It’s Okay to Not Learn How to Code | Hacker News Reader

It’s Okay to Not Learn How to Code

sonyaellenmann.com

37 pointsexolymph39 comments

I applaud the author's decision not to invest effort in learning that doesn't fit her goals. Perhaps one day in our future coding ability will become a requirement in society, in the same way that literacy did over the course of history. Or perhaps the ability to code will forever remain a niche professional skill, like the ability to solve partial differential equations, or read music. It may even go the way of carving stone tablets. In today's world coding is not a requirement, and the author should definitely focus on things she finds fulfilling.

I take particular exception, however, to the reasoning within the article which says, essentially, "If I were the kind of person who does X, I'd already be doing X". Substitute for X any skill you yourself picked up later in your life, and personal experience should show how false this is. Running, Singing, Public Speaking, dancing the tango at your wedding. We humans are not born fully formed is all facets of our personality, but we have to earn the shape of our lives through effort and experience.

Yes! And having as many people that can program that people that can read music (millions of people learn that as children), or that people that are graphic designers in some capacity (thanks to the digital publishing boom, it feels like it's really everybody nowadays) would be enough to be a major change.

I think that's the first quantitative level to discuss, then as you said, the next one is the literacy level (98% or so)

I was drawn to computer programming before I turned it into a career, as opposed to those who learn it because they want to make good money or think that's how they'll get their startup launched. I assume that was the distinction the author was making.

"I am not the kind of person who does X" is perfectly valid even though as we get older it tends to become "I am not the kind of person who does X now."

Sometimes the "now" is "anymore". Sometimes it is "yet". Other times it is "right now". Our concepts of wisdom overlap a lot with γνῶθι σεαυτόν [know thyself]. At fifty, though, probably it's a bit of common sense rather than any sort of wisdom.

>Here’s the thing: if I were the type of person who would be good at coding ...

I don't like this sentiment. Programming (at least the basics, no monads here) is really simple, and the perception that it's difficult seems damaging. What can we as programmers do about this? I'm almost as dejected hearing people say programming is hard as hearing "oh I can't do math."

But there certainly is a difference on how easy people pick up coding. This has a lot to do with attitude, but also how talented they are. As with all other skills, you're given a set of cards to play with.

But then again, practice beats talent any day of the week.

People say the same thing about poetry (at least the basics, no iambic pentameter here). Saying "I can't do math" is often a socially acceptable way of expressing the idea that it's not really interesting. It's particularly common for people under pressure to follow a STEM academic track...and that frees up the school schedule for classes in things like drama, creative writing and machine shop.

"Sure, programming languages are cool and useful, but so is geometry, and I don’t spend my free time on that either."

:D - I'm spending this sunday afternoon learning abut geodesic grids (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Geodesic_Grids) as part of a project to teach myself d3.js.

Otherwise - I agree with the author. It was strange seeing programming become a huge thing about 2/3 years ago, but realistically, most people don't have the mathematical/logical abilities to ever get really productive. Which is fine, they should focus on what they're good at, rather than beat themselves up for not mastering a quite specialised skill.

I gather the growth in coding bootcamps has lowered the demand for junior devs, but there's still a huge demand for more experienced people.

I don't buy into the idea that you need some set of innate talent to be able to program. Logic and reasoning is a skill, and it can be trained just like any other.

Personally, I think if every manager, marketing person, art designer, UI designer, web designer etc. spent just a day or two learning to program, it would give them an order of magnitude improved understanding of what happens on the coding side and would help them make better decisions. Likewise, programmers should try to learn a little about the domains of other teammates to understand each other better.

Don't. More for the rest of us.

Also, ditch maths, music, drawing, cooking, learning (thats a skill), accounting, and survival skills.

And that will be the absolute limit of my attention this kind of thinking gets from me.

Farewell and good luck.

Troll article. The article states that the author already does know basic coding, which is the idea behind the "everyone should learn to code" movement.

It is.

But it's not in certain contexts. Like in areas where a basic understanding of technology apply like on a tech blog or high profile position in politics or company where you make decisions that steer the tech sector, you'll do best with some basic programming knowledge.

Nothing serious is needed either, just a few weeks of learning Python and just read up on the rest of the programming world and you should at least have some understanding on how everything works.

Because I see more and more people in areas where programming knowledge can apply say "It's okay to not learn how to code" and people where it doesn't apply never go out of their way to say that.

Knowing how to code isn't always about getting a great job, sometimes it's just about making yourself better at your existing one.

Agreed, but in this context "knowing how to code" is not the same as "being able to code".

I know how to code. I understand it, and can hack at basic programs written by other people. That doesn't mean I can code. That would require years of practice and, like the author, it's just not my thing. I'm better at other stuff.

You are coding, just likely that you aren't doing it "well". "Doing it well" is very subjective and depends a lot on the context.

It's okay not to learn how to cook too. Not everyone is going to be a world class chef, but learning to cook is still worth doing if you don't want to always have to ask or pay others to cook for you.

People who can't cook still get through life without that much trouble though.

Pre-made meals exist as well that can be reasonably healthy if you search hard enough as well as things like Soylent, which is specifically made for people who don't want to cook ever again. You won't of course get the fun out of Chef Watson recipes, but maybe you use that spare time to do other geeky things you enjoy instead.

There’s nothing in particular that I want to build that I can’t already hack together using basic OSS or otherwise freely available tools.

I think that shows she does know "How to Code" enough to solve the problems she faces, but isn't interesting in going beyond that; and I agree, that is a perfectly fine and already far better position than what many others are in. IMHO society doesn't need more professional programmers (who are just going to build more things we probably don't need); it needs more people who know enough about how computers work to be able to control them better and make them do what they want.

Maybe the problem is that we, as the computer scientists of our age need to make it easier for people who are not coders to build things and make machines work for them as well? Like you said its about solving problems. In that respect, coding is like a plier, much like any other tool in the box, except its one thats (mostly) incomprehensible to a majority of people--and thats partially our fault.

To scratch my little sunday morning dystopian itch, it makes you think that in the future what may happen is that society will be further divided into classes, except it will be the ruling, technical class and the non-technical class.

Just playing a little devil's advocate cause I'm a bit bored this morning...

She's right, except that the criterion "browsing Twitter is more fun, and if I really wanted it I would have learned it long ago" is probably flawed. These days, everything is an uphill battle against the temptations of the internet at first. Applying that logic, nobody would ever learn anything anymore.

No kidding. I spent most of yesterday boning up on basic math skills that I haven't used in years, and I did that after turning off the computer, with a short break to watch The IT Crowd on Netflix. Now that my breakfast is done, I'm getting off again and back to the books in a few minutes. Gotta keep the old neurons alive. Sitting and passively reading the internet is killing my brain.

"I want the high salary a programmer can command in today’s labor market" - yeah, guess why that's the case... ;)

Isn't this the case for almost all professions though? Take cosmetologists for instance. In the town where I live, a person who cuts hair gets about $15 for about 20 minutes of work. Guaranteed job (because people always have hair that they want cut or dyed), a flexible work schedule, and more social cachet than being a stuffy programmer, since they are "hair stylists".

Or consider doctors. $200k+ is a pretty standard salary for a doctor, plus people look up to them in an almost godlike way. In my state, nurse practitioners are also allowed to call themselves "Dr. X", so the social cachet applies to them as well.

Can you imagine the reaction if there were "Everyone should learn to cut hair!" or "Everyone should learn basic medicine" movements? Then why code?

[Tangent] If anything, I think there should be an "Everyone should learn how to cook movement" in the US. Might help with the rising obesity and related complications.

Subtract rent and supplies and taxes and downtime from that $60/hr. Being a non-celebrity "hair stylist" doesn't have much cachet.

Cutting hair is a once a month need, and it is physically very challenging to cut your own hair. Almost everyone learns how to shave themselves, though, they don't rely on a pro every week.

Wow, I've obviously been sharing the wrong kind of content on Hacker News. I need to start a blog that discusses all the things I'm not interested in learning.

My next article will be "why I'm not interested in learning knitting". Can't wait to get to the HN front page!

Just like it's okay not to learn how to read.

How is coding an essential life skill?

Most consumer items - including computers - don't have the interfaces you need for useful beginner-level coding.

Experts can always pull the cover off something and get inside, but consumer products - including web sites - make that very difficult for non-experts.

Do some Googling around the idea of "procedural literacy".

Coding is like reading, maths, other sciences, in that while you don't need to be very good at it, you really do need to know what computers are and are not capable of and how they solve problems. You need to be able to do this to do all sorts of things; be a judge in a courtroom and not fall to the CSI effect, to not worry about "hackers stealing your credit card" over SSL, etc. etc. It's simply not OK in this day and age to look at a computer like a magic box.

Everyone should learn to code. Not everyone should be a coder.

By that token, judges should also be biologists to not fall for stupid arguments about DNA. They should be forensic analysts to not fall for misguided arguments about forensics.

And people should really all be physicists to not be worried that the Large Hadron Collider will blow up the universe, and aerospace engineers to not be afraid of flying in airplanes. They should all be soldiers, to understand what war is.

Are you arguing this point because you happen to be a programmer, so are more personally affected when people get things wrong in your field? If not, please explain the difference.

Studying mechanical engineering has made me more worried about flying..

Learning how to code is not the same as computer literacy. There are plenty of people who code for a living who have little understanding of things like network security.

We work in an very complex field where it is impossible for one person to have in depth knowledge of all aspects. I offer up all the security vulnerabilities from companies like Microsoft and Google as evidence of this fact.

Yes, a person should have basic computer literacy; but unless they plan to code in a regular basis, teaching them to program is a waste of time.

I completely agree with this. Understanding the way everything fits together is likely far more useful than being able to write a basic Python script.

"Coding" has nothing to do with network security or the intricacies of programming languages or using computers. At its core it is simply a extension of logic operations (if...else, loops, recursion, etc.) with variable manipulation (moving data around). It SHOULD be a fundamentally taught disciple, NOT because people need to code but because most people should have enough recognition in their lives to understand when something could or could not be managed programmatically.

Learning math in school is not something most people use everyday, that is true. And most people forget all of the formulas they memorize. BUT, if I am trying to figure out which peanut butter is cheaper per ounce I can do some simple math to figure it out. If I am trying to figure out the height of a tree I remember "oh there is some geometry formula for this" and can go look it up. What we need in the modern era is more people to have that base level of knowledge so they can say "rather than doing this spreadsheet every month, can't we just hire a programmer to automate it?" because right now a ton of repetitive crap work is being done simply because no one knows any better.

What you are talking about is a cost/benefit analysis, which does not require knowledge of programming.

You are also making an assumption that tasks are not being automated because business people do not how to write a line of python/ruby/Java/whatever. Maybe they have limited funds and they are focusing their expenditures in revenue generating work. Maybe the RoI is far in the future that it does not make sense. Maybe they need to be able to change formulas on a moment's notice, so they don't want to be beholden to a developer.

A CEO needs an understanding of their business and a high-level understanding that computers are capable of automating tasks. If coding skills are needed, the CEO can hire a CTO in the same way they hire a CFO to provide accounting skills.

Most consumer items - including computers - don't have the interfaces you need for useful beginner-level coding.

I think that in itself is a problem.

Reading and writing wasn't an essential life skill… up until it was (because our culture and society became a completely writing-based culture).

If you agree that we are going toward (or already are in) a computer-code-based culture and society, then it's quite reasonable to say that programming is an essential life skill.

(That's the idea behind code literacy).

[edit]: Reading and especially writing is hard. We spend years and years learning it, and only a few professionals master it from end to end. But the collective and individual benefits is huge. Programming seems quite analogous.

I would have to disagree with the premise of "computer-code-based culture" being a thing. It's not a computer-code based culture we're heading towards (or are in) so much as an extension of writing-based culture no longer based on printed media. Knowledge of code is no more necessary a skill to interact with computers than knowledge of leading, kerning and CMYK is for people reading a newspaper. Most people basically use computers for reading, writing, math and media.

Maybe you could argue that the likelihood of having to put up or maintain a web site at some point in your life is ever increasing. Throw a birthday party for your kid? Make a web site... So general coding skills could be more on the level of general MS Office skills. Enough to write a job application letter.

Of course not everybody will need it, but that goes for many things taught at school.

It's a win for Sonya, and more opportunity for Kentucky coal miners!

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