11–20 of 99 posts
Learn enough to not be spied on and manipulated by sociopathic web developers and cybercriminals.
Maybe you can contribute something back to programmer/user community that demonstrates ethical principles. Maybe you found a startup. Maybe you make a career out of writing programs.
At the very least, you make it harder for the bad actors who use their coding skills to take advantage of people who are not tech savvy.
I fear the point is still missed. He used the analogy of the auto mechanic, which I liked very much: "Isn't knowing how to change a tire, and when to take your car in for an oil change, sufficient?" Exactly. Learning to code is like learning the basics of auto mechanics. If you own a car, it would be very beneficial to learn the basics of how a car works so you know to change the fluid levels, why they are important,…
As some who used to work on cars for a living, I can say that the analogy does not fit very well. Learning how to check your oil level, or even how to change a tire is more akin to learning how to install a new wi-fi dongle for your laptop, or how to install a new OS. Learning how to program the computer is akin to learning how to modify the drivetrain of the car. You modify the engine to make it perform better (vers…
You do not simply modify your computer with code to make it perform better.
He's still missing the point. If anything "learning to code," is just bad language to describe something more worthwhile: teaching people the fundamentals of algorithmic and logical thinking. We don't teach mathematics to kids so that they will all become mathematicians and we certainly don't teach them literacy so that they will all become the next J.D. Salinger. They are just tools for solving other problems. "Lear…
Now, is it more important than the purported alternatives? Hard to say. But maybe there's no need to decide.
Ugh. This again... Zed slayed this debate but I guess the horse is still twitching.
"To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse." ( http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=155 ) However, like you, I don't feel particularly inclined to take a crack at it today...
Alas, I just hope people learn to code if they want, or don't if they don't want to. That's all. No one else can make the decision for them.
I also go out of my way to teach people coding concepts. I recommend Zed's books to beginners. I recommend stackoverflow or quora for asking / answering questions.
Just be helpful to beginners and help them ignore the rabble rousers until they've got their bearings.
All this blogging and tweeting on the subject is just going to confuse folks in the early days, when they should be focusing on learning instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse." ( http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=155 ) However, like you, I don't feel particularly inclined to take a crack at it today...
I understand Jeff's motivation for writing his piece. Alas, I just hope people learn to code if they want, or don't if they don't want to. That's all. No one else can make the decision for them. I also go out of my way to teach people coding concepts. I recommend Zed's books to beginners. I recommend stackoverflow or quora for asking / answering questions. Just be helpful to beginners and help them ignore the rabble…
You mean that he's trying to revive his blog now that he's out of the stackexchange thing, building a readership that he can monetize in the future? Hence these sorts of confrontational, pablum entries that bizarrely make the front page of HN. I don't get it.
If these were usenet posts they would never, in a million years, see any attention.
I fear the point is still missed. He used the analogy of the auto mechanic, which I liked very much: "Isn't knowing how to change a tire, and when to take your car in for an oil change, sufficient?" Exactly. Learning to code is like learning the basics of auto mechanics. If you own a car, it would be very beneficial to learn the basics of how a car works so you know to change the fluid levels, why they are important,…
As some who used to work on cars for a living, I can say that the analogy does not fit very well. Learning how to check your oil level, or even how to change a tire is more akin to learning how to install a new wi-fi dongle for your laptop, or how to install a new OS. Learning how to program the computer is akin to learning how to modify the drivetrain of the car. You modify the engine to make it perform better (vers…
I too felt a lot of readers had the wrong reaction and mis-interpreted Jeff Attwood's original post. I was an undergrad in the tech bubble a decade ago. CS was the most in demand and popular major on campus. When the bubble burst, a lot of my former classmates abandoned programming. I was not surprised. A lot of them were CS majors because that's where the money/attention/parent pressure/sexiness was during the bubbl…
I have a personal peeve for the desperate pivots of a piece to try to see what can stick. It's bad enough when an original author does it, but even worse when fans of the author did it.
His original piece was asinine. Perhaps intentionally, because its easy-to-refute nature saw it linked by the thousands, everyone lining up to take an easy hit. And now they'll link to this for followup points.
He's still missing the point. If anything "learning to code," is just bad language to describe something more worthwhile: teaching people the fundamentals of algorithmic and logical thinking. We don't teach mathematics to kids so that they will all become mathematicians and we certainly don't teach them literacy so that they will all become the next J.D. Salinger. They are just tools for solving other problems. "Lear…
Think of all the problems you've had as a programmer. Now think of how many of those could have been lessened if people had a better understanding of what's happening rather than trying to remember the incantation you just recited.
With this education they know when a task should be automated and they know when a task can't be (at least easily) accomplished by a computer. The computer is no longer magic to them.
Advances in many fields have come by harnessing the power that computing provides. Do we really want to see a future where people still think computers are magic?
He's still missing the point. If anything "learning to code," is just bad language to describe something more worthwhile: teaching people the fundamentals of algorithmic and logical thinking. We don't teach mathematics to kids so that they will all become mathematicians and we certainly don't teach them literacy so that they will all become the next J.D. Salinger. They are just tools for solving other problems. "Lear…
You don't need to be a programmer to think logically. There are a lot of other fields that teach that. Basic algorithmic knowledge is useful in daily life, but you won't necessarily gain that while "learning to code," and it's not necessarily more useful than anything else you might study.
"how many other judges in technology patent cases will be able to at least have an intuition to call out a patent troll?"
You going to have judges study electrical engineering as well? How about plumbing as well? Coding isn't special here, it's just the one thing you and I know. We're insisting that others toolbox's aren't full enough because they don't know the one tool that we happen to know. Perhaps that's a bit of a hacker-centric world-view?