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Comment by adoxyz | Hacker News Reader

The craze from 2019-2022 where "Learn to code" was parroted by everyone everywhere had to end somewhere.

A few 100 top companies are laying off while a few million IT companies are in full swing with their hiring. So if IT means these top companies for you, yea, maybe, else nothing is ending. Everything is alive and kicking.

The craze was more like that everyone had to get a job in tech. Knowing a little bit how to code is important but those tutorials went over the board

What does one have to do with the other? Almost no matter what your field, if your job involves sitting at a desk in front of computer for more than 10-20 hours a week, your job performance can probably benefit from knowing a bit of coding. And that is only going to be more true going forwards.

Because "learn to code" carries a hidden clause which is "learn to code, so you can get a job as a programmer". That's different from "learn to code, so you can automate some little tasks you do daily as part of your current job and make your life easier".

Tomato, tomato.

In theory there should be no such thing as a "programmer," programming should be a natural part of any white collar job that people use to automate their work and improve their workflow.

But since programming skills are so scarce, if you can code it makes sense to specialize in software development so you can make the biggest impact and maximize your income.

I still think nearly everyone should learn to code. That is not why these layoffs are happening.

I think nearly everyone should learn how to manage their virtual environment on a technical level but idk about full on coding. Just being able to attach documents to an email or wrangle proper MFA and/or password management would be a godsend.

But now GPT can code. It’s possible the narrative is changing.

I’m NOT saying that software engineers are getting replaced, but the kinds of things you learn in a boot camp, gluing APIs together and searching StackOverflow for code snippets, seems like it’s on more shaky ground than a few years ago.

It was already on enormously shaky ground a few years ago.

You should still learn to code, even if you're not in a programming job. It's just basic literacy, like being able to write a competent 5 paragraph essay. It doesn't mean you're going to write books for a living.

Everyone should also have a solid grasp of calculus, freshman physics and Maxwell's equations, comparative history, various forms of government, multiple models of ethics and the reasoning used to reach them, media and manipulation literacy, logistics management, and preferably a second or third language.

In short, everyone should have a classical four-year liberal arts education.

Now, excuse me while I ignore what I should do, and focus on what puts food on the table. And, unfortunately, CMPT-101 programming skills aren't going to be it - ChatGPT can do that work better and cheaper than a 'basic level' human can, just like it can produce a five-paragraph essay better than a grade school child can.

If you're going to learn programming, you're going to need to learn it to the point where you're better at it than a dumb LLM. And that bar is significantly higher than 'basic knowledge' or even 'working knowledge'.

Nobody cares about my rusty Grade 8 French skills, or my crappy hand-stitching skills in a world when Google Translate and sewing machines exist.

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