Comment by parennoob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parennoob | Hacker News Reader

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Though the body of your comment is a bit snarky, I agree with its substance. I think the programming industry as a whole is in dire need of jointly rebranding ourselves as working professionals (such as doctors or lawyers) rather than the popular "tech guy in the basement who will fix my computer and can code up something real quick if we give him free pizza" image that we are often all too glad to slip into on account of our fondness for playing with technology.

Thinking a bit further on that angle, I wonder if there's a market for a Github-with-payments ("here's a working snapshot of my code -- it's open-source but in order to open an issue that I will look into, you need to pay me $X"). After all, it is the same way doctors or lawyers work – they aren't expected to spend their weekends doing law cases or practicing for free.

[This is part of why I also oppose the widespread "Everyone should learn to code" movements. In principle, I would like to teach people how to code, but I don't necessarily want to do this work for free. Without this nuance being addressed, the "learn to code" movements strongly devalue our industry in my opinion. Have you ever heard lawyers say "Everyone should learn basic civil law" and then offer free classes for the same? It probably happens a bit, but nowhere near the scale that happens for code.]

I liken "Everyone should learn to code" with "Everyone should learn to write." Neither of these statements claims that by learning the skill you are suddenly a qualified industry professional. It's about having a basic working knowledge.

Simply put, knowing how to write (in, say, English) won't make you a published author in the same way that knowing how to code (in, say, Javascript) won't make you a software engineer.

Or, another way of looking at it, by knowing the basics of a programming language you unlock the same kinds of jobs that were historically available to people proficient with Excel. Sure, you're no programmer, but at least you can hack an analysis together with a few basic tools and pass your findings around via email. These skills are not the focus of your job, but they do help you get your job done.

In your initial analysis, you say this:

> I liken "Everyone should learn to code" with "Everyone should learn to write."

And later on:

> Or, another way of looking at it, by knowing the basics of a programming language you unlock the same kinds of jobs that were historically available to people proficient with Excel.

I posit that these are two very different statements, and the latter comes much closer to the reality than the former. There is no reason, say, chefs or plumbers or doctors need to learn how to code. Proficiency at using computer tools need not equate to building those tools, and people who build those tools should definitely not be expected to pass on that knowledge for free. Given your second example, aren't the "Learn to Code" movements today equivalent to (nonexistent) "Everyone should learn the basics of Excel macros" movements in the 90s?

Fair point.

That said, I'd argue that chefs, plumbers and doctors do benefit from the ability to solve their own problems with whatever tools available to them, and I'd still include the basics of programming in that list.

It's a narrow view of the world to assume that the only problems you can solve with code are the problems you'd hire a software engineer to solve. Much like the ability to communicate with words, or the ability to manipulate spreadsheets, coding is just another skill in a long list of skills that help individuals approach problems in new ways.

Do you need to know calculus in order to be a chef? Probably not. Does that mean we should stop teaching calculus in schools?

> That said, I'd argue that chefs, plumbers and doctors do benefit from the ability to solve their own problems with whatever tools available to them, and I'd still include the basics of programming in that list.

Oh, absolutely. And I'd love to learn anatomy and basic medical diagnosis in order to evaluate my posture, bloodwork and vitals every quarter, but you won't find many doctors willing to participate in movements that are going to teach me that. My point is that we should be more like them if we want to obtain ideal compensation and respect from society.

> Do you need to know calculus in order to be a chef? Probably not. Does that mean we should stop teaching calculus in schools?

Not at all. And I'd even encourage the teaching of code in schools, if qualified teachers willing to teach code at the salaries commonly offered in schools can be found. My opposition is to volunteer-based "Teach Everyone to Code" movements that often expect programmers to shoulder the vast amount of unpaid labor that goes into these events in order to pass on their in-demand skillset. In my opinion, the more we participate in these events, the more normalized that participation will become, until programmers are ultimately being paid the same as teachers are today (which is not very much, in the US anyway).

> Have you ever heard lawyers say "Everyone should learn basic civil law" and then offer free classes for the same?

Really, the foundation skill in the law is to read and write. Lawyers are the most technical users of language, but we teach everyone to read and write on the taxpayer dime. And we teach everyone mathematics through at least algebra, even though it is mostly used by technical professionals. So we need to teach everyone to code.

Not everyone will end up being a professional coder, just like most people don't become lawyers. But if everyone has experience reading and writing code, they will be more informed and productive in a society that is increasingly computerized.

'Everyone' is a lot of people. I've taught youth (Boy Scouts) for 20 years. There are more than one kind of people. Some are not ever going to program. Smart, well-adjusted, ambitious, but a different kind of mind and not at all suited to programming.

Its obvious really. Some people like dominoes and word games and tetris. Others would rather die than play those games. People are very very different.

Everyone is welcome to be technically illiterate, just as they are welcome to be illiterate in the traditional sense. Neither case is conducive to navigating society, regardless of personal desire or explanation why that desire should be met.

Nothing to do with being illiterate. Just different mental models. There are those that don't get design; aren't as empathetic, or emotional, or logical. Some combinations mean, they aren't going to find that computer programming makes any sense at all.

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