Coding academies are nonsense

>Would I like to type text files for hours a day?

The bulk of my time is spent thinking, not typing.

>Am I comfortable being a digital construction worker?

Programming is a creative job that the author is trying to sound so mundane and boring. Yes, it might not be for everyone, but showing people screenshots of GameSalad Creator, which looks quite scary is not really representative of the vast number of easy-to-use game creators we have today [0].

The fact is that programming is a highly rewarding job (both financially and mentally). As long as there is a demand-supply gap in the industry, people will try to bridge that gap, by whatever methods. Coding academies are just one such method.

If we ever reach parity on the demand/supply situation (or if Universities start training students better), these will be left redundant and new methods would evolve.

[0]: http://www.pixelsham.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/indie-ga...

> Who needs to code when you can use visual building blocks or even plain English to describe intent? Advances in natural-language processing and conceptual modeling will remove the need for traditional coding from app development.

Seriously? This dream died long, long ago. The hard part of software development is not the syntax; it's deciding exactly what you want to happen for every possible input or event.

People who translate are trying to convey meaning. They are not just converting instructions from one language to another. There is intent, emotion, connotation. And you have to do this elegantly. (Everyone who grew up bilingual has spotted clumsy translations.)

I think this article takes a very narrow view of coding. Yet also a fairly common one. If you're one of the people who just wants a machine to do as you tell it, you'll be about as good as coding as someone who cooks in order to not die of starvation.

In order to really master it, just like in any other walk of life, you need passion. You need to have an aesthetic experience, an appreciation for both function and elegance.

You need to find yourself interested in topics that are not directly to hand. You may never need a Bloom Filter or Erlang, but you'll have heard of them and at least placed them on your map of the field.

Getting back to the article and the cooking analogy, better tools will not replace chefs. We have better cooking utensils and machines than 100 years ago. And yes, you need less effort than before to microwave a meal. But chefs still serve a purpose, and you would never mistake a meal made by a guy at home with what a professional chef makes.