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> ...never be able to code a production application... It's true, the vast majority of people will never code a "production application". BUT, many folks code

> ...never be able to code a production application... It's true, the vast majority of people will never code a "production application". BUT, many folks code everyday in the form of excel macros, R, Mathematica, Matlab or Julia notebooks. Many people create programs and scripts in all kinds of tools to get stuff done. IT'S ALL STILL PROGRAMMING, it's just not what folks here would consider a traditional "production application". The people who do this are domain practitioners who use computing to do things, but don't have a need to spend a million dollars to hire a team of "real programmers" and their entourage of PMP's, sales, support, and customer success agents to do it for them. As far as folks "not being able to code" that's all a matter of inclination and background. There's nothing special about software development. Lot's of people can do successfully at various levels. Some are more DIY than others, but I think you would be surprised at what some people's grandma's can do with the right motivation and background.

klibertp 6y ago
> There's nothing special about software development. There's also "nothing special" about writing. Somehow, though, we don't see millions of Hemingways pop up each year. Writing code is a form of art. There is a science behind it, but the same is true for many other art forms. It's true that everybody can be an artist. Not everybody can be a good artist, though. It's equally true for writers, painters, and coders.
- snicker7 6y ago
  And "writing" is still a good skill to have, even if you are not a professional essayist or author.
  - klibertp 6y ago
    Yes. But writing a letter to friend (or automating your accounting in Excel) differs from writing "War and Peace" (or writing an OS kernel). I think everybody is capable of learning to do the former, but have a really hard time beliving the same for the latter.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  We don't need "millions of Hemingway's". The parent comment was suggesting that very few people can code-- and by "code" they meant "production applications". I am trying to say that lot's of people can code, well enough to solve their domain problems, well enough to put food on their tables, well enough to not need "real programmers" in increasing numbers of scenarios. Just because they're not doing internet scale application development or cutting edge mission critical projects doesn't mean they "can't code". There's a long and continuous spectrum between Hemingway-like programmers to bored-out-of-their-skulls enterprise developers to lunch-time dilettantes who are running a far more of their business than they should on brittle excel pivot tables and VBA macros.

klibertp 6y ago

> There's nothing special about software development. There's also "nothing special" about writing. Somehow, though, we don't see millions of Hemingways pop up each year. Writing code is a form of art. There is a science behind it, but the same is true for many other art forms. It's true that everybody can be an artist. Not everybody can be a good artist, though. It's equally true for writers, painters, and coders.

snicker7 6y ago
And "writing" is still a good skill to have, even if you are not a professional essayist or author.
- klibertp 6y ago
  Yes. But writing a letter to friend (or automating your accounting in Excel) differs from writing "War and Peace" (or writing an OS kernel). I think everybody is capable of learning to do the former, but have a really hard time beliving the same for the latter.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
crispyambulance 6y ago
We don't need "millions of Hemingway's". The parent comment was suggesting that very few people can code-- and by "code" they meant "production applications". I am trying to say that lot's of people can code, well enough to solve their domain problems, well enough to put food on their tables, well enough to not need "real programmers" in increasing numbers of scenarios. Just because they're not doing internet scale application development or cutting edge mission critical projects doesn't mean they "can't code". There's a long and continuous spectrum between Hemingway-like programmers to bored-out-of-their-skulls enterprise developers to lunch-time dilettantes who are running a far more of their business than they should on brittle excel pivot tables and VBA macros.