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Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

economist.com

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Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#41

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dmitrygr wrote: post #13
kitrose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t they bad examples? There’s a distinction between an extremely rare occurrence of biological factors like being 7 feet tall in order to succeed, and that of needing a decent education in order to think critically.

Some people just cannot wrap their head around pointers. Some just do not get recursion no matter what. I used to teach CS, and tutor in CS. It is as rare as being 7 feet tall, sadly. And without understanding indirection and recursion, the most you'll ever do is ...well..not much...

I've done embedded systems for 35 years. I've done quite a bit. Never needed recursion. (Not much use for it in the embedded world...)

Now pointers... yeah. I use those a fair amount.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#42

Post by oblib »

I don't think that "no-code" is the solution but I do think that we can treat some methods of creating software more like a trade skill.

There are ways to code web apps that can lower the bar of entry by quite a bit. That's not to say one wouldn't have to learn a lot to do it well, but that is true with any trade skill.

If we had classes in schools that focused on making apps using available tools like jQuery, PouchDB.js, Bootstrap, that's pretty easy to learn.

From there businesses could hire skilled workers to install and modify software they get free or purchase and tailor it to their needs.

I think it's fair to say that not everyone has what it takes to learn those skills. I took trombone lessons for a semester in 6th grade and never did hit a single note right. Not even close. Still can't.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#43

Post by baash05 »

pasquinelli wrote: post #25
dmitrygr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people just cannot wrap their head around pointers. Some just do not get recursion no matter what. I used to teach CS, and tutor in CS. It is as rare as being 7 feet tall, sadly. And without understanding indirection and recursion, the most you'll ever do is ...well..not much...

i've been homeschooling my daughter through middle school. she's very smart, she's been in the highly capable program since maybe 2nd grade. she honestly surprises me with her ability to reason, but i've yet to hit on a way to get her to understand loops. i've been considering learning an array language with her in the hopes that it would allow her the chance to get interested in programming and excited about its pot…

Loops are easy.. You have 3 chocolates, and for each one you take a bite. If it's spicy filled, you stop eating them.

While there are still crayons in your bowl, the colors in the rainbow grows.

"what time is it mr wolf?" When you reach daddy/mommy you stop.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#44

Post by solarmist »

zozbot234 wrote: post #38
solarmist wrote: post #7

Honestly we’re already working towards that. Between excel and no-code tools a lot of the grunt work can now be handled by the people who need it. The majority of stuff out there will be commodity software implementing some simple business logic and software engineers don't want to do that stuff anyway which is why we’ve been writing ourselves out of those jobs for decades. I have a very nontechinal marketing friend…

Excel is a disaster. It will randomly corrupt input that happens to fit certain patterns by parsing it into "dates" or "numbers", unless you go to the trouble of explicitly setting the right "cell properties" via the incredibly clunky UI. It hides the code that's input in cells, lets it randomly mix with input data and does not support any kind of source control for it. It's not even fit for purpose as a prototyping…

Yup, but you can make it do the job and that's enough for the majority.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#45

Post by briHass »

solarmist wrote: post #22
decremental wrote: post #5

What an ego shattering revelation it would be if it turned out just about everyone can be good at coding. Being able to code is what qualifies us to know everything about everything!

There's nothing special about software engineering beyond: - meticulous attention to detail, - explicit deductive reasoning, - an ability to understand and build abstractions, - a high tolerance for frustration, - and a love of instant gratification when things work. None of these are rare traits. But the cluster of traits isn't widespread. Which is to say it's not common among people in general, but also not unusual…

And, as captured in many of those points, a relatively high IQ. Almost certainly at least 1 SD above the mean, and in many cases (complex software), closer to 2 SD.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#46

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pasquinelli wrote: post #25
dmitrygr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people just cannot wrap their head around pointers. Some just do not get recursion no matter what. I used to teach CS, and tutor in CS. It is as rare as being 7 feet tall, sadly. And without understanding indirection and recursion, the most you'll ever do is ...well..not much...

i've been homeschooling my daughter through middle school. she's very smart, she's been in the highly capable program since maybe 2nd grade. she honestly surprises me with her ability to reason, but i've yet to hit on a way to get her to understand loops. i've been considering learning an array language with her in the hopes that it would allow her the chance to get interested in programming and excited about its pot…

Maybe program her?

Maybe something like, place three eggs on the counter in a row. Tell her "Pick up the first egg. Crack it into the frying pan. Put the shell back where the egg was. Pick up the second egg..."

Then, next time, tell her "For each of the three eggs, pick up the egg, crack it into the frying pan, and put the shell back where the egg was."

Would she get something like that?

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#47

Post by solarmist »

Zababa wrote: post #40
solarmist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing special about software engineering beyond: - meticulous attention to detail, - explicit deductive reasoning, - an ability to understand and build abstractions, - a high tolerance for frustration, - and a love of instant gratification when things work. None of these are rare traits. But the cluster of traits isn't widespread. Which is to say it's not common among people in general, but also not unusual…

You can add to that being able to work in group.

I wish that were a requirement. It is not.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#48

Post by erwincoumans »

Coding may become ubiquitous, but visual coding isn't always easier than textual programming languages.

Back around 2001 we created no-code visual scripting logic bricks for the Blender Game Engine: sensors (keyboard, collision, raycast) controllers (and, or, etc) and actuators (move, play sound, animation etc).

Some games became very complex, with hundreds of linked blocks. We introduced a Python controller, that could do everything with or without using logic bricks and text scripting was much more concise.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#49

Post by zozbot234 »

codingdave wrote: post #8
dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Not everyone can play in the NBA. Not everyone can safely drive a car. Not everyone can architect and write good code. Yes, you can spend a LOT of time and get kinda good-ish at basketball, but you'll never make it to the NBA. You lack the biological talent (height, speed). Sure, you can work very hard and take serious driving classes, but you'll never win an F1 race even if given a chance. You lack the biological ta…

Not everyone can be a successful novelist, but we all can read and write. It is OK to have basic literacy, and the educational system is quickly adopting coding as part of basic literacy. That, in turn is making more and more people good enough to do basic coding, even if they will never do it as a professional career. Just like people play basketball in their drive. Just like they drive their cars around town.

> and the educational system is quickly adopting coding as part of basic literacy

If only. They're mostly fooling around with random low-code or no-code tools that get misrepresented as "learning to code", when literally just teaching BASIC, LOGO or PASCAL in K-12 the way they used to do it back in the 1980s would bring us all a lot closer to that worthwhile goal.

Re: Citizen developers are rapidly becoming the vanguard of corporate digitisation

#50

Post by baash05 »

solarmist wrote: post #33
baash05 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See it's not really ego. I'd say most people could be good at coding. But most people could be good electricians, and plumbers and mechanics, and carpenters, and ... well and heaps of other things. It's that it all takes training, and time in. It all takes reading and learning new things. It's not a question of could they be good. It's a question of, do they want to. I don't think most people want to be good at it.

Technically accurate, but not practically true. If you've ever needed to teach someone patience, you'd see the futility of trying to teach a random person programming. Nowadays, I will tell people straight out I can't see them dealing with the frustrations long enough to develop the patience needed to learn the basics.

I never teach people to code. I ask them what they want to build, and then we work to building that. People don't need to be patient. Beyond assignment, if, for and while, just make sure they use good variable names and function names. Code reviews take care of the rest.
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