Please Don't Become Anything, Especially Not A Programmer

Sure you can do anything you want, but the better you are at something: a) the more enjoyable and rewarding it is for you AND b) the more efficiently you can generate something useful for others; with any activity, there is an opportunity cost

That said, learning coding is self-limiting activity; those who enjoy it and have a knack for it will continue, those that don't will stop.

My only concern, which is a general one, is that humans are pretty good at self-deception, especially in subjective areas. Look at how many people think they can sing, for example. The shattering of their illusions has been turned into entertainment, and for many people this is obviously traumatic.

I have a completely non-technical friend trying to learn javascript. When I asked why, she told me she wanted to write games. As her friend, should I save her feelings and say nothing (and let her squander her time and end up confused and frustrated) or try and reason with her (and then look like a killjoy for seemingly criticising her efforts)?

Currently I've taken the former option, but still agonise over whether this is the 'right' way or not.

Great respect for your works, in particular the books. But it's sad to see not much progress (at least on the public side) of Mongrel2.

Hypocrisy? Aren't you selling some ebooks and Jeff's post is kinda bad for your business?

It is funny to see how different people interpreted the original post.

For me it was about coding being a craft and not a necessary skill like arithmetics, reading or a secondary languages. (This is true not only for coding but for nearly every craft there is.)

So I think it was more a post against the "Every one should learn to code, for a better world" movement (if there is such a thing) than a keep on doing what you do and stay away from my craft post.

While I thing bloomberg should be able to do what ever he wants in his free time. I agree with the assessment that it will be highly unlikely that leaning to code will make a difference in his daily work.

So while this reaction was a entertaining read I think it was reacting to something that wasn't be said.

Really, because of resentment? Really, sometimes I think people read way too much into people's commentary. How do these petty war of words make it to the top of Hacker News anyway.