5 ms·

I don't agree with Kevin. It's true that you can function without programming, but it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job.

I don't agree with Kevin. It's true that you can function without programming, but it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job. Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him. And more broadly, I really do think programming improves the quality of my thoughts. I remember when I was 10 or 11 consciously experiencing the sensation of getting smarter as it dawned on me at deeper and deeper levels how to think precisely about problems. And that skill set invades every aspect of my thought process now. I find it to be a remarkable improvement. On a practical level, programming is probably the best employment fall-back ever. I don't know many fields that you can enter without any credentials and make $100k+ within a couple years. That may change, but I expect it'll stay the same or improve for at least a few decades. So just for that reason, it may be wise for anyone who is capable to learn it.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
chacham15 13y ago
> Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him. Those require a lot of effort (and required knowledge) for minimal returns. A better example might be a janitor could make a web-app which lets himself/others note what places need to be cleaned, what time they were cleaned, and then potentially notice patterns that might help him find a source of the problem, minimize the response time, etc. I feel like that kind of a thing might be more useful and given the right tools/frameworks, might not even be all that difficult to implement.
- aestra 13y ago
  We are a long long long way from that. Only 66% of Americans even understand the statistical concept of mean. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c7/c7s2.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c7/c7s2.htm Americans encounter basic statistics and charts in everyday life. Many media reports cite studies in health, social, economic, and political trends. Understanding statistical concepts is important to understanding the meaning of these studies and, consequently, to scientific literacy (Crettaz von Roten 2006). One test of these concepts included on the 2008 GSS found that 74% of Americans could read a simple chart correctly and 66% understood the concept of "mean" in statistics. Understanding these two concepts was associated with both formal education and the number of math and science courses taken. Older respondents were less likely than younger adults to respond correctly to these two questions. Men and women were about equally likely to answer these questions correctly (appendix table 7-15).
jonnathanson 13y ago
"it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job. Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him." If a janitor develops the skills to go that far, why would he still be a janitor? I'm not saying that to be glib. I'm saying that because coding is a specialty that requires a great bit of practice to get functionally good at. The time and effort invested in getting good at programming just isn't worth it for many professions, whereas hiring specialists to do the programming is. Sure, our hypothetical janitor would be able to do some cool stuff if he could develop apps. But if he can develop apps, economically speaking, he should be transitioning into higher-value and higher-paying services. (Unless he wants to disrupt custodial services with a startup -- but not every janitor should found a startup. That would be impractical.) Saying "everyone should be able to code" is a bit like saying everyone should be able to do college-level statistics. I can't think of a single profession that wouldn't benefit from a college-level understanding of statistics. But not everyone's cut out for it; it's not fundamentally necessary to every profession; and in the context of a market economy, it functions better as a knowledge-specialty than as a broad foundational skill. (This isn't a flawless analogy for any number of reasons, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at.)
- vasilipupkin 13y ago
  Absolutely. The real tragedy of our economy is not that everyone should be coding but isn't, but that it's not generating enough demand so that even people who are good at laying bricks and driving trucks, etc. have enough job opportunities
aestra 13y ago
This is really absurd. Most janitors are paid by the hour. Why would someone engineer their paycheck away? You obviously don't want to spend a real long time doing your job less get fired or be seen slacking off. However if you were paid to clean a school after school and had a set task and you engineered a 4 hour job into a 1 hour job, EXCELLENT you just cut 3 quarters of your paycheck away. Why would you build a roomba when you can buy one? Have you ever used a roomba? You'd need like 500 of them to cover enough ground for a school or a store and they'd have to run overnight and avoid falling down the stairs if you were in school and good luck finding them all the next day. There's a whole custodial industry that has already thought of and solved many problems and perhaps they do things the way they do because that's the best solution, because roomba may be good for a room in a house but bad for a whole school If you had set hours, you still wouldn't want to optimize your route. I know that the time goes by much faster if I'm busy and doing work than if I'm sitting around with no work to do. Nobody wants to walk around and see employees sitting around doing nothing, that's a good way to get fired. People complain. Your hours get cut. Your paycheck gets cut. I had a job in high school that was awful because between the hours of 2 and 4 there was nothing to do. Two hours felt like a whole lifetime. I tried to make up work like scrubbing walls and stuff but I couldn't do that all the time because the walls were dirty once. It would have just been fine if I had some friggin work at that time.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
The janitor could write a program for logistics ... I don't mean this in a mean way but ... just stop. We're going too far this point.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

chacham15 13y ago

> Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him. Those require a lot of effort (and required knowledge) for minimal returns. A better example might be a janitor could make a web-app which lets himself/others note what places need to be cleaned, what time they were cleaned, and then potentially notice patterns that might help him find a source of the problem, minimize the response time, etc. I feel like that kind of a thing might be more useful and given the right tools/frameworks, might not even be all that difficult to implement.

aestra 13y ago
We are a long long long way from that. Only 66% of Americans even understand the statistical concept of mean. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c7/c7s2.htm http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c7/c7s2.htm Americans encounter basic statistics and charts in everyday life. Many media reports cite studies in health, social, economic, and political trends. Understanding statistical concepts is important to understanding the meaning of these studies and, consequently, to scientific literacy (Crettaz von Roten 2006). One test of these concepts included on the 2008 GSS found that 74% of Americans could read a simple chart correctly and 66% understood the concept of "mean" in statistics. Understanding these two concepts was associated with both formal education and the number of math and science courses taken. Older respondents were less likely than younger adults to respond correctly to these two questions. Men and women were about equally likely to answer these questions correctly (appendix table 7-15).

jonnathanson 13y ago

"it's also true that being able to program could improve pretty much any job. Even a janitor could develop, say, a logistics application to optimize his path through the building he cleans, or build a roomba to vacuum for him." If a janitor develops the skills to go that far, why would he still be a janitor? I'm not saying that to be glib. I'm saying that because coding is a specialty that requires a great bit of practice to get functionally good at. The time and effort invested in getting good at programming just isn't worth it for many professions, whereas hiring specialists to do the programming is. Sure, our hypothetical janitor would be able to do some cool stuff if he could develop apps. But if he can develop apps, economically speaking, he should be transitioning into higher-value and higher-paying services. (Unless he wants to disrupt custodial services with a startup -- but not every janitor should found a startup. That would be impractical.) Saying "everyone should be able to code" is a bit like saying everyone should be able to do college-level statistics. I can't think of a single profession that wouldn't benefit from a college-level understanding of statistics. But not everyone's cut out for it; it's not fundamentally necessary to every profession; and in the context of a market economy, it functions better as a knowledge-specialty than as a broad foundational skill. (This isn't a flawless analogy for any number of reasons, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at.)

vasilipupkin 13y ago
Absolutely. The real tragedy of our economy is not that everyone should be coding but isn't, but that it's not generating enough demand so that even people who are good at laying bricks and driving trucks, etc. have enough job opportunities

aestra 13y ago

This is really absurd. Most janitors are paid by the hour. Why would someone engineer their paycheck away? You obviously don't want to spend a real long time doing your job less get fired or be seen slacking off. However if you were paid to clean a school after school and had a set task and you engineered a 4 hour job into a 1 hour job, EXCELLENT you just cut 3 quarters of your paycheck away. Why would you build a roomba when you can buy one? Have you ever used a roomba? You'd need like 500 of them to cover enough ground for a school or a store and they'd have to run overnight and avoid falling down the stairs if you were in school and good luck finding them all the next day. There's a whole custodial industry that has already thought of and solved many problems and perhaps they do things the way they do because that's the best solution, because roomba may be good for a room in a house but bad for a whole school If you had set hours, you still wouldn't want to optimize your route. I know that the time goes by much faster if I'm busy and doing work than if I'm sitting around with no work to do. Nobody wants to walk around and see employees sitting around doing nothing, that's a good way to get fired. People complain. Your hours get cut. Your paycheck gets cut. I had a job in high school that was awful because between the hours of 2 and 4 there was nothing to do. Two hours felt like a whole lifetime. I tried to make up work like scrubbing walls and stuff but I couldn't do that all the time because the walls were dirty once. It would have just been fine if I had some friggin work at that time.

dinkumthinkum 13y ago

The janitor could write a program for logistics ... I don't mean this in a mean way but ... just stop. We're going too far this point.