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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

>The Apple CEO also said he believes that it should be a requirement for every kid in the U.S. to have some level of coding education before they graduate high school. Apple launched its Everyone Can Code program in 2016, a curriculum designed to help students from Kindergarten to college learn coding.

>Apple is one of several corporations that doesn't require a college diploma for certain jobs

Does anyone else feel like this is just an attempt by Cook to increase the supply of people able to code competently so Apple doesn't have to pay out as much for software engineers like they do now? Just increasing the labor supply to push down wages? Not saying if that is a good or bad thing, just a thought..

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If there's one thing everyone should realize by now, but whatever you learned in high school doesn't make you competent in the subject. It makes you basic, bare-bones at best. I doubt very much that a high school course or two will dramatically change the number of competent coders in the world.

I'm also incredibly cynical about that moves motivations - it really does sound like an attempt by the tech giants to flood the market. I just don't think it'll work.

For me there's two reasons to learn some programming:

1. Our lives is surrounded by technology, and thus software, and it'll just get more prominent in the future. Knowing a bit about how programs are put together can help reason about how a program works and its possibilities and limitations. For doing rote work it usually doesn't matter, but once you're off the beaten path this can really help.

For example, it can allow you to be confident about exploring a certain function in a program, aiding in self-discovery.

2. I found that the way you have to think when programming has improved my analytical skills. This has made me better at analyzing and making arguments, for example when reading or writing texts. This is something that's useful in most facets of life.

Is programming for everyone? No. But I think it's useful that people know what goes on behind the scenes, that it's not magic.

Agreed. I believe it's the same as owning a car. If you own a car and use it regularly, you should probably understand at least the basics of how it operates. In the modern world, everyone is constantly surrounded by computers and software and most people have absolutely no clue about how any of it works. This will become a problem as time rolls onward.

Not really. Knowing how to write an "if" is a lot different than wanting, or being able, to code professionally.

What we really need is basic computer literacy since most jobs will use software to accomplish things. Coding skills may help people work with the expert systems they will use at work.

If they are actually going to pay less, what's stopping software engineers from switching companies? Someone qualified to work for Apple is probably also qualified to work for other tech giants, so if it's really Apple's motivation to pay less, why not just apply elsewhere?

Because the labor supply has grown larger for all companies? If Apple is able to pay less, I think other tech companies would also be paying less - if we're assuming tech workers are equally qualified to work at all tech giants.

I think they have already done this just using a different approach. https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...

This is economic game theory. Supply and demand dictates profit share. Its also why wages tend to go up after plagues and wars.

We teach kids about Earth/Space sciences, but we don't expect them all to become Astronomers. I don't think teaching kids the basics of coding and how computers work will dramatically increase the pool of developers.

If Apple wanted to pay less for developers, they could start by getting out of California.

Plus if everybody in school is learning to code, the schools have to buy computers.

If anything, I'd say its more likely a hope to increase the market size for Apple products, since most techies prefer Macs.

I thought most techies prefer anything but Macs and iOS. With Macs, you get worse specs for a significantly higher cost. Similarly for iOS phones as well.

Which “specs” are worse on iPhones - definitely not performance seeing that the iPhone is usually two years ahead of Android phones performance wise.

I like MacOS but I'd never buy it on my own dime.

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