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I've always thought the view that "coding is easy" is a bit insulting to those who worked hard to learn to do it well. Sure, there are certain concepts in codi

I've always thought the view that "coding is easy" is a bit insulting to those who worked hard to learn to do it well. Sure, there are certain concepts in coding that are easy. But isn't that the case with everything? It depends on what you're building and if the person has a general interest. The idea that was pushed by Facebook and others that its as simple as memorizing multiplication tables I always found deceptive and ridiculous.

kgin 6y ago
I think the full idea is "getting started with coding is easy" Programming has never had a problem of people thinking it's easy. There are many people who never attempt it because they think it's some impossibly difficult thing that they'll never learn.
- flipcoder 6y ago
  Oh, I agree that its easy to start out and even kids can start, but saying it in the context of getting a job feels very deceptive. Facebook had a commercial where they said something like "we'll hire anyone who can code, it's as easy as learning multiplication tables!" I don't remember the exact quote but those outreach programs but it felt a bit ridiculous at the time. If you say something is easy and a person fails at it, they'll feel worse when they fail. If you acknowledge it's challenging at first they're better fit to handle it with grit and keep trying. Programming is something you're going to have to fail at continuously before you get it. And if afterwards you say, "see wasn't that easy?" there's no sense of accomplishment.
dfinninger 6y ago
As an analogy, getting into medicine isn’t easy, but exercising to improve your health is. (I know this doesn’t hold true for everyone. For instance I have some complicating health issues, although hopefully you see my point.) I think the equivalent here is something like: stuff = requests.get(“example.com”).json() print(stuff[“thing”][“I”][“want”]) It’s technically coding, is pretty easy, and potentially beneficial to your life. Same with Excel macros or whatever. Maybe that person will have a fire lit in them and pursue a software engineering career. Maybe it’ll just be a script on their desktop that cleans up screenshots. I don’t find that implication insulting even though I’ve spent (now) the majority of my life honing “coding” as a skill. It’s a mountain to climb, but the first few miles have some pretty nice vistas.
- flipcoder 6y ago
  I guess my view is it's sort of like learning one note on guitar and saying guitar is so easy because you learned it in a day. Would you introduce yourself as a guitar player after doing that? If I memorize one word in a foreign language, am I bilingual? Here's some rocket science too: t - 10s I like words to hold clear meanings. If everything is easy because there's one easy thing about it, the word has no meaning. If a coder is anyone who can do Hello World, it's pointless even calling yourself one. It means nothing.

kgin 6y ago

I think the full idea is "getting started with coding is easy" Programming has never had a problem of people thinking it's easy. There are many people who never attempt it because they think it's some impossibly difficult thing that they'll never learn.

flipcoder 6y ago
Oh, I agree that its easy to start out and even kids can start, but saying it in the context of getting a job feels very deceptive. Facebook had a commercial where they said something like "we'll hire anyone who can code, it's as easy as learning multiplication tables!" I don't remember the exact quote but those outreach programs but it felt a bit ridiculous at the time. If you say something is easy and a person fails at it, they'll feel worse when they fail. If you acknowledge it's challenging at first they're better fit to handle it with grit and keep trying. Programming is something you're going to have to fail at continuously before you get it. And if afterwards you say, "see wasn't that easy?" there's no sense of accomplishment.

dfinninger 6y ago

As an analogy, getting into medicine isn’t easy, but exercising to improve your health is. (I know this doesn’t hold true for everyone. For instance I have some complicating health issues, although hopefully you see my point.) I think the equivalent here is something like: stuff = requests.get(“example.com”).json() print(stuff[“thing”][“I”][“want”]) It’s technically coding, is pretty easy, and potentially beneficial to your life. Same with Excel macros or whatever. Maybe that person will have a fire lit in them and pursue a software engineering career. Maybe it’ll just be a script on their desktop that cleans up screenshots. I don’t find that implication insulting even though I’ve spent (now) the majority of my life honing “coding” as a skill. It’s a mountain to climb, but the first few miles have some pretty nice vistas.

flipcoder 6y ago
I guess my view is it's sort of like learning one note on guitar and saying guitar is so easy because you learned it in a day. Would you introduce yourself as a guitar player after doing that? If I memorize one word in a foreign language, am I bilingual? Here's some rocket science too: t - 10s I like words to hold clear meanings. If everything is easy because there's one easy thing about it, the word has no meaning. If a coder is anyone who can do Hello World, it's pointless even calling yourself one. It means nothing.