5 ms·

There's actually a simpler argument, and probably a better one: Programming can (and is!) described as an art, and it's difficult to imagine people thinking li

There's actually a simpler argument, and probably a better one: Programming can (and is!) described as an art, and it's difficult to imagine people thinking like this about other kinds of art. There are few people, after all, who would say things like "Oh, one day music will be easy and everybody will be able to play like Joshua Bell." or "Oh, but one day novel writing will become easier, and everybody will be able to write like Stephen King." And so it's ridiculous as to why programming is given this treatment. Sure, mastery of the tools in programming may be harder than in writing, say, or in photography. But tools are just one bit of it - ideas are the other bit, and much more important.

zwetan 16y ago
agreed but imho programming is not only art , it is also science. It would be like to say to be good at programming you need to be good at art and math, which are both considered "hard to master", which make programming even harder. And then you can add the 3rd element: time (or experience), or the classic "to be good at something you need to practice it for at least 10 years", which make the whole thing even harder. I don't know any tools that can make those 3 things easier. I must say that the article have one flaw, it presents programming as an activity you can or can not do, eg. "I'm not able to do something because of something else", me I would say that to be able to do programming you have to be good at it, and I'm not just talking about understanding the tools, the languages, the API, etc. Really, it is all about being good at using a language to solve one or more problems. My guess is when people says "programming is hard", is that they assume it is easy to solve problem if you know programming, and fail to see that it's not programming that is not easy but solving problems that is not easy.
makmanalp 16y ago
I think a larger issue lies in this: Nowadays, any moron can take a mid-quality camera with good auto settings and do "photography", and the average customer is likely to not distinguish this person from a professional photographer with years of experience, or an established photographic artist. Is this also true, to some degree, with programming? Can any moron who "learned java" in a first year college course compete with a good, experienced programmer because the customer doesn't know any better? (and thus will go for lower price) The answer, in my experience, is "yes".
- maukdaddy 16y ago
  There was a time that only experts could "make" websites (mid 90s). Today you can get a wordpress blog with a nice template and look as good as a lot of major websites. So we're partially there as far as the web goes. I'd argue that frameworks like Rails have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for web programming. It isn't "easy" per se, but significantly easier than just 10 years ago.
roryokane 16y ago
I don’t consider the definition of programming to necessarily include coming up with ideas. That would be software design. It’s not unreasonable to consider programming as including thinking of ideas, in which case you are right, but another reasonable definition is just “the implementation of ideas as a program”, in which case programming can actually be easy – or much easier than it is now, at least.

zwetan 16y ago

agreed but imho programming is not only art , it is also science. It would be like to say to be good at programming you need to be good at art and math, which are both considered "hard to master", which make programming even harder. And then you can add the 3rd element: time (or experience), or the classic "to be good at something you need to practice it for at least 10 years", which make the whole thing even harder. I don't know any tools that can make those 3 things easier. I must say that the article have one flaw, it presents programming as an activity you can or can not do, eg. "I'm not able to do something because of something else", me I would say that to be able to do programming you have to be good at it, and I'm not just talking about understanding the tools, the languages, the API, etc. Really, it is all about being good at using a language to solve one or more problems. My guess is when people says "programming is hard", is that they assume it is easy to solve problem if you know programming, and fail to see that it's not programming that is not easy but solving problems that is not easy.

makmanalp 16y ago

I think a larger issue lies in this: Nowadays, any moron can take a mid-quality camera with good auto settings and do "photography", and the average customer is likely to not distinguish this person from a professional photographer with years of experience, or an established photographic artist. Is this also true, to some degree, with programming? Can any moron who "learned java" in a first year college course compete with a good, experienced programmer because the customer doesn't know any better? (and thus will go for lower price) The answer, in my experience, is "yes".

maukdaddy 16y ago
There was a time that only experts could "make" websites (mid 90s). Today you can get a wordpress blog with a nice template and look as good as a lot of major websites. So we're partially there as far as the web goes. I'd argue that frameworks like Rails have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for web programming. It isn't "easy" per se, but significantly easier than just 10 years ago.

roryokane 16y ago

I don’t consider the definition of programming to necessarily include coming up with ideas. That would be software design. It’s not unreasonable to consider programming as including thinking of ideas, in which case you are right, but another reasonable definition is just “the implementation of ideas as a program”, in which case programming can actually be easy – or much easier than it is now, at least.