Ask HN: What is a programmer's domain knowledge outside of coding? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is a programmer's domain knowledge outside of coding?

3 pointsyagodragon4 comments

Let's imagine a future where many more professionals from different disciplines know how to code. For example, mechanical engineers, biologists, economists, journalists, all should know python. Tools like jupiter notebook, online REPLs, serverless etc, become even better making the job of a coder almost irrelevant in some cases. Do you believe coding will become just a tool that professionals use to build things around their domain knowledge? Do you have or do you wish you had specific knowledge on something outside of coding so that you can take advantage of your coding skills to build useful things?

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I think coding is already a tool for professionals to build things around their domain knowledge --- and this is already since 40 years, when the first programmable desk calculators came. BASIC was an enabler technology for scientists to programmatically approach their domain. Engineers, physicists, chemicists, etc could use it well without studying CS. In some way, a modern Jupiter notebook is just the equivalent of an average 1970s BASIC calculator with attached plotter device.

Where do we go? There always have been the frontiers of computing, this is where CS sepcialists are required. The old saying, that an IT guy works hard on making his own position superfluous, has always been a bit true in some sense. I don't think that's bad at all.

I which computer scientists would be aware of their competences but could acknowledge that they never gain as much domain specific knowledge as the experts they work together with. I've seen quite some computer science guys who thought of themselves like they could replace everybody. That's not quite true.

We’ve worked quite a bit with this in the public sector where programmers are hard to come by. Basically we’d like to train the regular business to do things like data analysis, RPA and basic work-flow forms in drag-and-drop tools.

But it’s proven almost impossible to achieve it because people just don’t get it. We’re talking about PHDs in economics who can’t wrap their heads around a for loop.

I’m sure they could learn if you gave them enough time, but no one is going to do that.

A programmers job is more about discovering what's needed to solve a problem and working out an effective and efficient way of translating that in to logic than implementing it in code. Code is the least interesting or challenging part of the whole thing.

The jack of two trades is the master of none. Yes, other disciplines will inevitably learn to code out of sheer necessity but it will be a secondary skillset for them. They will not have the depth of knowledge of software development and the inner workings of computers that a dedicated software engineer would and their code will mostly be at the level of a one-off or prototype.

Software engineers will still be around as the people who will take code from other professionals and work with them to turn it from a prototype into a production ready codebase. That means unit tests, fixing performance issues, building in security, building proper UI/UX, adding things necessary for regulatory compliance (e.g. accessibility, GDPR, etc.) and so forth.

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