Please Learn to Code

Post by nicholassmith » Tue, May 15, 2012, 12:41 PM UTC

primecommenter wrote: post #11

nicholassmith wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please justify why you think it's a bad comparison? I think it's apt. Cooking shares many qualities with coding, you're under time deadlines to produce something for a end consumer (for the most part). There's lots of competing methods and you have to select which ones work best for the product you want to produce. Most importantly you can cook something amazing that everyone loves, or a charred lump that no one will…

Rule 11213: First person to mention "time" when linked article does not include the term "time" takes 1 step backward, 1 step forward, 2 steps backward, 1 step forward, 3 steps back. Back to the future.

Post by dansku » Tue, May 15, 2012, 12:54 PM UTC

nicholassmith wrote: post #8

T-zex wrote: post #3

Please do not compare coding to cooking.

Please justify why you think it's a bad comparison? I think it's apt. Cooking shares many qualities with coding, you're under time deadlines to produce something for a end consumer (for the most part). There's lots of competing methods and you have to select which ones work best for the product you want to produce. Most importantly you can cook something amazing that everyone loves, or a charred lump that no one will…

Post by nicholassmith » Tue, May 15, 2012, 12:58 PM UTC

primecommenter wrote: post #13

nicholassmith wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was expanding on the concept and seem to have fallen into a time warp.

Coding doesn't necessarily involve time deadlines, and maybe cooking doesn't either, although it seems to. I agree with the rest of what you said though.

Post by nicholassmith » Tue, May 15, 2012, 1:02 PM UTC

batista wrote: post #15

nicholassmith wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please justify why you think it's a bad comparison? I think it's apt. Cooking shares many qualities with coding, you're under time deadlines to produce something for a end consumer (for the most part). There's lots of competing methods and you have to select which ones work best for the product you want to produce. Most importantly you can cook something amazing that everyone loves, or a charred lump that no one will…

> I think it's apt. Cooking shares many qualities with coding, you're under time deadlines to produce something for a end consumer (for the most part). A, you mean like hundreds of other professions...

Post by babarock » Tue, May 15, 2012, 1:10 PM UTC

sgdesign wrote: post #19

babarock wrote: post #6

I expected a similar post to hit HN, since I too was shocked by Jeff's comments. However I do not think people should learn to code for the same reason. Sure writing a website is cool, but then again, learning plumbing is cool, which is the basis of Jeff's argumentation. Plumbing can empower you by giving you control over your own house and appliances, etc, etc. I think the real reason people should learn to code, is…

I don't think the comparison is apt, because learning plumbing only helps you with plumbing. Whereas coding knowledge can be applied to a lot of fields. To me, there's an argument to be made that coding can be considered (or maybe, will one day be considered) like a life skill on par with reading, cooking, or playing music. I agree it doesn't look like it right now, but I'm sure that a couple hundreds years ago the i…

    > I can’t think of many other skills that enable you to create something from scratch and reach as many people as knowing how to set up a simple website.

    > Just last week, I was able to come up with an idea and then launch a site in 2 days. That site was then seen by about 10,000 people in a couple hours.

    > Think about it: something I did reached 10,000 actual living people and had an impact (however small) on their life. That would never have been possible if I didn’t know how to code.