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This advice is as good as someone saying "please don't learn to play music". Not only is is bad advice since there is obviously value in learning to play music

This advice is as good as someone saying "please don't learn to play music". Not only is is bad advice since there is obviously value in learning to play music even though you are never going to become a professional musician. But saying don't learn to code it's like saying "please don't learn this category of language which will make you able to communicate with the very ecosystem that is increasingly dominating your life. It's like saying. "Please be illiterate in the most important language you can learn besides your native one for the future" In Denmark there is an expression "fagidiot" meaning idiot of their trade. I.e. people who are so puritan about what they do that any mistake is considered almost fatal. It's like going to the movies with your friends from the army who can't enjoy a war movie because a gun doesn't really sound like that or you can't fire that many rounds of your M-16. The probper advice is of course' "Please learn everything you consider interesting, and keep learning even if you suck at it and will never become a professional. Learning something means growing as a person."

gmarx 11y ago
I watched the HBO show "Vinyl". It struck me how analogous the music industry back then is to software today. Everyone was starting a band. Everyone was pitching to A&R guys. All kinds of characters were attracted by the money and the glamour.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  I played music professionally for a couple of years. The value of music, the insights, the understanding of composition, harmony, structure, consistency, rhythm, patterns, melodies and so on have proven invaluable in most other fields I have dabbled with whether design, cooking or even my pathetic attempts at coding.
kafkaesq 11y ago
This advice is as good as someone saying "please don't learn to play music". The analogy is quite strong, here - perhaps more than the author realizes. I get the basic point about not expecting just pick up a book or two and crash the gates, overnight. But there's something fundamentally disheartening about a statement whose core message boils down to: "Don't try".
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Exactly. Coding is one of the first really really important industries which have as much foundation outside academia as it does inside to allow for people to become masters beyond any comparable education the might take. It's so important that even learning to pseudo code is going to take you a very very long way. Code is IMO language. It's the language if you'd like of the future, how cliché that might sound. Understanding even the basics of code (as of music) is almost of value way beyond becoming an expert in the field.
threatofrain 11y ago
This article clearly states that it does not support total aversion to programming. It simply says that programming isn't for everyone. Music is actually a good example to discuss because, while you're playing piano, you could've been playing tennis. While you're playing tennis, you could've been in art class. While you were in art class, you could've been hiking with friends. While you were hiking with friends, you could've been doing more math. While you were doing math, you could've been reading literature. These things are not for everyone, and that an activity has value is absolutely inadequate in proposing a global prescription for children. I can see a place for civics, economics, exercise, biology, history, math, science, and English as global prescriptions for young people, but programming is far less obvious.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Programming is the most obvious one because it the one thing thats going to allow the individual to interface with civics, economics, excercise, biology, history, math, science and english in a structure manner. That doesn't mean you are not going to play tennis. It doesn't mean you only have to do code. But to understand just the basics is many many many times more useful for the individual than you seem to be suggesting. You literally can't find a more versatile tool for that. So the whole idea that people shouldn't learn to code is rooted in either some deeply misguided understanding of how humans grow intellectually or som deeply juvenile idea that if you aren't ready to put in the work to be a real coder you shouldn't get started to begin with. It doesn't matter if it's not for everyone, people will find that out when they try it out. Some of them will become professional developers many wont, but most will develop an understanding and insight into the very thing that is disrupting their lives in an increasing maner and perhaps use it to further develop other fields.
  - threatofrain 11y ago
    You are speaking only for value of something, when I was talking about weighing value when burdened by constraints. I gave a list of valuable interests, but I noted the problem of opportunity cost. So the question is not "should we have dance" in schools, but, "What do we cut? What do we downsize? How about exercise or history?". Alternative, "instead of programming, how about statistics and personal finance?" These are far more interesting questions, because these questions acknowledge constraints and weighing. If we didn't have to exercise constrained thinking, we mind as well say, "let's have it all". Saying that programming is at the intersection of so many subjects is unrealistic, and the same could be said about math, physics, or statistics, and I'd say that statistics and personal finance are far better candidates if you had to somehow squeeze one more thing into school at the cost of something else. The reason why software exists at some intersection with another discipline is almost always statistics. Statistics, then, is the most flexible gateway to numerous disciplines, and software is the tangential detail to statistics. The scientist exercises experimental modelling, collects the data, and inputs it into an excel sheet, and imports it into the university software suite. And this is the right level of involvement between a scientist and software. The scientist is rightly not interested in the details of software. Nor the physicist, or the student of history, literature, or the exercise enthusiast or the musician. These people are all very justified in throwing money at the problem for a prepared solution, because software is the detail.

gmarx 11y ago

I watched the HBO show "Vinyl". It struck me how analogous the music industry back then is to software today. Everyone was starting a band. Everyone was pitching to A&R guys. All kinds of characters were attracted by the money and the glamour.

ThomPete 11y ago
I played music professionally for a couple of years. The value of music, the insights, the understanding of composition, harmony, structure, consistency, rhythm, patterns, melodies and so on have proven invaluable in most other fields I have dabbled with whether design, cooking or even my pathetic attempts at coding.

kafkaesq 11y ago

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

ThomPete 11y ago
Exactly. Coding is one of the first really really important industries which have as much foundation outside academia as it does inside to allow for people to become masters beyond any comparable education the might take. It's so important that even learning to pseudo code is going to take you a very very long way. Code is IMO language. It's the language if you'd like of the future, how cliché that might sound. Understanding even the basics of code (as of music) is almost of value way beyond becoming an expert in the field.

threatofrain 11y ago

This article clearly states that it does not support total aversion to programming. It simply says that programming isn't for everyone. Music is actually a good example to discuss because, while you're playing piano, you could've been playing tennis. While you're playing tennis, you could've been in art class. While you were in art class, you could've been hiking with friends. While you were hiking with friends, you could've been doing more math. While you were doing math, you could've been reading literature. These things are not for everyone, and that an activity has value is absolutely inadequate in proposing a global prescription for children. I can see a place for civics, economics, exercise, biology, history, math, science, and English as global prescriptions for young people, but programming is far less obvious.

ThomPete 11y ago
Programming is the most obvious one because it the one thing thats going to allow the individual to interface with civics, economics, excercise, biology, history, math, science and english in a structure manner. That doesn't mean you are not going to play tennis. It doesn't mean you only have to do code. But to understand just the basics is many many many times more useful for the individual than you seem to be suggesting. You literally can't find a more versatile tool for that. So the whole idea that people shouldn't learn to code is rooted in either some deeply misguided understanding of how humans grow intellectually or som deeply juvenile idea that if you aren't ready to put in the work to be a real coder you shouldn't get started to begin with. It doesn't matter if it's not for everyone, people will find that out when they try it out. Some of them will become professional developers many wont, but most will develop an understanding and insight into the very thing that is disrupting their lives in an increasing maner and perhaps use it to further develop other fields.
- threatofrain 11y ago
  You are speaking only for value of something, when I was talking about weighing value when burdened by constraints. I gave a list of valuable interests, but I noted the problem of opportunity cost. So the question is not "should we have dance" in schools, but, "What do we cut? What do we downsize? How about exercise or history?". Alternative, "instead of programming, how about statistics and personal finance?" These are far more interesting questions, because these questions acknowledge constraints and weighing. If we didn't have to exercise constrained thinking, we mind as well say, "let's have it all". Saying that programming is at the intersection of so many subjects is unrealistic, and the same could be said about math, physics, or statistics, and I'd say that statistics and personal finance are far better candidates if you had to somehow squeeze one more thing into school at the cost of something else. The reason why software exists at some intersection with another discipline is almost always statistics. Statistics, then, is the most flexible gateway to numerous disciplines, and software is the tangential detail to statistics. The scientist exercises experimental modelling, collects the data, and inputs it into an excel sheet, and imports it into the university software suite. And this is the right level of involvement between a scientist and software. The scientist is rightly not interested in the details of software. Nor the physicist, or the student of history, literature, or the exercise enthusiast or the musician. These people are all very justified in throwing money at the problem for a prepared solution, because software is the detail.