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Driving the equipment around is the fun part, but not the real work that goes into the business. Farming is actually quite challenging. A recent problem I reme

Driving the equipment around is the fun part, but not the real work that goes into the business. Farming is actually quite challenging. A recent problem I remember having on my farm: Soil is full of wet lumps of clay, unsuitable for planting, cultivators are not breaking them up and you have a few day window to fix the problem before it gets too late into the season to plant the crop. What do you do? I actually agree that the point is to attract more programmers into the industry, but the consequences of that seem dangerous. What happens when we have too many programmers? Should coding classes be dropped from the system?

XorNot 14y ago
Coding practice scales. Farming does not. If you have a smartphone, you have (potentially) a programming platform. We can't simply give everyone on the planet a few acres of farmland to get to grips with the challenges of farming.
- cpressey 14y ago
  I dunno. There are vast patches of ocean that are going pretty much unused right now. (Yes, I know that's still science-fiction, but is it really that much more of a stretch than the AI/robot/automation "software will eat the world" firm-belief that you see daily on HN?)
Mz 14y ago
Honestly, that sounds to me like "Oh, god. What would happen if everyone could drive?" Er, people would have more individual choice. But we would still need buses and stuff anyway. (And you will always have some non-drivers.)
- randomdata 14y ago
  Coding was taught in school in my day and we didn't all turn out to be programmers, so I think that is obvious. However, the previous poster suggested that there is no need for more professional farmers, so there is no need to teach farming. By extension, he seems to be saying that when we have enough programmers in industry, there will be no need to teach programming anymore. And pushing people into an industry does come with dangers. When I was a student we were pushed into teaching. Today, I have friends who went with that push and are still on the job hunt many years later because so many others did the same.
  - Mz 14y ago
    And providing no direction also has dangers. My dad grew up on a farm. He decided the military was easier. He got to sleep an hour later and, when no one was shooting at you, the work wasn't hard. I am an environmental studies major. I think it is still important to understand our relationship to the land, regardless of how you pay the bills. A lot of people really don't these days. And I think it does cause problems.

XorNot 14y ago

Coding practice scales. Farming does not. If you have a smartphone, you have (potentially) a programming platform. We can't simply give everyone on the planet a few acres of farmland to get to grips with the challenges of farming.

cpressey 14y ago
I dunno. There are vast patches of ocean that are going pretty much unused right now. (Yes, I know that's still science-fiction, but is it really that much more of a stretch than the AI/robot/automation "software will eat the world" firm-belief that you see daily on HN?)

Mz 14y ago

Honestly, that sounds to me like "Oh, god. What would happen if everyone could drive?" Er, people would have more individual choice. But we would still need buses and stuff anyway. (And you will always have some non-drivers.)

randomdata 14y ago
Coding was taught in school in my day and we didn't all turn out to be programmers, so I think that is obvious. However, the previous poster suggested that there is no need for more professional farmers, so there is no need to teach farming. By extension, he seems to be saying that when we have enough programmers in industry, there will be no need to teach programming anymore. And pushing people into an industry does come with dangers. When I was a student we were pushed into teaching. Today, I have friends who went with that push and are still on the job hunt many years later because so many others did the same.
- Mz 14y ago
  And providing no direction also has dangers. My dad grew up on a farm. He decided the military was easier. He got to sleep an hour later and, when no one was shooting at you, the work wasn't hard. I am an environmental studies major. I think it is still important to understand our relationship to the land, regardless of how you pay the bills. A lot of people really don't these days. And I think it does cause problems.