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We Should Still Teach Kids to Code
- jprete 3y agoInteresting. The author totally skips the discussion of whether coding skills will be useful in the future - in fact, he more or less assumes they won’t be. He instead suggests that there are two other reasons and these were always better reasons than job prospects. The first is that coding is like playing a musical instrument in being both fun and difficult (albeit musical instruments are almost always more difficult). The second is the feeling it gives a successful coder of having made something big and being able to make it even bigger. These are great motivations! Much better than trying to stick every kid on the road to SWEdom. But I think coding is quite a bit more difficult for the median person than the author predicts. It requires an aptitude for “mechanisms” - things that are physically/logically bound to do what they do without any flex for interpretation or intention. If AI coding based on human language expression becomes dominant, then “coding” is going to be much closer to a fluid intention/interpretational activity, which will make it easier for lots of people, but less satisfying for those of us who enjoy it because of the “mechanical” rigor.