Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please Learn to Code

sachagreif.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 151 posts

Re: Please Learn to Code

#61

Post by bm98 »

blindhippo wrote: post #24

I remember when VBA came out in MS Office. Now your average tech savvy office drone could morph their excel spreadsheets into a full blown application capable of processing business data without having to jump through any of the traditional hoops the evil IT department normally demands. And we ended up with a ton of buggy, dangerous "mission critical" piles of garbage because they were "designed" and built by non-pro…

It's the "knows enough to be dangerous" problem.

It applies to a lot of professions. We see it applied to the legal profession all the time here on HN.

No lawyer likes to find out that the Accounting Dept. has been drafting contracts, any more than an IT person likes to discover that the CPAs have developed a pseudo-enterprise accounting "system" in Microsoft Access.

But I think there is a middle ground: It's not practical to consult a lawyer for every click-through agreement you encounter on the web, just like it's not practical to launch an enterprise IT project every time you need to automate some tasks in a spreadsheet. Some basic skills in these areas are good to have. Just know your limits...

Re: Please Learn to Code

#62

Post by danso »

edw519 wrote: post #47

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. (ability to code) != (eyeballs reached) I've written blog posts viewed by 100,000 people in one day. I've also written software used by 1 person to save millions of dollars. Both are rewarding, but I'd still rather build something. I thi…

(ability to code) != (eyeballs reached)

Not directly, maybe. But having some acknowledgment of basic data principles (particularly delimitation, meta-ness, maybe even regexes) can substantially increase your ability to write digitally. Markdown, for instance. And of course, being able to maintain or customize an existing platform, whether it's WordPress or Tumblr.

It's sad to say, but delimitation is not a skill that is in the mind of the average professional adult. Try sending someone a tab-delimited text file to someone who has only known CSV or XLS sometime.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#63

Post by cageface »

jwoah12 wrote: post #48

It seems to me like there are ulterior motives behind a lot of programmers' hostile attitudes toward non-programmers learning some of the craft. If I didn't know any better (and I don't), I'd say that people think, consciously or otherwise, that it will somehow cheapen their skills or experience if some newbies learn basic development. I disagree. I think that if anything, it will give others more of an understanding…

Not me. I'm just tired of once again seeing all the hoi polloi rushing in because some dumb photo sharing site just sold for a billion dollars and this is going to be a easier way to earn their boat and summer home than taking all those boring business, law and medicine classes.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#64

Post by danso »

VolatileVoid wrote: post #42

I'm actually kind of tired of hearing, "there's no other field that lets you create something from nothing" vis a vis programming. Look: I LOVE coding. I LOVE programming. I think it's fun and challenging, etc. etc. But it's not the only creative outlet that has ever existed. Have you considered a pencil and a paper? Crayons? Markers? Paints and a canvas? A hammer, some wood and some nails? "Ah, but that requires som…

Yes, but code is the one of the rare things that can multiply your efforts...in the same way that a it'd be useful to be able to construct wheels and levers before the industrial age.

But code goes further than that; since so much of our world is now digital, it multiplies these efforts in virtually every field, including the arts (there's a niche to be filled in custom automating the batch processing done in the photo production industry)

Re: Please Learn to Code

#67

Post by caleywoods »

VolatileVoid wrote: post #42

I'm actually kind of tired of hearing, "there's no other field that lets you create something from nothing" vis a vis programming. Look: I LOVE coding. I LOVE programming. I think it's fun and challenging, etc. etc. But it's not the only creative outlet that has ever existed. Have you considered a pencil and a paper? Crayons? Markers? Paints and a canvas? A hammer, some wood and some nails? "Ah, but that requires som…

Could you make an impact (even if a very small one) on a large number of people over the course of a weekend with a pencil and paper?

I've never had a piece of art or drawing save work/time/money for me but we have apps that do this everywhere.

Art is an amazing creative outlet and I've seen some awe inspiring drawings/paintings but I've never seen one with a tangible benefit.

I think if you asked several highschool or even college students who painted Starry Night or Washington Crossing the Delaware you'd get a lot of blank stares. Ask the same kids if they know of or use Facebook; I'd bet more kids know about Facebook.

I'm not saying that everyone is cut out to be a programmer but I do support everyone trying it out. Zuckerberg didn't create Facebook with a pencil and paper.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#68

Post by panthersgba »

cageface wrote: post #60
dholowiski wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but mastering a pencil and paper is going to have fairly limited benifits, compared to understanding how a computer works (considering that nearly everything you do has something to do with a computer).

Actually I think real art & design skills are already becoming more valuable than basic coding skills. As software becomes more and more about aesthetics and human interaction a really good designer with a strong style is going to be more valuable than the typical code monkey. I know if I had it all to do over again I might trade my math & science classes for drawing.

I can agree with this. The fact is that companies are making it easier for people to make programs (note that most of them don't go anywhere like Android App Inventor) making it much more reasonable to have an art background than it used to be, since the entry level is, theoretically, lower.

Re: Please Learn to Code

#69

Post by DennisP »

So we complain about politicians passing stupid technology laws, and as soon as a politicians says he wants to learn something about the tech, a prominent programmer tells him "don't bother?"

If you don't know how to code, it probably seems perfectly reasonable to have a computer that you can't program yourself, with everything locked down. If that's the future you want, then sure, tell politicians to leave the coding to the professionals.

If you can code, you start to see the computer as a machine that can do anything you want, instead of just the things some app store makes available to you. That freedom is addictive. You start demanding it.

Cory Doctorow's fears about the end of general computing will come true unless lots of people get addicted to that freedom. http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Re: Please Learn to Code

#70

Post by roc »

danso wrote: post #62
edw519 wrote: post #47

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. (ability to code) != (eyeballs reached) I've written blog posts viewed by 100,000 people in one day. I've also written software used by 1 person to save millions of dollars. Both are rewarding, but I'd still rather build something. I thi…

(ability to code) != (eyeballs reached) Not directly, maybe. But having some acknowledgment of basic data principles (particularly delimitation, meta-ness, maybe even regexes) can substantially increase your ability to write digitally. Markdown, for instance. And of course, being able to maintain or customize an existing platform, whether it's WordPress or Tumblr. It's sad to say, but delimitation is not a skill that…

I'd agree that there are computer skills that are generally useful, up there with reading, writing and math.

But they're far less complex than code. And I can't say I've ever heard the "learn to code" people advocating them.

Post reply on HN