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I didn't necessarily mean "learn to code" in such explicit manner with my original comment. More like learn technology itself and some strong basics of how ever

I didn't necessarily mean "learn to code" in such explicit manner with my original comment. More like learn technology itself and some strong basics of how everything works so people would be more equipped to grok this new world we're living in. To get a driver's license you need some basic knowledge of car internals. I'd argue that computers are infinitely more important in our society than a car yet majority of people have absolutely no idea how computers work and are expected not only to live in this world but to ace it too.

buran77 6y ago
The problem is that we live in a world and society where you're expected to know a lot about a lot. And we just keep adding to the pile we need to learn. You need to know how to sew or mend your clothes, you need to know how to tinker with your electrical system or plumbing, with your car, with your electronics, know your stuff around a kitchen. And the list can really go on and on. Now you need to know how to code. The computer equivalent of what most people know how to do around the house is clearing the browser cache, restarting a service, running something at startup, and other troubleshooting steps like this. Stuff that you learn in under a day just like you would when learning basic clothes mending, replacing a faucet, changing a tire or your oil, or cooking a meal. Any reasonable definition of "coding" is creating something. Like building your own electronic circuit, mechanical part, simple clothes, etc. This is beyond what a normal person is expected to know about their stuff as general knowledge in life. Everyone should just understand the principles of the tools they're using and basic "under the hood" stuff to assist with basic troubleshooting. In reality in the parts of the world with higher standards of living (can afford stuff) this piling up of expectations just lead people to give up and pay for services rather than learn all that. And for good reason, modern society has this bad habit of taking every shred of free time and complicating your life, with unfortunate consequences.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > Any reasonable definition of "coding" is creating something. Not necessarily creating something. The OP really did shoot themself in the foot by using the word "coding", where what they most likely meant was doing simple alterations to computing systems that require understanding some basic control flow structures - conditionals and loops. Things like, "I seem to be doing the same repetitive sequence of steps 100x a day, let me automate this somewhat". Think Tasker and bash, not JavaScript and C++. > this piling up of expectations just lead people to give up and pay for services rather than learn all that A small bit of knowledge can save you a lot of money in services. I can get why wealthy wouldn't care, but most people aren't wealthy. Also, I feel there's more pressure from the sales&marketing departments of services than from modern society's demands on free time.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
raziel2p 6y ago
I'm a software engineer and even I struggle to understand how some of the applications I use work. This month I had to figure out why my laptop's monitor brightness keys randomly stop doing anything and it led into a rabbit hole of systemd, udev, ACPI, the intel xorg driver and other unpleasant things. Next month I might run into a sound issue and I'll have to dig deep into completely different areas like pulseaudio and ALSA. And all this knowledge won't do me any good on Windows or MacOS. The car is a relatively simple machine compared to a desktop computer, and unlike computers, most basic knowledge apply to all cars regardless of brand and model. Our computers are patched together with gaffa tape, they're not some timeless universal design the way the clutch in a car is. In fact, in a way I become worse at using them because I know more about them - think about "just turn it off and on again" vs wanting to debug it and understand the root cause of whatever issue I'm having.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Don't worry, we are already putting computers into our cars, so the things will only improve from there. /s
sincerely 6y ago
>To get a driver's license you need some basic knowledge of car internals. Where do you live that this is true?
- dagw 6y ago
  At least true in Sweden. You don't have to know much, but you at least have to be able to check your tire pressure, pop the hood and check the oil and know which hole to pour which liquid into.

buran77 6y ago

The problem is that we live in a world and society where you're expected to know a lot about a lot. And we just keep adding to the pile we need to learn. You need to know how to sew or mend your clothes, you need to know how to tinker with your electrical system or plumbing, with your car, with your electronics, know your stuff around a kitchen. And the list can really go on and on. Now you need to know how to code. The computer equivalent of what most people know how to do around the house is clearing the browser cache, restarting a service, running something at startup, and other troubleshooting steps like this. Stuff that you learn in under a day just like you would when learning basic clothes mending, replacing a faucet, changing a tire or your oil, or cooking a meal. Any reasonable definition of "coding" is creating something. Like building your own electronic circuit, mechanical part, simple clothes, etc. This is beyond what a normal person is expected to know about their stuff as general knowledge in life. Everyone should just understand the principles of the tools they're using and basic "under the hood" stuff to assist with basic troubleshooting. In reality in the parts of the world with higher standards of living (can afford stuff) this piling up of expectations just lead people to give up and pay for services rather than learn all that. And for good reason, modern society has this bad habit of taking every shred of free time and complicating your life, with unfortunate consequences.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> Any reasonable definition of "coding" is creating something. Not necessarily creating something. The OP really did shoot themself in the foot by using the word "coding", where what they most likely meant was doing simple alterations to computing systems that require understanding some basic control flow structures - conditionals and loops. Things like, "I seem to be doing the same repetitive sequence of steps 100x a day, let me automate this somewhat". Think Tasker and bash, not JavaScript and C++. > this piling up of expectations just lead people to give up and pay for services rather than learn all that A small bit of knowledge can save you a lot of money in services. I can get why wealthy wouldn't care, but most people aren't wealthy. Also, I feel there's more pressure from the sales&marketing departments of services than from modern society's demands on free time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

raziel2p 6y ago

I'm a software engineer and even I struggle to understand how some of the applications I use work. This month I had to figure out why my laptop's monitor brightness keys randomly stop doing anything and it led into a rabbit hole of systemd, udev, ACPI, the intel xorg driver and other unpleasant things. Next month I might run into a sound issue and I'll have to dig deep into completely different areas like pulseaudio and ALSA. And all this knowledge won't do me any good on Windows or MacOS. The car is a relatively simple machine compared to a desktop computer, and unlike computers, most basic knowledge apply to all cars regardless of brand and model. Our computers are patched together with gaffa tape, they're not some timeless universal design the way the clutch in a car is. In fact, in a way I become worse at using them because I know more about them - think about "just turn it off and on again" vs wanting to debug it and understand the root cause of whatever issue I'm having.

Joker_vD 6y ago
Don't worry, we are already putting computers into our cars, so the things will only improve from there. /s

sincerely 6y ago

>To get a driver's license you need some basic knowledge of car internals. Where do you live that this is true?

dagw 6y ago
At least true in Sweden. You don't have to know much, but you at least have to be able to check your tire pressure, pop the hood and check the oil and know which hole to pour which liquid into.