4 ms·

It has been a pipe dream of some since the 1960s that "everybody" would program computers in the future. It hasn't happened and won't happen. Most people simply

It has been a pipe dream of some since the 1960s that "everybody" would program computers in the future. It hasn't happened and won't happen. Most people simply don't have the patience for it.

pelario 5y ago
I'm sure a century or two the same was said for reading and writing.
- oblio 5y ago
  Yeah, but: > In the US, 14% of the adult population is at the "below basic" level for prose literacy; 12% are at the "below basic" level for document literacy, and 22% are at that level for quantitative literacy. Only 13% of the population is proficient in each of these three areas—able to compare viewpoints in two editorials; interpret a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity; or compute and compare the cost per ounce of food items. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy Plus stuff like this: https://eufactcheck.eu/factcheck/true-we-have-42-functional-illiterates-a-major-problem-for-romania/ https://eufactcheck.eu/factcheck/true-we-have-42-functional-... And keep in mind Romania is average at a world level, economically, maybe even slightly higher than average. On top of that programming is based on logic (for the layman who doesn't want to think of it as based on math; and let's not go into the layman's clear separation between logic and math), so it for sure has an extra difficulty level compared to reading or writing.
  - manjalyc 5y ago
    100% population literacy is neither reasonable nor attainable. Yet, functional literacy has drastically improved throughout the past century. To say programming is never to attain such a characteristic is making a statement against the trends of history in all other academic disciplines. Focusing on the present state is an ignorance of underlying trend. A couple thousand years ago, groundbreaking advances in trigonometry were made by some of the worlds smartest people. Today the average high schooler knows soh cah toa.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Well, I agree with what you're saying. But if these advances take centuries, from a purely personal perspective they don't matter much. By then, I, and everyone I have and will ever know, will be dead. In the long term, we're all dead. Though I obviously appreciate progress :-)
i_have_an_idea 5y ago
Not the patience but the aptitude for it. Writing code simply doesn't require the same amount of intelligence as writing a sentence.
- austincheney 5y ago
  I fully disagree. Many developers struggle just the same.
- LarryEt 5y ago
  Sit down at a piano for the first time Try to play a Chopin Etude Quit piano because it seems impossible and you don't have the "aptitude". This is how people view most skills. Obviously if you practiced hard enough and long enough you could eventually play a Chopin etude. I can't think of any skill that is all that different than that. I think part of it is our language isn't the best here. "Patience" is the right word but patience with putting in work as opposed to just waiting.
- eyelovewe 5y ago
  Writing too much CRUD code makes me unable to complete sentences…
throwaway2037 5y ago
It is amazing that no one has pointed out JavaScript in this thread. The vast number of people who can come into programming by way of a free web browser with a built-in debugger is astonishing. It is incredible to think of the zero-cost (!) development environment that is Microsoft Visual Studio Code plus Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (run+debug). I could have never imagined it twenty years ago, and I am not a JavaScript fan-gurl/-boi. And what about coding boot camps? Again, they have put umpteen more people to work as programmers. (Are they more than universities yet?) Again, you don't have to love them, but they are lowering the bar and helping more people gain access to the programmers market.
- hnfong 5y ago
  I think your point actually corroborates the GP's point about "everybody will be a programmer" being a pipe dream. It's gotten ever so easy to learn and write programs, and people still don't do it.

It has been a pipe dream of some since the 1960s that "everybody" would program computers in the future. It hasn't happened and won't happen. Most people simply don't have the patience for it.

pelario 5y ago

I'm sure a century or two the same was said for reading and writing.

oblio 5y ago
Yeah, but: > In the US, 14% of the adult population is at the "below basic" level for prose literacy; 12% are at the "below basic" level for document literacy, and 22% are at that level for quantitative literacy. Only 13% of the population is proficient in each of these three areas—able to compare viewpoints in two editorials; interpret a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity; or compute and compare the cost per ounce of food items. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy Plus stuff like this: https://eufactcheck.eu/factcheck/true-we-have-42-functional-illiterates-a-major-problem-for-romania/ https://eufactcheck.eu/factcheck/true-we-have-42-functional-... And keep in mind Romania is average at a world level, economically, maybe even slightly higher than average. On top of that programming is based on logic (for the layman who doesn't want to think of it as based on math; and let's not go into the layman's clear separation between logic and math), so it for sure has an extra difficulty level compared to reading or writing.
- manjalyc 5y ago
  100% population literacy is neither reasonable nor attainable. Yet, functional literacy has drastically improved throughout the past century. To say programming is never to attain such a characteristic is making a statement against the trends of history in all other academic disciplines. Focusing on the present state is an ignorance of underlying trend. A couple thousand years ago, groundbreaking advances in trigonometry were made by some of the worlds smartest people. Today the average high schooler knows soh cah toa.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Well, I agree with what you're saying. But if these advances take centuries, from a purely personal perspective they don't matter much. By then, I, and everyone I have and will ever know, will be dead. In the long term, we're all dead. Though I obviously appreciate progress :-)

i_have_an_idea 5y ago

Not the patience but the aptitude for it. Writing code simply doesn't require the same amount of intelligence as writing a sentence.

austincheney 5y ago
I fully disagree. Many developers struggle just the same.
LarryEt 5y ago
Sit down at a piano for the first time Try to play a Chopin Etude Quit piano because it seems impossible and you don't have the "aptitude". This is how people view most skills. Obviously if you practiced hard enough and long enough you could eventually play a Chopin etude. I can't think of any skill that is all that different than that. I think part of it is our language isn't the best here. "Patience" is the right word but patience with putting in work as opposed to just waiting.
eyelovewe 5y ago
Writing too much CRUD code makes me unable to complete sentences…

throwaway2037 5y ago

It is amazing that no one has pointed out JavaScript in this thread. The vast number of people who can come into programming by way of a free web browser with a built-in debugger is astonishing. It is incredible to think of the zero-cost (!) development environment that is Microsoft Visual Studio Code plus Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (run+debug). I could have never imagined it twenty years ago, and I am not a JavaScript fan-gurl/-boi. And what about coding boot camps? Again, they have put umpteen more people to work as programmers. (Are they more than universities yet?) Again, you don't have to love them, but they are lowering the bar and helping more people gain access to the programmers market.

hnfong 5y ago
I think your point actually corroborates the GP's point about "everybody will be a programmer" being a pipe dream. It's gotten ever so easy to learn and write programs, and people still don't do it.