children procedural instructions is somehow like programming brings me to a question for you as a teacher. I've noticed that the industry really prides itself on algorithms and this is commonly reflected in interviews. However, it seems to me that merely discussing algorithms, however clever they might be, is actually an intuitive human activity not unlike the example of the parent verbalizing procedural instructions to their child. Therefore, I would argue that algorithm design, though clearly an intellectual challenge in its own right, does not target the essential part that makes programming hard and inaccessible to so many people. (Disclaimer: a high-level algorithm discussion is usually followed by whiteboard coding, which I'm ignoring in this critique as a separate kind of activity). Do you agree with this claim that algorithm design is not actually the thing that makes programming so difficult for laypeople? Can you give your take on what does make programming hard or what students struggle with the most?

acconrad 11y ago

Hard programming is harder than you think. Coding schools are mostly teaching CRUD web development and a watered-down version of data science aimed at business analysts, which isn't that hard. You're not going to get folks lining up to take an embedded systems, graphics, or compiler bootcamp.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Web development (it's more than just CRUD) is hard. Even with the best web development framework, the state of the art in tooling, you're looking at at least a year of focused study before really being able to take a job. It doesn't require hard math, but it's still hard in that the sheer number of languages, tools, best practices, technologies is daunting. And they keep changing. My father is an electrician, after learning the ropes from him, I went into low voltage, which he wouldn't learn how to do because it "keeps changing", meaning you had to take a little bit of time every year to learn some new things. Full stack web developers have to take significant amounts of time every day to learn new things. I've seen devs who were perfectly comfortable with all the math and "real dev" practically break down when presented with a web project. More than one of them admitted to me after beating their heads against it for a few weeks that it was harder than it looked. I can understand if you can't appreciate the difficulty. But try taking on a significant project before calling it easy.
- geebee 11y ago
  I agree, strongly. Lately, I've been involved in the shift from server-side MVC with a sprinkling of javascript to web services API with javascript based front end. I'm inclined to to with rails-api, and probably Ember on the front end, but it's a moving target, and I tend to agree with people who say this has led to a very complicated stack with too much duplication (routing on front and back end, and so forth). But should I use React, Angular? Should I write the backend in node? My current guess that the trend toward "isomorphic" systems will probably resolve this, but again, that's just a guess. What can I say? There is a tremendous amount of reading, trying, cursing, debugging, evaluating, forecasting what will be valuable later. Some of it is churn, true, and it is unnecessarily complex, but what isn't? (tax law, anyone?) Simplifying things is in itself a huge organizational, social, and mental challenge. All in all, it's pushed me past the edge of my abilities, and I constantly feel very ordinary in this field.

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dandare 11y ago

I am really entertained by the note that there are high barriers to entry to learning to code. Almost all coders I know are self thought or chose a school as an afterthought because they were experimenting with coding from early age.

Paul_S 11y ago

Driving is hard. Or not. Driving an F1 car is hard. Driving an 18 wheeler is hard. Driving a Fiat is not. You can probably learn to "move" an 18 wheeler or an F1 car but bets are off whether or not you're going to go on to win any races. Have I run this analogy into the ground yet?

paulcole 11y ago

There's a big gulf between knowing how to code and working as a professional software developer. I'm a writer for a marketing agency, but I write Google App Scripts, JavaScript, and PHP on a regular basis to automate tasks, try out ideas I have, etc. There's no way I could work as a professional software developer, but I know how to code enough to help make my professional/personal life easier and more fun. Isn't there something to be said for that? Not every skill needs to lead directly to a job. Can't it just be another skill to have when you need it? I learned to code through Codecademy and trial and error with frequent Stack Overflow searches. If I can figure it out, anyone can. Edit: For anyone saying they would hire me, I'm flattered but am very happy working as a writer who gets to program occasionally. If you're interested, here are two little projects I've put together: http://playRollo.com http://playRollo.com and http://WriteByNumbers.com http://WriteByNumbers.com. Feedback? Email me, paulcole@gmail.com.

mattmanser 11y ago
Err, yeah, you could work as a professional programmer if you wanted to. You can code. The whole point the article is trying to get across is that a lot of people are simply unable to learn how to code. You've learnt. You CAN become a professional. You just don't realize it. The step you've taken is the hard one. In fact, there's another big dirty secret in programming. A load of professional programmers aren't able to do what you can do, they can't make new programs. They can only modify existing programs. Making new programs is beyond them (or at least takes them an inordinate amount of time). Automating scripts to make their job easier is something that they would take weeks to do. EDIT: I'm not sure I agree with the article though, I've heard several arguments that we simply teach programming badly. Especially in universities.
- irishloop 11y ago
  Definitely. Maybe not a senior level dev at Google, but if you can do enough to automate tasks, you can almost certainly do enough to get hired as a junior dev somewhere.
- mildbow 11y ago
  Random dude who learns basic scripting says he's not good enough to be a software dev -> people chime in disagreement. But, try to actually take them up on the offer and you'll probably find yourself jumping through programming interviews that will scoff at your basic skills. Most of us got started writing little scripts. It's definitely a great start. To say that he could work as a professional programmer now is ridiculous. Could he have a career if he put in the time? Maybe. Can he get a job? Maybe. But, it's not the slam dunk these people are suggesting. Note that I'm not even differentiating getting past interviews vs actually doing the work. I think either would be a stretch from writing a few scripts.

discardorama 11y ago

Coding requires a mindset that some people just don't have, or haven't developed yet. Ask any TA who has taught the basic "intro to CS" courses, and you'll hear lots of anecdotes which show that some people just don't get it. Here's an example: Q: write a program that reads 2 numbers from standard input, and outputs their sum. For example: First number: 3 Second number: 7 Sum is: 10 Here's a solution someone submitted: print "First number: 3" print "Second number: 7" print "Sum is: 10"

joshcanhelp 11y ago
There was a paper published about exactly this, summarized by Jeff Atwood [1]. Essentially, there appears, according to the authors, that there is a mindset that people either have or don't have that allows them to understand the very basics (variable assignment, iteration, etc) before they've had any training at all. Students were tested before 3 weeks of education and after and the results were essentially the same: the ones that got it in the beginning were the same ones that got it at the end. This supports the original article in one way by saying that it's not for everyone and bootcamps for the general public are not going to help much, but it contradicts the secondary point which is that we should be convincing potential doctors and lawyers to start learning CS. Programming aptitude doesn't start with intelligence or background, rather from something innate. [1] http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-fr...
- gyardley 11y ago
  I really wish people wouldn't link to ten-year-old drafts without checking on current research. The article Atwood links to makes some totally bombastic claims - here's the retraction and clarification of them: http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/r_bornat/papers/camel_hump_retraction.pdf http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/r_bornat/papers/camel_hu... While a consistent mental model for things like assignment is a good sign, not initially having it doesn't mean you can't learn how to code. Lately, researchers have found that certain pedagogical techniques (especially pair programming) are pretty effective at overcoming these deficiencies. I wish I could understand why so many programmers are eager to assume their skills are due to something 'innate'.

yarper 11y ago

I agree with the author that boot-camps and the learn-to-code attitude teaches people generally that they could easily "do it if they wanted". This is slightly different to the intended message which is "you should do it, we can help". Historically for me, I'm sure that kind of attitude pushed my clueless bosses into thinking I'm some kind of semi-skilled lackey that can readily be replaced with outsourced staff or graduate hires. It's kind of a self feeding one, because if they do outsource it works for a while, until a kind of critical mass happens and it starts falling apart. The confirmation bias after making this call also makes it almost impossible to undo. I'd disagree on one point - and that is that programmer is a synonym for software developer. It's one thing coding yourself up some scripts at home, another thing altogether building a reliable, scalable technical solution within a (possibly large) team. All software developers are programmers, but not all programmers are software developers.

bcg1 11y ago

The article makes good points but is a little harsh... of course mastery takes aptitude and practice and it is ridiculous to think that you could learn anything even remotely complex in an hour or a day. But the "learn to code" efforts that are referenced serve the important purpose of exposing people who might have aptitude to the idea that they can realize that aptitude. I imagine that people without the prerequisite aptitude would just quit because it wouldn't interest them, and those who can cut it would continue on auto-didactically. I'm not trying to be too critical, but criticising those efforts with the idea that "it is hard, you probably can't do it" is unhelpful at best.

sklogic 11y ago

> All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess. No such evidence, at least not in any respectful sources. > will do nothing to help the skills shortage Who said that this is the immediate goal of teaching as many people as possible to code? > Given the skills shortage one would expect graduates from computer science courses to have very high employment rates. This logic is broken on so many levels that it's even embarrassing to comment. Let's start with a trivial nitpicking that Computer Science education got nothing to do with the Software Engineering. > there are two populations: one that finds programming a relatively painless and indeed enjoyable thing to learn and another that can’t learn no matter how good the teaching It is really embarrassing that the guy who wrote it calls himself a programmer - i.e., someone who is supposed to be logical and rigorous. There are far more categories that these two. And the most important category, targeted by all the programmes he's mocking, is the people who do no even know if they'll find programming enjoyable, because they never tried.

Cshelton 11y ago

I think a large number of your 'self-taught' results come from the fact that developing software is a profession where you always have to be learning, or you won't be good. I have not met any programmer who has said competently (and who actually are) I know everything about X. There is always learning to do in this world, and in most cases, you are either learning as a group, on the job training, or self taught. To an extent, being self taught will fall into all of those categories. The people who show up to meet ups to learn are the ones who want to go home and experiment with new things and practice their craft. The programmers who expect to just learn something then shut off and treat their day job as a 9-5 gig are the ones who fall behind quickly and become 'bad'. This is not the industry that allows for that. For example, the Web right now is the wild west, 6 months ago you built something yet now, that's no longer the best way to do it. Many other professions are the same way, even the doctor example. They constantly have to be learning to be great and the ones who stop 'learning' and teaching themselves are the doctors I wouldn't want to treat me. I also see, across many professions, the ones who are at the top of their profession are the ones who have the ability to teach themselves. In college, you learn very quickly how you learn. Some students have a very hard time learning new concepts on their own, they must attend a lecture and have interaction with the professor. However, on the other side of it, some students get very little benefit from lecture. I would know, I was that way. In a lecture I would always be doing something else, that's if I even went to the lecture. I much preferred to teach myself, and when I run into something I didn't understand, I found the resources that made sense to me to understand something. This is what you have to do in the real world. Every student needs to have the ability to do this in any profession. There is no, 'I finished school, I'm done learning...'. You will be mediocre at your job at best if you have that mentality. So yes, programming is hard, being a doctor is hard, being the top percent of ANY profession is hard.

bdcravens 11y ago
Many "professional" educations require continued learning to maintain your license. While I don't think a "programmer license" is a good thing, a voluntary way of demonstrating this would be good

tsunamifury 11y ago

" The majority of the population can not learn to code at all, no matter how much training they receive." What an arrogant, false, and self-aggrandizing fiction. Stop over-valuing yourself -- coding isn't some ultra-difficult natural selection process equivalent to winning an NBA Championship. Designing complex services, scaling and maintaining them on a server stack is hard. Developing, training, and shipping a useful deep-learning network and making it into a useful product is hard. Coding is not hard. I get sad when engineers, especially ones who's tone seems vaguely threatened, start writing up these discouraging blog posts belittling 'noobs'. Its a pleasing fiction that software engineers are just 'naturally better' and therefor their jobs are ensured. I think that anyone who says this has likely not been in the industry for very long -- because they would have seen scores and scores of devs left behind due to not training up and getting beaten out by upstarts who teach themselves and do well.

Kurtz79 11y ago
I agree that the statement "The majority of the population can not learn to code at all" is very questionable: what is the basis of that assumption ? Are there studies that took n people from different backgrounds, completely unfamiliar with coding, and tried to teach programming over the course of several weeks/months, and found that the majority were not able to get to an acceptable level ?
teach 11y ago
Coding is, in fact, quite hard. But that doesn't mean no one can learn it. Playing the saxophone is quite hard but a lot of students learn how every year, to varying degrees of skill.
- tsunamifury 11y ago
  You're right -- the finer point seems to be that coding is not a binary state. Its a lot of things along a spectrum and a lot of people make money at all points.
randcraw 11y ago
First, I agree that the statement presumes a lot without offering any evidence. Second, I essentially agree with it; I believe most people cannot code and can't be taught it. Coding requires a turn of mind that at least half of the population lacks: abstraction. You must be able to map a problem space into a form that is amenable to decomposition and solution using data and instructions. I think most technically inclined folks would be surprised how many smart people lack this ability (like doing basic high school math). Many others lack basic skills in logic, or the ability to define a reliable procedure. (I say this after 60 years of life, working in both white collar and blue collar settings). It's not that these people are stupid. Their minds just don't welcome abstract thought and the hierarchy of formal sequential models that is code. In my experience, the set of skills peculiar to writing software well is surprisingly uncommon.

jdiez17 11y ago

This article reflects my experience at University very well. I'm a self taught programmer that ended up pursuing a CompSci degree. I'm in the last semester of my BSc, and in hindsight I should have studied something else, like Physics or Electrical Engineering. The standards are ridiculously low. Most of my coursemates (final year CS students) are literally unable to write software. They can write a single-file cpp file in Code::Blocks on a good day. In my experience (and having talked to plenty of other CompSci students, their experiences are similar to mine), formal education in programming is generally reduced to teaching students all about recursive functions, bubble sort and those kinds of things. There has been a grand total of 0 lectures or labs about unit testing, version control, API design, interoperability, etc. Let alone trying to communicate the idea of "clear, maintainable" code. Only a very small minority of people can write code, yet most of us will graduate. I have a module called "Software Quality and Process Management" (formerly known as "Large Scale Software Engineering". Good thing they changed the name, at least now it's not such a blatant lie). In this module, we learn all about COCOMO, and how we should estimate the number of lines of code a project will use, and use that to figure out how many man-hours are required to complete it. WTF. I'm preaching to the choir here, but that's like estimating the amount of effort it will take to design an airplane based on the number of grams of aluminium in it. When someone raises their hand and disagrees about the relationship between SLOC and person-hours (or even about whether person-hours is a reasonable unit - it's not), the lecturer responds with a blanket "you're entitled to your own opinion", but draws blanks when asked about whether they know anyone who actually uses these methods in real world software engineering and finds them useful. It's the same story when they teach about the waterfall development process and other similar outdated practices that are known to be detrimental to healthy software. The vast majority of what I know about software engineering didn't come from my time at University, and almost all of the software engineers I know have had a similar experience. I know correlation does not imply causation, but it's definitely food for thought.

bencollier49 11y ago
This matches my experience. I was trying to hire a junior programmer, and got someone in for interview who ostensibly had a first-class CS degree from a Russell Group university, yet could not explain to me what Functional Programming involved. He didn't even recognise the term. (Incidentally, the university refused to corroborate his degree, on the grounds that it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act, which boggled my mind).

teach 11y ago

[I made a similar reply down below, but I think this belongs here, too.] I've made my living by teaching beginners to code. I have been doing it for the better part of two decades, and I specialize in teaching students that have little aptitude for it. In my experience, many students can learn how to code, but it takes a very long time! For example, I make my students code FizzBuzz. It is literally the 106th project I make them do. That is, they have completed 105 complete computer programs before getting to FizzBuzz. And many of them still struggle with it. The nuance of else/if needing to be ordered in a certain way is something they still don't have a good grip on. Programming a computer is very very hard for most people, but that doesn't mean they can't do it.

tonyedgecombe 11y ago
Why do you do it, my guess is most people here would never knowingly hire someone who struggled with such a basic concept.
- teach 11y ago
  Because my kids keep practicing for ten years after my class before getting jobs. All my students are aged 14-18.

mixturez 11y ago

I hate the hype about coding. It's not for everybody. I only code when i need to solve complex problems or design a product for money or my use.

codingdave 11y ago

The unasked question is whether learning to code is only useful if you intend to be a software developer. I believe that the logic and analytic skills acquired from learning to code are useful throughout your life no matter what job you take. The analogy people in my company like to use is that everyone learns to write, but not everyone becomes a novelist. Everyone learns arithmetic, not everyone is a professional mathematician. Everyone takes science classes in school, whether or not they intend to be a scientist. Coding is pervasive enough that is is worth at least learning the basics. If you turn out to like it and be good at it, go ahead and pursue it as a job. Otherwise, those basics are just a part of modern literacy.

Shank 11y ago

I'm currently in an undergraduate program for Computer Science at the University of Wyoming. At my level (third year Computer Science classes), I've had the following class composition: - 2 classes dedicated to learning C++ (COSC 1010 was skipped, but included here for numbers, and COSC 1020) - 2 classes dedicated to algorithms in C++ (COSC 2030, 3020) - 1 class dedicated to math (COSC 2300, discrete structures) - 1 class dedicated to functional programming (3015) (mostly proofs related to recurrence relations) In the future, it looks like my courses will be filled with networking, operating systems, compilers, and a couple other math topics. The problem is that most students only get a very foundational introduction to programming in this program. Students are tasked with writing code, but only limited quantities in very specific areas. That's algorithm development and implementation. The answer might be that students should be taking software development or some other degree, but right now CS is the route most students try to take to become developers. This isn't a good approach, because at the end they have very little development experience -- only some algorithms and knowledge of computers. I too would answer with "self taught" for how I learned to program -- definitely not from this program thus far.

sgeisenh 11y ago
In my opinion, it is very easy to teach the basic principles of software development and design. Algorithmic thinking is much harder to teach. A CS background sets you up to contribute ideas and produce efficient solutions to challenging problems. A software development background sets you up to implement ideas and solve problems quickly. Obviously these are generalizations, but that's what I have seen in my experience.
sgeisenh 11y ago
In my opinion, it is very easy to teach the basic principles of software development and design. Algorithmic thinking is much harder to teach. A CS background sets you up to contribute ideas and produce efficient solutions to challenging problems. A software development background sets you up to implement ideas and solve problems quickly. Obviously these are generalizations, but that's what I have seen in my experience.

fsniper 11y ago

In this matter, I'm not with the "everybody should know to code" camp. I believe people, ordinary do not need to do any task with computers or even if they do, they need not to teach it to the computers. This movement will create a few good coders from children, but also make more haters against the profession.

heydonovan 11y ago

I could not disagree more on the notion that software developers are looked down upon. In my experience, all those developers are treated as omnipotent. Having intelligence on another level. These are the people who wear hoodies in the elevators, and carry around a Macbook, while everyone else is forced to wear business attire (along with faces of misery and non-excitement). These developers are the people that created Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc and are known to have lots of cash, but never flaunt it. The same people that are seen headed to the bars with their team, and enjoy the freedom to code from anywhere that has Wi-Fi. Maybe it's just the fact that I've only ever worked at startup companies, but other professions are seen as simple, and clear cut as to how to go about it. "Oh, you're an accountant? Anyone can do that, just go to school, follow the steps, and a degree awaits at the finish line".

teh_klev 11y ago
> In my experience, all those developers are treated as omnipotent. Having intelligence on another level. These are the people who wear hoodies in the elevators, and carry around a Macbook, while everyone else is forced to wear business attire (along with faces of misery and non-excitement). These developers are the people that created Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc and are known to have lots of cash, but never flaunt it Not being rude, but I'm trying hard to figure out if this comment is parody/sarcasm or if you genuinely believe this fantasy?

dandare 11y ago

So large percentage of programmes are self thought (including me) yet I had to lie on my applications to companies that unanimously asked for a CS degree.

austenallred 11y ago

>All the evidence shows that programming requires a high level of aptitude that only a small percentage of the population possess. >The current fad for short learn-to-code courses is selling people a lie and will do nothing to help the skills shortage for professional programmers. Outside the obvious lack of definition as to what a "programmer" actually is, this is a non sequitur (the conclusion doe not follow). There's an assumption built in that those who do possess a high level of aptitude already have CS degrees or are self-taught because it comes to them naturally. What if there are people who possess that high level of aptitude and they want something to help them learn in a structured way? Extrapolated, the author's argument could be seen as, "Sorry, there's no point in teaching programming, because everyone with the aptitude to program already knows how to program," and I think that is a recognizable falsehood, if only anecdotally. In other words, even given the assumption that programming does require a higher aptitude than some subset of the population does possess, there is no surefire way to determine who that subset is based on credentialing.

serge2k 11y ago
The lie they are selling is that anyone can learn to code in 10 weeks. While this maybe true if you are targeting the correct subset of the population (those who do have a natural aptitude), it's not true of a random sample of the entire population. Since these schools sample from the entire population, their chances of producing large numbers of skilled software developers are low, and therefore they will do little to help with the shortages of those developers. Sounds like a reasonable argument to me.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I don't think anyone pretends like you can "learn to code" in 10 weeks any more than I "learned to speak Russian" in my three-month intensive Russian course. Of course I didn't speak fluently by the time I left. But I learned enough that when I lived in Ukraine I understood a bit of what people were saying, I could communicate somewhat, and a couple of years later I was reading Tolstoy. People think about bootcamps all wrong. You don't leave like "holy shit I'm a master programmer." You leave knowing, "OK, it'll take a while longer, but I can contribute a bit now, and I'll pick up more as I go."

moyix 11y ago

> Other research points to similar results. There seems to be a ‘double hump’ in the outcome of any programming course between those who can code and those who can’t. > “In particular, most people can't learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department's intake fail the first programming course.” Argh, I knew when I opened the article that its evidence would end up pointing to the "camel has two humps" study. That study has been retracted, and the author regrets the damage it may have caused to computer science education: http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-two-humps-programming-aptitude-test-canned-for-overzealous-conclusion/ http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-... > Though it’s embarrassing, I feel it’s necessary to explain how and why I came to write “The camel has two humps” and its part-retraction in (Bornat et al., 2008). It’s in part a mental health story. In autumn 2005 I became clinically depressed. My physician put me on the then-standard treatment for depression, an SSRI. But she wasn’t aware that for some people an SSRI doesn’t gently treat depression, it puts them on the ceiling. I took the SSRI for three months, by which time I was grandiose, extremely self-righteous and very combative – myself turned up to one hundred and eleven. I did a number of very silly things whilst on the SSRI and some more in the immediate aftermath, amongst them writing “The camel has two humps”. I’m fairly sure that I believed, at the time, that there were people who couldn’t learn to program and that Dehnadi had proved it. Perhaps I wanted to believe it because it would explain why I’d so often failed to teach them. The paper doesn’t exactly make that claim, but it comes pretty close. It was an absurd claim because I didn’t have the extraordinary evidence needed to support it. I no longer believe it’s true.

abathur 11y ago

There's a lot of back-and-forth over whether it is easy or not or whether one comparison or another works best. I think it's fine to compare learning to write code with learning to write human language. The best of us will still make mistakes; plenty of us will always be incapable of writing well. Once upon a time the idea that everyone needed to know how to write was laughable. These days, it's arguable how well everyone needs to be able to write, but there's a general agreement that it's worth giving people the opportunity to reach at least a basic level of competency, even if their daily lives require little writing. I had a miserable time learning to write (i.e., failed many assignments) until a few things fell into place, and I saw how writing could be an important part of thinking, learning, feeling, expressing, etc. I had a miserable time learning to code through coursework in highschool and college until a few things fell into place and I saw how code could be an important part of thinking, learning, feeling, expressing, etc. How did/do we sell everyone on trying to learn to write human language? AFAIK, with some superlative rhetoric about how useful/necessary writing can be without much dithering over what portion of the population will ever be good enough to make a living at it. So there are varying levels of irresponsibility when it comes to saying everyone should code. There's probably a big potential social upside to fudging things a little to suggest everyone should learn some programming throughout school; it's much more negligent to tell someone with a boring but stable job to quit and blow a few grand on a coding bootcamp without an inkling that they're prepared.

peteyPete 11y ago

I'm a bit torn on this one. Some languages and concepts are harder than others. Some people are more visual than others. Some people would excel in low level languages where others would excel doing front end web dev where things are a bit more visual and often a bit less abstract. The biggest thing with coding is finding something you like... Passion is the key here. Some things will come easier than others but if you're passionate, even if you're not a bloody genius and it takes you many times before you get something, you'll spend enough time and eventually get it. And over time you'll get better and better. In 12 years working in the field I can say I've worked with a fair amount of devs. I've worked in very small software companies, medium sized companies and fortune 500 companies. I've worked with self taught devs and people with degrees. The biggest difference between someone who's great at their job and not is not the education but the passion. Its not even the book smarts. Some people are smart as hell but just aren't passionate and don't enjoy what they do at all. Every year your job feels a bit different. Languages evolve, technologies evolve, libraries and frameworks evolve. You're constantly working with new things. Some don't feel 100% different, others do. Once you've learned a bunch, some new concepts are very easy to grasp. But at the end of the day, if you hate it, you probably won't keep up and will quickly be obsolete. Most new jobs will require a lot of learning. If not new languages then new processes, infrastructure, code bases, etc. If you're passionate enough to keep learning and patient enough to spend the time it personally takes you to grasp concepts, then you can learn. Its not for everyone. True. But not everyone will be developing physics engines for games or deep learning algorithms.. Some coding skills are easier to grasp than others and most people can, given time, become decent at some of it.

matthewtoast 11y ago

The article's main point is solid: Learning to code is hard mostly because coding is hard -- not just because there aren't enough learning opportunities and not just because we aren't welcoming enough. And learn-to-code merchants who say "Coding is easy!" are a bit untruthful in the infomercial kind of way. As those of us who do it professionally know, coding is often tear-your-hair-out difficult. Misery loves company! :-) That said, I have two problems with the article. #1 - I don't like the idea of qualifications. Sure, the lack of career-path guarantees sucks, but that anarchy also benefits us. If I can get my hands on a computer, I can learn to code on my own (with lots of hard work, yes), build what I dream of, change my life. I can sidestep red tape, bias, prejudice, and credentialism that might work against me elsewhere. #2 - I dislike the vague word 'aptitude', which the author uses many times. The idea of 'aptitude' may help distinguish Mozart from Salieri, but not Salieri from his cousin Fred. What I mean is, at the level most of us operate at, mightn't factors like motivation, persistence, and health affect us more than 'aptitude'? If the article replaced the word 'aptitude' with 'motivation' I'd like it better.

todd-davies 11y ago

Does anybody else think that Software Engineers might benefit from a master/apprentice learning style? Experienced devs could take on an apprentice for a year, kind of like an internship, and the apprentice moves does 3-5 of these before moving into a dev role themselves.

yarper 11y ago
Yes, Robert "uncle bob" Martin is a fan https://8thlight.com/apprenticeship/ https://8thlight.com/apprenticeship/

asQuirreL 11y ago

A lot of the observations in this article are very interesting, but personally, I drew different conclusions. The first one is the main thesis of the post which is that some people have an innate ability to program that others do not possess, and that this is a thing that cannot be learnt. As a result, telling people that it is "easy to code" is a lie. Firstly, it is actually not clear to me that this ability to pick up programming principles cannot be taught. All we know is that our current methods of teaching yield a double hump distribution for programming ability. Secondly, if people were actually saying "you will find coding easy" to anyone and everyone then I agree that they are probably concealing the truth. But actually, if you read the tagline on the example given (The Year of Code initiative) it says: > Start coding this year, it's easier than you think. "It's easier than you think" (emphasis mine). This is quite a different statement to a flat out "it's easy", and it's one I agree with. To most people, coding appears difficult because they simply don't know the answers to a few key questions (E.g. Where do I write the code? What do I do to run my code? How does the computer understand what I've written?). The (basic) answers to these questions are comprehensible to most people, and furnish them with the ability to write code (maybe not well, but that's a whole other story). Next observation: > Folks, which industries/professions give up their own free time to provide free/open training to people wishing to enter the sector? Curious The fact that only the software development industry seems to do this is painted as a negative thing in the article. Why is that? I ask because this is a fact I think we should be proud of. I personally enjoy what I do so much, that I happily spend time out of my week, teaching it to others for free. I don't do this because I think all the people I teach will go on to become successful software engineers, but rather because I want to widen the net, and expose more people to what we do, because for some of them (maybe even just one of them) this might be their "true calling". I got into programming originally from watching a cousin of mine editing the themes of his Wordpress blog. He went on to study English Literature and Psychology; To him, coding was just this tool that allowed him to publish his views, but to my 9 year old self, watching him, it really struck a chord and I was hooked. Now, there is not a thing in the world I could imagine myself doing rather than writing code and loving every minute of it (And no amount of "social status" is going to turn me to a life of law, medicine or architecture). What an opportunity I would have lost if I had not seen my cousin working on his blog... Every week-long learn to code course, and every "hour of code" initiative works towards bringing such opportunities to the wider public. Finally, on the role of Computer Science degrees: I am currently in my final year of a Masters in CS, which I have also enjoyed studying immensely. I would not say that it has contributed directly to my skills as a software engineer, but the things I have learnt have changed the ways in which I approach problems. Very few people write structural induction proofs, loop invariants or abstract specifications to prove the correctness of their programs, but I have found them to be great ways to think about how to write better code. These skills, however, are complementary to those that make a good software engineer, not a substitute. There's no way to prove yourself out of a rat's nest of class hierarchies and control structures.

makmanalp 11y ago

> There seems to be a ‘double hump’ in the outcome of any programming course between those who can code and those who can’t. In my humble opinion, this is because the pedagogy sucks. Intro CS classes tend to teach in a very weird way, with very conflicting goals. Is the point to teach your way around a linux shell? Tooling? Basic programming? Algorithmic thinking? Good engineering practices? To teach automata theory? Complexity theory? Most courses answer "ALLLLLL OF IIIIIIITTT!" Further down the article, you see that there is a large percentage of self-taught programmers. I suspect that this ratio goes through the roof if you ask "have you done a lot of CS / software learning on your own". This is because self teaching lends itself better to learning and practicing over and over the diverse variety of skills required to be a successful programmer. Intro classes go very quick and fail to instill any of that. So those who are successful are a lot of times those people who are already long exposed to computers, algorithms, programming or the ideas accompanying those in some shape or form. Or those who find it immediately fascinating and put in much larger amounts of time than a course would normally require. Those folks who simply haven't had a lot of time programming struggle, and eventually they drop out. And nothing changes to improve this because part of the class succeeds, and thus the conclusion made is that the part that dropped out must have been "bad". There's a false dichotomy here. Yes, programming is difficult. Yes, being successful in the real world requires a lot of work. And yes, like any craft, the rabbit hole only goes deeper. But the conclusion here isn't that most people just "don't have the aptitude necessary". Most people, given the same time and guidance, can succeed. The most important part is that getting somewhere immediately /useful/ can be quite quick. That's where programming shines - reasonably low investment costs for a moderate benefit for a lot of people, which eventually rolls into a high investment cost for a massive benefit.

Grue3 11y ago

On the contrary, evidence suggests that people naturally learn to code when faced with operating a programmable device (even if they don't know what they're doing is coding). Everyone pretty much had to be able code to operate a computer in the 80s. And they did, even lowly secretaries with no fancy degrees. Now that people have to deal with closed-down computer systems that come prepackaged with everything the user is supposed to need, the coding is not necessary to be able to operate them. And then of course you get a generation of people who aren't motivated to learn to code, because they don't have to. "Can't code" is the new "can't do math". What it really means is that the person doesn't want to code (or to do math), not that they cannot do it.

robotnoises 11y ago

For the most part I agree. However, part of the reason why other professions like "doctor" or "architect" don't permit crash course bootcamp-style training for its entrants is because, for the most part, the stakes are much higher. Sure, there are lots of high-stakes programming jobs, but for the most part, being a bad programmer won't kill anyone.

chad_strategic 11y ago

TLDR: I'm a self taught coder, due in part to the recession of 08. I would encourage anybody that has a desire an passion to learn, don't let anybody discourage you as there are a lot of "negative nellies" floating around out there. If your long term career goal is to be CTO at a big company, then you should probably go school. Other wise there is plenty of room in the market for all types of developers/codes. http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on-programmers-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/jack-dorsey-on-programmers-20...

mattbgates 11y ago

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