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Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

economist.com

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Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#21

Post by baash05 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #14
codingdave wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can be a successful novelist, but we all can read and write. It is OK to have basic literacy, and the educational system is quickly adopting coding as part of basic literacy. That, in turn is making more and more people good enough to do basic coding, even if they will never do it as a professional career. Just like people play basketball in their drive. Just like they drive their cars around town.

I absolutely support everyone learning it. But for most it will be as annoying and ungratifying as calculus is to them in school. Tedious, and they'll never get good enough to get a job where they use it.

I'd bring it closer to shop class.

They might make a decent birdhouse/python app, but after that most will just put the knowledge on the shelf.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#22

Post by solarmist »

decremental wrote: post #5

What an ego shattering revelation it would be if it turned out just about everyone can be good at coding. Being able to code is what qualifies us to know everything about everything!

There's nothing special about software engineering beyond:

- meticulous attention to detail,

- explicit deductive reasoning,

- an ability to understand and build abstractions,

- a high tolerance for frustration,

- and a love of instant gratification when things work.

None of these are rare traits. But the cluster of traits isn't widespread. Which is to say it's not common among people in general, but also not unusual.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#23

Post by dopidopHN »

dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Not everyone can play in the NBA. Not everyone can safely drive a car. Not everyone can architect and write good code. Yes, you can spend a LOT of time and get kinda good-ish at basketball, but you'll never make it to the NBA. You lack the biological talent (height, speed). Sure, you can work very hard and take serious driving classes, but you'll never win an F1 race even if given a chance. You lack the biological ta…

It’s not that much about playing NBA. More being able to play a game of basketball. Or watch one and understand the rules.

Or knowing when you need to call a plumber vs running to Lowe’s and fix it yourself.

I don’t thing we should expect anybody beside software engineers to be software engineers.

But a greater code literacy would go a long way.

Imagine scenarios where you hand over your code delivery to a client that can actually run and manage it.

I don’t know what NBA level would mean for software.

You need a uncanny, almost innate ability to perform in a extremely competitive field, where a ton of other really good agents are operating at the same time.

I can’t think of anything like that in software really. E-sport would apply but it’s not really the subject. Maybe some demo-scenes? Or raw effective genius ala John carmak.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#24

Post by seiferteric »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #3

Why not? The problem is people can’t. I’m all for people learning how to code but majority of people can’t. That’s the reality. I taught coding in college and bootcamps.

It's kind of amazing if you think about it that most people are able to learn to read. Spoken language I can understand since it can evolve. Then one day people started writing things down and it turns out somehow we are pretty good at reading things back almost as well as talking to one another. Programming doesn't seem to be like that at all.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#25

Post by pasquinelli »

dmitrygr wrote: post #13
kitrose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t they bad examples? There’s a distinction between an extremely rare occurrence of biological factors like being 7 feet tall in order to succeed, and that of needing a decent education in order to think critically.

Some people just cannot wrap their head around pointers. Some just do not get recursion no matter what. I used to teach CS, and tutor in CS. It is as rare as being 7 feet tall, sadly. And without understanding indirection and recursion, the most you'll ever do is ...well..not much...

i've been homeschooling my daughter through middle school. she's very smart, she's been in the highly capable program since maybe 2nd grade. she honestly surprises me with her ability to reason, but i've yet to hit on a way to get her to understand loops. i've been considering learning an array language with her in the hopes that it would allow her the chance to get interested in programming and excited about its potential without facing loops.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#26

Post by dragonwriter »

dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Not everyone can play in the NBA. Not everyone can safely drive a car. Not everyone can architect and write good code. Yes, you can spend a LOT of time and get kinda good-ish at basketball, but you'll never make it to the NBA. You lack the biological talent (height, speed). Sure, you can work very hard and take serious driving classes, but you'll never win an F1 race even if given a chance. You lack the biological ta…

> Not everyone can play in the NBA.

Writing code as part of a job isn't being in the NBA, it's just like writing as part of a job.

> Not everyone can safely drive a car.

A better analogy for code, but only a very small share of those who are employable at all are not employable in a job where driving a vehicle is a part (though not necessarily a central part) of the job.

There's no reason coding can't be like that.

> Not everyone can architect and write good code.

Not everyone can organize and write quality prose, either, but most people who can't can still get jobs where writing text is a required part of the job.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#27

Post by version_five »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #11

They'd all start trying to find their way into project management or design or something. Being able to code is an important part of being a software developer but being able to code makes you no more of a software developer than learning newton's laws of motions makes you a mechanical engineer. There are edge cases, debugging, scalability, one off errors integration, backups, etc. We tried this with VB and Acces and…

> being able to code makes you no more of a software developer than learning newton's laws of motions makes you a mechanical engineer.

Yes! I wish this point got more attention. So many articles - there was one on here from a16z today - pretend there is this magical thing called learning to code that takes a couple months and suddenly puts you on par with every software developer. The analogy I like to use is claiming that by taking an introduction to statics course you are somehow on par with an architect or engineer that is designing bridges and skyscrapers.

Software development needs wide acknowledgement as an actual trade that takes a broad base of theoretical and practical learning, including time spent writing code, to be proficient, and not seen through the lens of this learn to code nonsense. I've talked to so many business people who see "coding" as a skill they could pick up if they had a couple months, that would then let them be on par with career developers - if only they weren't busy with higher value work. This is one of the big reasons why many companies are so dysfunctional

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#28

Post by streetcat1 »

The author miss the point that coding complexity is exponential, not linear.

I.e. a lot of people can understand 10-20 lines of code, less can 100 LOC, less can 1000 LOC, maybe top 10% can understand 10K, 1% - 100K.

So no code can work, just that the size limit of the program will be low (10-100 LOC) .

However, most program start at low LOC, but ends up with high LOC, where the low code tools breaks.

Hence, the low code tools basically guarantee the future of the elite geeks.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#29

Post by trs8080 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #13
kitrose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t they bad examples? There’s a distinction between an extremely rare occurrence of biological factors like being 7 feet tall in order to succeed, and that of needing a decent education in order to think critically.

Some people just cannot wrap their head around pointers. Some just do not get recursion no matter what. I used to teach CS, and tutor in CS. It is as rare as being 7 feet tall, sadly. And without understanding indirection and recursion, the most you'll ever do is ...well..not much...

I can count on one hand the number of people I've known in my lifetime who are over 7', but met hundreds of students over four years in college who understood recursion.

And programming is not the NBA, and people who write code are not all-stars. We're plumbers, and the idea that programming is some genius's endeavor that only the smartest people can understand is laughable.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#30

Post by incompatible »

decremental wrote: post #5

What an ego shattering revelation it would be if it turned out just about everyone can be good at coding. Being able to code is what qualifies us to know everything about everything!

My impression is that most people can't be good at it because they have no interest in it, and no willingness to spend time on it, learning and practising.
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