Coding, Everyone?

There’s been an increasing call in the US that everyone learn how to code (write computer programs). This call comes even from Obama. Part of the reason is to improve the employability of people as software continues to step into more and more fields.

A software engineer, Chase Felker, argued against this call. He correctly points out that there is a world of difference between knowing the basics of programming v/s being a good, employable programmer:
“Without knowing more of the bigger picture, you’re forced to hack away at a problem, which can take you pretty far until you run into one that is better solved by more careful design.”

Then there’s the problem of identifying who you would learn from? Because software expertise is not tied to degrees:
“Your credentials are primarily the programs you have written, not the stature of the professor whose lab you cleaned.”
Unfortunately, you can’t see the programs anyone else wrote (they’d be owned by the company that guy works for). So quacks and charlatans would have a field day!

And unlike, say, physics, Felker says programming is never a spectator sport:
“I imagine that people get excited about physics by reading some Bad Astronomy or Richard Feynman’s QED, but no one jumps from reading about physics to doing physics...With programming, however, there’s very little separation between appreciating and making something.”
Reading and appreciating is easy; writing (doing) is hard.

Sure, people can learn programming for the problem solving high you get:
“Yes, it is a creative endeavor. At its base, it’s problem-solving, and the rewards for exposing holes in your thinking and discovering elegant solutions are awesome.”
Or they could learn it for specific applications relevant to their area of work, like in genetics or fields involving statistical analysis or whatever. But please, please don’t confuse that with knowing how to be a programmer.

Ultimately, as Felker says:
“We don’t need everyone to code—we need everyone to think.”
And that’s a tough ask any day, anywhere.

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