Codecademy Surges To 200,000 Users, 2.1 Million Lessons Completed In 72 Hours

The coding job salaries and the barriers to entry have been driven down for years via outsourcing, the easy-to-write mobile frameworks, and other factors like downturns in the first-world economies combined with a glut of CS students that were chasing the previous wave.

There's always going to be value in really knowing what you are doing across the full stack, and that is not going to be killed off next year with tutorials.

I share the excitement with having more people in the field, which will help drive it forward. But your glee in programmers "getting what's coming to them" (my words, not yours) is odd.

MIT (and I assume other top CS schools) doesn't teach coding 'skills' (6.00 aside, and its not required for a cs degree, or the first two weeks of 6.005), but instead teaches you knowledge about how to solve problems that a coder will encounter while... coding... IMHO, thats what the salaries are for.

That said, lowering the barrier to code also means lowering the barrier to encountering these types of problems, thus hopefully making more/better solutions. The more the merrier!

I've heard this argument in a variety of professions--that an influx of new talent is going to destroy things for the incumbents. The part people don't get, is that the reason these fields become exciting is because demand is widely expected to increase and therefore more people take that as a signal to get into the field.

So, millions of people are going to get into programming as demand increases by the equivalent supply of millions of people. Prices, if anything, will stay the same or go up. And yet still, there is a wide difference in wages between 1st world and 2nd, 3rd world devs. As far as I can tell, there isn't a particular difference in talent, so I suppose there's some artificiality built in there.

In any case, I think things like code academy are great, I'd urge more people to learn to program, it's a great skill.

I applaud your enthusiasm, and while I look forward to a future where some degree of logical reasoning and programming skills are commonplace, looking around at a world where it's rare to find a human who is literate with their own spoken and written language, I have no fear of my programming skills becoming common.

Learning a few basics of syntax is one thing, but learning to actually develop software is a skill that is not entirely common even within the subset of mathematically and logically inclined people who are currently programmers.

Programming is becoming more complicated over time. The increase in complexity will offset the increased availability of basic literacy. We see this in Law as well. Though most people can read and write the language of Law, they do not understand the implications of what they read and would write. Similarly, though someone may read and write code, they may not understand the implications of what they do. Same for scriptwriters or novelists.

Programming is as singular a profession as "writing" is a singular profession; instead of the future you seem to imagine, I foresee something else entirely.

Just as there are lawyers, scriptwriters, journalists, novelists, biographers, bloggers and tweeters, so too will there be an increased societal understanding of the differentiation already happening within code-writing. Embedded, Systems, Application, UX.

Further, programming (like law) is a profession whose mastery requires an understanding of an ever-increasingly complicated system. While there is a glut of fresh law grads, there is also high demand for lawyers with niche skill sets.

In short, yes. Low-end programmers will continue to get paid less but high-end programmers will probably get paid more, and there will be more of them, but not as a percentage of all programmers (but as a percentage of the population as a whole.) Also, more people will program as an adjunct to their existing responsibilities.

'Programmers' solve problems, using code. They don't just write code. I expect the world will be full of problems for some time to come. :-)

Hah. I won't downvote you...but you're wrong. I remember when people were telling me that web designers wouldn't have a job because everyone could just use Microsoft Frontpage.

Coding takes effort. Really good coding takes smarts + effort. An awesome application takes effort, smarts, a great idea, luck, good design, lots of time, etc. Codecademy should be encouraged because it gets people an entry point to developing, but I suspect you're underestimating the effort required to produce Call of Duty or Google Docs.

The day someone can code as well as me and my fellow computer science graduates for <= $10 / hour will be a great day (if it ever arrives) - I'd be happy to code alongside a team of a couple of people on a new startup idea (or hire a few at $10 an hour for my own startup).

Codecademy and similar stuff are great for strong programmers.

Why?

Strong programmers doesn't compete with weak programmers. The stuff they can do, and the speed they work is at a totally different level. see the 1000X productivity debate.And it does take years of training to stop being a weak programmer.

To strong programmers, codecademy(and similar tools) will open a lot of opportunities.It would be easier for them to collaborate with business and domain experts.It would be easier to talk with domain experts, easier to prototype and domain experts could offer more help in the development process which will help building partnerships.Those collaborations would open many new collaboration opportunities , and business opportunities.

Soon!

What about "text console"? That'd give a hint.

The problem is that concrete skills are only a small part of learning. This sort of approach is great for teaching kids to pass math tests, but less great at turning kids into mathematicians.

I hope you include the subtle parts that help make it viral. For example, a media button that posts to friends: <Happy Programmer picture> "The Khan Academy of programming, try it!"

Who says it will die down?