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I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't. People who want to code, should learn to

I hate the idea that some people seem to hold that teaching everyone to code will fix the world's problems. It won't. People who want to code, should learn to code. Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. We have a society that needs people with many diverse skills. We should be investing more in tech or trade schools than we are in colleges and universities. People need a way to gain the skills they will need to earn a living but sending everyone to college is a universally bad idea. It'll turn the Bachelor's degree into the new High School Diploma.

rickycook 10y ago
people learning to code isn't about getting people jobs in which they can code. it's about allowing people to solve repetitive tasks in their daily lives and jobs if everyone were able to code, there'd be much more automation of menial jobs, which generally means a more productive economy in the long run it's the same thing that we do with running scalable information systems; automate the mundane so you can do things that really have an impact on quality, rather than spending hours doing something you could code and be done with it
dagw 10y ago
Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can become programmers, they should learn to code because knowing how to code can make you better at virtually any job you end up in.
- Kurtz79 10y ago
  Please give some example how knowledge of programming would help a truck driver, a cook or a welder to be more efficient in their jobs.
  - dragandj 10y ago
    All these professions are (going to be) gradually replaced by automation/robots. Learning to code might put them in "robot manager/operator" instead of "they took our jobs" crowd.
  - dagw 10y ago
    Honestly not really sure, having never worked in any of those jobs and have no idea what those jobs will look like 20 years from now. However let me speculate: Many people believe that truck drivers will be become more and more replaced with autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Understanding the underlying software will no doubt make it easier to be in charge of a software controlled semi-autonomous truck convoy. Also for all I know truck drivers on places like docks, mines and factories won't be sitting in their trucks for much longer. They'll be controlling everything via computers from a remote command post. Also from what I seen trucking seems to involve a lot of complex routing and optimization problems, I'm guessing that as simply driving becomes less and less part of the job, those aspects will become more and more part of the job. I know fuck all about welding. I do however know some programmers who work for a company that makes industrial welders and apparently there's some pretty complex software running those welders. Perhaps being able to field program your welder is/will be a thing? Also perhaps welding things directly will become less and less common and people will be sending computer controlled drones to do the welding instead. Anyway it's not for me to sit on the outside and try to guess how programming can make people more efficient at their jobs. I truly believe that if someone with experience and domain knowledge also knows how to do some simple programming they'll be able to see all kinds of tiny improvements and automatstation they can implement. Improvements that both an outsider programmer and an insider non-programmer would completely overlook. And even if they aren't always skilled enough to implement those improvements, they'll be much better equipped to know what can be done and what to ask for.
    - Teckla 10y ago
      I truly believe that if someone with experience and domain knowledge also knows how to do some simple programming they'll be able to see all kinds of tiny improvements and automatstation they can implement. And without extensive training and experience in software development they'll automate those things very, very badly, and likely with a lot of bugs. And if those things grow out of control, the mountain of technical debt will be terrifying. If lives are in the balance in any way, it could be a disaster. Just like someone without carpentry training or experience is likely to create very low quality kitchen cabinets which may even be unsafe.
majewsky 10y ago
> Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Many current jobs may be subject to being automated away. I would certainly not recommend any future worker to set themselves up for a career in truck driving, because this job is likely gone in, let's say, 20 years. The "everyone should learn to code" crowd maybe recognizes that programming is one of the skills that is very hard to automate, so every new coder of today might still get through a whole career of coding.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Truck mechanics with computer skills are likely to do well I imagine.
jhbadger 10y ago
I'm old enough that I was taught BASIC in middle-school circa 1981. Back then, it was taken for granted that "computer literacy" involved teaching people to code. Am I a "professional programmer" today? Well, I do program as part of my job, but I'm technically a microbiologist/immunologist. Analyzing data by writing code is a lot more efficient and repeatable than the fiddling with spreadsheets that non-coders do.
- LordKano 10y ago
  I was taught basic in middle-school in 1983. At my school, this was only done for children in the Gifted Program. I am an IT Professional. I have worked as a developer and two years ago, I made the leap to security analyst. My programming skills come into play because some of the security packages I have used require the ability to write regexes.
jernfrost 10y ago
Most people today will end up in office jobs. Understanding how to automate tasks is a valuable skill. You are wrongly assuming that anyone who codes is a developer. Lots of people code who aren't developers: physicists, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, statisticians, system administrators etc. 5-20 line programs can often be enough to save a lot of tedious work, wether it is a collection of unix shell commands, a complex spreadsheet formula, VB script or a visual programming tool like automator or labview.

rickycook 10y ago

people learning to code isn't about getting people jobs in which they can code. it's about allowing people to solve repetitive tasks in their daily lives and jobs if everyone were able to code, there'd be much more automation of menial jobs, which generally means a more productive economy in the long run it's the same thing that we do with running scalable information systems; automate the mundane so you can do things that really have an impact on quality, rather than spending hours doing something you could code and be done with it

dagw 10y ago

Some people should learn to weld. Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Some people should learn to cook. Some people should learn to landscape. Some people should learn to fix automobiles and son on and so forth. Absolutely, and if all those people also knew how to code, they could find ways to apply the skill to their jobs to make them more efficient. People shouldn't learn to code so that they can become programmers, they should learn to code because knowing how to code can make you better at virtually any job you end up in.

Kurtz79 10y ago
Please give some example how knowledge of programming would help a truck driver, a cook or a welder to be more efficient in their jobs.
- dragandj 10y ago
  All these professions are (going to be) gradually replaced by automation/robots. Learning to code might put them in "robot manager/operator" instead of "they took our jobs" crowd.
- dagw 10y ago
  Honestly not really sure, having never worked in any of those jobs and have no idea what those jobs will look like 20 years from now. However let me speculate: Many people believe that truck drivers will be become more and more replaced with autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Understanding the underlying software will no doubt make it easier to be in charge of a software controlled semi-autonomous truck convoy. Also for all I know truck drivers on places like docks, mines and factories won't be sitting in their trucks for much longer. They'll be controlling everything via computers from a remote command post. Also from what I seen trucking seems to involve a lot of complex routing and optimization problems, I'm guessing that as simply driving becomes less and less part of the job, those aspects will become more and more part of the job. I know fuck all about welding. I do however know some programmers who work for a company that makes industrial welders and apparently there's some pretty complex software running those welders. Perhaps being able to field program your welder is/will be a thing? Also perhaps welding things directly will become less and less common and people will be sending computer controlled drones to do the welding instead. Anyway it's not for me to sit on the outside and try to guess how programming can make people more efficient at their jobs. I truly believe that if someone with experience and domain knowledge also knows how to do some simple programming they'll be able to see all kinds of tiny improvements and automatstation they can implement. Improvements that both an outsider programmer and an insider non-programmer would completely overlook. And even if they aren't always skilled enough to implement those improvements, they'll be much better equipped to know what can be done and what to ask for.
  - Teckla 10y ago
    I truly believe that if someone with experience and domain knowledge also knows how to do some simple programming they'll be able to see all kinds of tiny improvements and automatstation they can implement. And without extensive training and experience in software development they'll automate those things very, very badly, and likely with a lot of bugs. And if those things grow out of control, the mountain of technical debt will be terrifying. If lives are in the balance in any way, it could be a disaster. Just like someone without carpentry training or experience is likely to create very low quality kitchen cabinets which may even be unsafe.

majewsky 10y ago

> Some people should learn to drive a commercial truck. Many current jobs may be subject to being automated away. I would certainly not recommend any future worker to set themselves up for a career in truck driving, because this job is likely gone in, let's say, 20 years. The "everyone should learn to code" crowd maybe recognizes that programming is one of the skills that is very hard to automate, so every new coder of today might still get through a whole career of coding.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Truck mechanics with computer skills are likely to do well I imagine.

jhbadger 10y ago

I'm old enough that I was taught BASIC in middle-school circa 1981. Back then, it was taken for granted that "computer literacy" involved teaching people to code. Am I a "professional programmer" today? Well, I do program as part of my job, but I'm technically a microbiologist/immunologist. Analyzing data by writing code is a lot more efficient and repeatable than the fiddling with spreadsheets that non-coders do.

LordKano 10y ago
I was taught basic in middle-school in 1983. At my school, this was only done for children in the Gifted Program. I am an IT Professional. I have worked as a developer and two years ago, I made the leap to security analyst. My programming skills come into play because some of the security packages I have used require the ability to write regexes.

jernfrost 10y ago

Most people today will end up in office jobs. Understanding how to automate tasks is a valuable skill. You are wrongly assuming that anyone who codes is a developer. Lots of people code who aren't developers: physicists, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, statisticians, system administrators etc. 5-20 line programs can often be enough to save a lot of tedious work, wether it is a collection of unix shell commands, a complex spreadsheet formula, VB script or a visual programming tool like automator or labview.