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This piece is genius. For those who don't get it, it's dripping in sarcasm. Not to say that the author doesn't think it would work (he may have some misgiving

This piece is genius. For those who don't get it, it's dripping in sarcasm. Not to say that the author doesn't think it would work (he may have some misgivings about just throwing money at developers), but that he's calling bullshit on the motives of those talking about "learn to code." People are paid in more than just money. There's job security, interesting work, autonomy, and (more motivating than people think) social status. The vast majority of developers don't have anything but money, and frankly a lot of them don't even have money! There are things more important than writing code (even good, well-engineered code aimed at solving real problems). There's: playing with your dog, going for a run, spending time with your family, and going out for a night with friends. People have chosen all these things over learning to code. Let them. Is it not a BIG RED FLAG that the prime message is "Everyone should learn to code...well, everyone but me, anyway."?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
icebraining 13y ago
There are things more important than writing code (even good, well-engineered code aimed at solving real problems). There's: playing with your dog, going for a run, spending time with your family, and going out for a night with friends. People have chosen all these things over learning to code. Let them. This doesn't strike me as a particular good argument; for one, it implies that it's OK to not let people chose less important things than writing code (say, watch reality TV). But besides, who exactly is trying to remove that choice? I don't see any advocate of "learning to code" saying we should force people to code. Is it not a BIG RED FLAG that the prime message is "Everyone should learn to code...well, everyone but me, anyway."? Maybe. But then again, many of those pushing the message are programmers themselves.
- dropit_sphere 13y ago
  I don't see any advocate of "learning to code" saying we should force people to code. Perhaps not. But anything a teacher tells a learner to do is basically force. What choice does the learner have? They don't know any better. This would be fine if what they were teaching were worthwhile. But it won't be: it will be "How to use Rails" (rather than, say, Ruby) or "How to use Bootstrap" rather than actually learning CSS.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

icebraining 13y ago

There are things more important than writing code (even good, well-engineered code aimed at solving real problems). There's: playing with your dog, going for a run, spending time with your family, and going out for a night with friends. People have chosen all these things over learning to code. Let them. This doesn't strike me as a particular good argument; for one, it implies that it's OK to not let people chose less important things than writing code (say, watch reality TV). But besides, who exactly is trying to remove that choice? I don't see any advocate of "learning to code" saying we should force people to code. Is it not a BIG RED FLAG that the prime message is "Everyone should learn to code...well, everyone but me, anyway."? Maybe. But then again, many of those pushing the message are programmers themselves.

dropit_sphere 13y ago
I don't see any advocate of "learning to code" saying we should force people to code. Perhaps not. But anything a teacher tells a learner to do is basically force. What choice does the learner have? They don't know any better. This would be fine if what they were teaching were worthwhile. But it won't be: it will be "How to use Rails" (rather than, say, Ruby) or "How to use Bootstrap" rather than actually learning CSS.