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>> Coding is a not at all comparable to literacy, it is simply a lucrative trade that is in demand at this time in history, but it won't always be (in fact, I s

>> Coding is a not at all comparable to literacy, it is simply a lucrative trade that is in demand at this time in history, but it won't always be (in fact, I suspect the career prospects for software engineers will look very similar to the career prospects for lawyers today, within the next 30 years). I think you are playing semantics, my argument is simply that coding can be as fundamental to earning a living as literacy and unlike many other occupations there are no gatekeepers that tell you what/when you can code - thus it gives you the freedom to work to improve yourself and your situation in ways that other occupations do not. I have no interest in debating the fundamental building blocks of learning etc... only the tactical dat to day skills that can add value to ones life but I would like to see your GitHub profile. Here is mine - https://github.com/ArionHardison https://github.com/ArionHardison. I also have 0 interest in your supposition, do you have any empirical evidence to back up the assertion that coding in 30 years will be akin to being a lawyer? Note: To assert that someone would be able to code well enough to hold a job whole also being functionally illiterate is simply moronic.

root_axis 8y ago
> Note: To assert that someone would be able to code well enough to hold a job whole also being functionally illiterate is simply moronic. Perhaps it is moronic to reduce "literacy" to a binary attribute. Are you deliberately misinterpreting my statements or do you honestly believe I'm here arguing for a definition of literacy that stops at 1st grade language arts? Increased literacy translates into increased ability to communicate effectively and intentionally. Increased literacy translates into faster knowledge acquisition and higher productivity gains. Many engineers I've worked with have excellent literary skills, but many have poor literary skills and it is very obvious when those poorly developed skills are holding them back; it is especially noticeable among those who have an aversion to books or dense technical literature and supplement their experience almost exclusively with videos and by following tutorials. I'm not knocking videos or tutorials, I use them and I think everyone should, but if you're not also utilizing and improving literary skills you will always be overshadowed by those who are. Consider the example of the developer who jumps into a new framework on the job and just starts hacking away until they've got a functioning MVP, but in the process also wastes 8 hours trying to demystify the behavior of a complex API by running tutorial code rather than spending an hour doing a comprehensive read through the documentation after which everything makes sense. Consider the missed opportunities for otherwise talented individuals who simply lack the literary skills necessary to participate in ongoing written communication with non-technical management, executives, and business partners. Consider the loss of productivity from poorly written or non-existent documentation. I see this kind of thing all the time. > I think you are playing semantics, my argument is simply that coding can be as fundamental to earning a living as literacy I am not "playing semantics", I explicitly disagree with the notion that "coding can be as fundamental to earning a living as literacy", it simply doesn't get any more "fundamental" than being able to read and write and there is nothing "fundamental" about code writing skills that cuts across almost every track of occupational advancement the way that literary skills do. Don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that logical thinking skills do not cut across all domains, I'm saying that coding skills do not, they are not at all the same thing. > there are no gatekeepers that tell you what/when you can code Such is the case for all artisanal skills, it is only that writing code happens to be in very high demand at this time so it is a smart economic choice given the available options, but that obviously won't last forever and is clearly contingent on a market demand for the skillset. Literacy, on the other hand, is a timeless skill that pays dividends indefinitely in the advancement of one's career regardless of the industry. > it gives you the freedom to work to improve yourself and your situation in ways that other occupations do not Not true. Practice makes perfect with code, just like anything else, it's only that nobody is going to pay someone with 1 year of experience a 60k salary to produce hobbyist level paintings and music, thus "the freedom to work to improve yourself" becomes "things I don't have time to do because I'm working". > I would like to see your GitHub profile Why? I don't measure my career success by a matrix of green squares displayed on a corporation's website. Seriously, who cares? This is kinda what I'm talking about. Your github profile is just self-aggrandizing noise in the technocratic bubble of the software industry, it's not inherently important. > I also have 0 interest in your supposition, do you have any empirical evidence to back up the assertion that coding in 30 years will be akin to being a lawyer? I didn't say it was a proven fact, only that it is something I suspect - but to offer some reasoning for this suspicion 1. Year over year developers are able to produce more and more, with less bugs, at faster rates and cheaper costs. 30 years ago, you couldn't pay an experienced team of 10 to do what a single mid-level dev can accomplish with Rails and AWS today (i.e. doing more with less = less demand for engineers = lower wages) 2. Open source greatly exacerbates this effect and it is compounding as more and more open source software matures and is able to do more. (i.e. tools that get better and easier with 0 cost = lower barrier to entry in the industry = higher supply of engineers = lower wages) 3. An explosion of interest in the field spurred by high salaries, high prestige, popular media, deliberate awareness campaigns, a burgeoning bootcamp industry and an unlimited springwell of high quality resources for free online. (i.e. large influx of new engineers * explosion of free high quality learning resources = big spike in supply of quality engineers = lower wages) 4. Increasing saturation of software markets. We see it pretty much across the spectrum of software from apps and games to office and web; the only area that isn't saturated yet is B2B but that won't last forever either. How many times in how many languages can we remake the same CRUD application before companies start to realize that open-source or off-the-shelf software can be much more cheaply deployed and maintained by an agency as opposed to recruiting and managing an expensive software department? Obviously, software companies can't really do that, but it is becoming increasingly viable for every other industry to do so as the software gets better and better. All these trends are increasing in intensity and amplifying each-other, the golden era of the engineer won't last forever.
- arionhardison 8y ago
  1. I wanted to see your GH profile because I simply do not believe that you are what you claim to be. - Non college educated black dev making 200+ a year. That "self-aggrandizing noise" is social proof and as I suspected you refuse to provide any. I run into people like you any time I tell people any aspect of my story ie: blah blah poor kid made it big via coding blah blah. There is always someone like you that attacks what I have done and claims the same but can never provide a single piece of evidence to support their claim. 2. There is actually no #2. I have work to do, the things I build help people so while you may take this reductionist attitude toward me and my work it really does not matter because as long as I can push code and use that as a mechanism to distribute my ideas at scale to cause measurable change in the lives of others my code matters - I suspect Fredrick Douglas would be proud of that as where you are just all talk. Also, https://dietmanager.com https://dietmanager.com - my work is FAR from a simple CRUD app but good luck w/ that.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    > I wanted to see your GH profile because I simply do not believe that you are what you claim to be. lol, come on man, do you honestly think I care about proving my accomplishments to random internet strangers? I don't even care about proving it to IRL strangers. > that "self-aggrandizing noise" is social proof and as I suspected you refuse to provide any I don't feel like I need to prove anything to you; my statements stand on their own. I also hope the irony of asking a black guy to dox himself in order to prove that he's actually real isn't lost on you. If I had said I was white would you feel the need to ask for proof of my accomplishments? A successful black engineer who disagrees with you is not a unicorn. > There is always someone like you that attacks what I have done and claims the same but can never provide a single piece of evidence to support their claim. I'm not sure why you're being so defensive. Seriously, please copy and paste ANYTHING I've said that is attacking you or any of your work. I simply disagree with your assertion that coding is as fundamental to career success as literacy, that's it. I wrote a really long reply with a lot of details explaining my specific reasoning and you completely disregard it in favor of some twisted caricature of my reply that you've decided is a personal attack against you and your work. You're not even hearing what I'm saying so I'll stop here. Good luck on your app.
derangedHorse 8y ago
Being literate in this day and age is essential to being able to explore the treasure trove of information that has been made available to us throughout history. It's a necessity for modern communication, and a tool that enables access into all kinds of knowledge from virtually EVERY domain. Meanwhile coding IS a way of communication in itself (as is something like math), but it boils down to being a specification for the behavior of an agent. The versatility that it grants you in the job market, or the algorithmic thinking that it cultivates on the day to day just doesn't seem comparable to the advantages of reading. Text is a literal inscription of the languages used to express the entirety of the human experience verbally. Any programming language just can't compete with the value of being able to read general text (the value added just isn't the same).

root_axis 8y ago

> Note: To assert that someone would be able to code well enough to hold a job whole also being functionally illiterate is simply moronic. Perhaps it is moronic to reduce "literacy" to a binary attribute. Are you deliberately misinterpreting my statements or do you honestly believe I'm here arguing for a definition of literacy that stops at 1st grade language arts? Increased literacy translates into increased ability to communicate effectively and intentionally. Increased literacy translates into faster knowledge acquisition and higher productivity gains. Many engineers I've worked with have excellent literary skills, but many have poor literary skills and it is very obvious when those poorly developed skills are holding them back; it is especially noticeable among those who have an aversion to books or dense technical literature and supplement their experience almost exclusively with videos and by following tutorials. I'm not knocking videos or tutorials, I use them and I think everyone should, but if you're not also utilizing and improving literary skills you will always be overshadowed by those who are. Consider the example of the developer who jumps into a new framework on the job and just starts hacking away until they've got a functioning MVP, but in the process also wastes 8 hours trying to demystify the behavior of a complex API by running tutorial code rather than spending an hour doing a comprehensive read through the documentation after which everything makes sense. Consider the missed opportunities for otherwise talented individuals who simply lack the literary skills necessary to participate in ongoing written communication with non-technical management, executives, and business partners. Consider the loss of productivity from poorly written or non-existent documentation. I see this kind of thing all the time. > I think you are playing semantics, my argument is simply that coding can be as fundamental to earning a living as literacy I am not "playing semantics", I explicitly disagree with the notion that "coding can be as fundamental to earning a living as literacy", it simply doesn't get any more "fundamental" than being able to read and write and there is nothing "fundamental" about code writing skills that cuts across almost every track of occupational advancement the way that literary skills do. Don't misunderstand, I'm not suggesting that logical thinking skills do not cut across all domains, I'm saying that coding skills do not, they are not at all the same thing. > there are no gatekeepers that tell you what/when you can code Such is the case for all artisanal skills, it is only that writing code happens to be in very high demand at this time so it is a smart economic choice given the available options, but that obviously won't last forever and is clearly contingent on a market demand for the skillset. Literacy, on the other hand, is a timeless skill that pays dividends indefinitely in the advancement of one's career regardless of the industry. > it gives you the freedom to work to improve yourself and your situation in ways that other occupations do not Not true. Practice makes perfect with code, just like anything else, it's only that nobody is going to pay someone with 1 year of experience a 60k salary to produce hobbyist level paintings and music, thus "the freedom to work to improve yourself" becomes "things I don't have time to do because I'm working". > I would like to see your GitHub profile Why? I don't measure my career success by a matrix of green squares displayed on a corporation's website. Seriously, who cares? This is kinda what I'm talking about. Your github profile is just self-aggrandizing noise in the technocratic bubble of the software industry, it's not inherently important. > I also have 0 interest in your supposition, do you have any empirical evidence to back up the assertion that coding in 30 years will be akin to being a lawyer? I didn't say it was a proven fact, only that it is something I suspect - but to offer some reasoning for this suspicion 1. Year over year developers are able to produce more and more, with less bugs, at faster rates and cheaper costs. 30 years ago, you couldn't pay an experienced team of 10 to do what a single mid-level dev can accomplish with Rails and AWS today (i.e. doing more with less = less demand for engineers = lower wages) 2. Open source greatly exacerbates this effect and it is compounding as more and more open source software matures and is able to do more. (i.e. tools that get better and easier with 0 cost = lower barrier to entry in the industry = higher supply of engineers = lower wages) 3. An explosion of interest in the field spurred by high salaries, high prestige, popular media, deliberate awareness campaigns, a burgeoning bootcamp industry and an unlimited springwell of high quality resources for free online. (i.e. large influx of new engineers * explosion of free high quality learning resources = big spike in supply of quality engineers = lower wages) 4. Increasing saturation of software markets. We see it pretty much across the spectrum of software from apps and games to office and web; the only area that isn't saturated yet is B2B but that won't last forever either. How many times in how many languages can we remake the same CRUD application before companies start to realize that open-source or off-the-shelf software can be much more cheaply deployed and maintained by an agency as opposed to recruiting and managing an expensive software department? Obviously, software companies can't really do that, but it is becoming increasingly viable for every other industry to do so as the software gets better and better. All these trends are increasing in intensity and amplifying each-other, the golden era of the engineer won't last forever.

arionhardison 8y ago
1. I wanted to see your GH profile because I simply do not believe that you are what you claim to be. - Non college educated black dev making 200+ a year. That "self-aggrandizing noise" is social proof and as I suspected you refuse to provide any. I run into people like you any time I tell people any aspect of my story ie: blah blah poor kid made it big via coding blah blah. There is always someone like you that attacks what I have done and claims the same but can never provide a single piece of evidence to support their claim. 2. There is actually no #2. I have work to do, the things I build help people so while you may take this reductionist attitude toward me and my work it really does not matter because as long as I can push code and use that as a mechanism to distribute my ideas at scale to cause measurable change in the lives of others my code matters - I suspect Fredrick Douglas would be proud of that as where you are just all talk. Also, https://dietmanager.com https://dietmanager.com - my work is FAR from a simple CRUD app but good luck w/ that.
- root_axis 8y ago
  > I wanted to see your GH profile because I simply do not believe that you are what you claim to be. lol, come on man, do you honestly think I care about proving my accomplishments to random internet strangers? I don't even care about proving it to IRL strangers. > that "self-aggrandizing noise" is social proof and as I suspected you refuse to provide any I don't feel like I need to prove anything to you; my statements stand on their own. I also hope the irony of asking a black guy to dox himself in order to prove that he's actually real isn't lost on you. If I had said I was white would you feel the need to ask for proof of my accomplishments? A successful black engineer who disagrees with you is not a unicorn. > There is always someone like you that attacks what I have done and claims the same but can never provide a single piece of evidence to support their claim. I'm not sure why you're being so defensive. Seriously, please copy and paste ANYTHING I've said that is attacking you or any of your work. I simply disagree with your assertion that coding is as fundamental to career success as literacy, that's it. I wrote a really long reply with a lot of details explaining my specific reasoning and you completely disregard it in favor of some twisted caricature of my reply that you've decided is a personal attack against you and your work. You're not even hearing what I'm saying so I'll stop here. Good luck on your app.

derangedHorse 8y ago

Being literate in this day and age is essential to being able to explore the treasure trove of information that has been made available to us throughout history. It's a necessity for modern communication, and a tool that enables access into all kinds of knowledge from virtually EVERY domain. Meanwhile coding IS a way of communication in itself (as is something like math), but it boils down to being a specification for the behavior of an agent. The versatility that it grants you in the job market, or the algorithmic thinking that it cultivates on the day to day just doesn't seem comparable to the advantages of reading. Text is a literal inscription of the languages used to express the entirety of the human experience verbally. Any programming language just can't compete with the value of being able to read general text (the value added just isn't the same).