Why Everyone Should Not Learn To Code

Precisely.

So, all the comments here seem to be disagreeing with the article. Now, I certainly believe that business managers could use a much more thorough understanding of IT and development, with concepts of technical debt and the like, although I'm not so sure that learning to actually code in practice would help in that.

But trying to compare coding with literacy or basic plumbing is ridiculous. Everyone's toilets break and can usually be fixed fairly easily, and everyone derives direct benefit from knowing how to read.

But I can't possibly imagine what benefit my mother, or sister, or cousin, would derive from knowing how to code. They don't want to do it for a living. They don't want to run web sites. Their aren't any programs they need written, that don't exist, that a single person could possibly create, that could even be remotely worth their time to learn how to write, and then write, in comparison with the other things they could be doing.

It would be about as useful to them as a law degree, or knowledge of sewage treatment engineering. Computer coding is a tremendously useful and valuable, but also tremendously esoteric skill.

And I just don't see how computer coding can somehow open your eyes to understanding technology in a way that will deepen your life somehow. If there are important lessons that people should be aware of (like the fragility of code, the dangers of hacking and cyberwarfare, etc.), those are pretty easy to teach without teaching coding itself.

I echoed a lot of the counterpoints being brought up here in my TEDx talk last year, "You should learn to program": http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/You-Should-Learn-to-Program-C...

Let me put it this way: I'm all for one person who's interested to learn coding. Sure, if you wish, even let all this public campaigning and incentives be there. I'm fine with it. I will help this hypothetical guy personally if he comes my way. Nothing wrong here.

But... You (you, with the coding = literacy idea) are seriously overestimating the masses. I'm not sure why, might be due to some bubble effect. I don't live in SV or anything that resembles it. And my view is that even if you decide to go with the coding = literacy analogy, you will run into trouble because most people are not even literate beyond the absolute basics they can get away with. I'm speaking about professionals, and even a certain "majority" of college graduates. I'm speaking about a randomly sampled manager from a medium sized enterprise. Ask this guy to write a single page essay about something he knows about. I'm talking about writing, the kind of literacy we're talking about in the coding = literacy analogy. If you are really in a bubble, you might be surprised that only a minority of people living in the first world can write coherently beyond the length of a twitter update or an SMS. So, I would suggest to find another analogy for your public campaigning if you mean learning coding as in learning to code beyond hello world or fizzbuzz.

Another problem: where are those magical people that want to increase productivity? Most professionals I know don't even work most of the time! And they want to get away with the absolute minimum that can still achieve the maximum possible return. This is basic human behaviour. I don't endorse it, and I don't say this is everyone's standart behaviour, so no need to take offense, but I don't think anyone would argue against that what I posit here holds for the majority. Now, you want these people to learn coding to increase their productivity? Good luck. I'm sincerely all for it, and I will even help in ways that I can, excuse my cynicism.