A simple way to "get more people to code"

After 25+ years of coding and reading other people's code I would submit that the REAL problem is that the people who do code don't do it very well, some are downright stupid.

There are a lot of people out there who will never be able to produce anything beyond "Hello World" and some will struggle to get that far.

What if we focused early on identifying kids with good problem solving skill and other aptitudes that might make them good programmers and encouraged them to explore those areas. What if we did that for every discipline?

No, that would mean taking an interest in kids instead of just herding them into classrooms where they can be safely ignored until they're 18. Let's keep doing that.

This piece is genius. For those who don't get it, it's dripping in sarcasm. Not to say that the author doesn't think it would work (he may have some misgivings about just throwing money at developers), but that he's calling bullshit on the motives of those talking about "learn to code."

People are paid in more than just money. There's job security, interesting work, autonomy, and (more motivating than people think) social status. The vast majority of developers don't have anything but money, and frankly a lot of them don't even have money!

There are things more important than writing code (even good, well-engineered code aimed at solving real problems). There's: playing with your dog, going for a run, spending time with your family, and going out for a night with friends. People have chosen all these things over learning to code. Let them.

Is it not a BIG RED FLAG that the prime message is "Everyone should learn to code...well, everyone but me, anyway."?

"If there's a shortage of programmers, we could pay programmers more money." - the idea is driving salaries down, unfortunately. Even Apple who happens to own the largest hedge fund in the world, was trying to keep salary level constant by entering the illegal agreement with Google et al.

Exactly right:

Tech companies wish to encourage people into code primarily in order to reduce their wage bill.

Zuckerberg and Gates are not credible authorities here.

"Companies could increase the representation of younger people in programming by paying extra money to programmers below a certain age."

With ageism being considered "natural", what about giving incentive for old developers to keep coding instead ?

I wonder if he doesn't realize companies are just always claiming a shortage so that they can import more cheaper H1B workers rather than hire domestic...

There is not a shortage of programmers, there is a shortage of inexpensive programmers.

I believe the "get more people to code" movement wasn't about "we need more programmers". It was about what Alan Kay might call "digital literacy".

We're told that the software profession must be made more accessible, and that programming should be taught to all children. Great, I agree. No child without the command line!

Let's also consider another industry: cars. Car ownership per capita in the US is greater than the rate of households with Internet access -- 0.769 versus 0.748. [1,2] So professions related to cars have greater impact on people's lives, on average, than professions related to computers.

Furthermore, most car owners would agree that maintenance is expensive, very expensive. Not to mention the fact that most mechanics are men. Nobody has proposed that everyone should be a mechanic, let alone a mechanical engineer. The President has not called for more mechanics, more women mechanics, or for relaxed visa requirements for foreign mechanics. These things would be seen as ridiculous.

Until programmers form a regulated professional body, with its own lobby, they will continue to be singled out by the various lobbies of the IT and social justice industries (strange allies).

[1] 240 million car owners in a population of 312 million, in 2011. http://wardsauto.com/ar/world_vehicle_population_110815

[2] 74.8% in 2012. https://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/publications/2012.html

It is a real problem in Germany where IT market has 0% of programmers' unemployment, so they introduced Blue cards welcoming programmers from Eastern Europe. And it helps them, they get the workforce of moderate price, ready to learn and speak German. Their work language is English. So if it was a Real problem in the US, they would do the same. So far, it seems like another buzz.

I agree that money is the solution to such problems, however reducing the incentive once enough programmers have entered the workforce would compel people to leave the field and do something else. If it was known that this reduction would come, it's likely that it might not have a positive effect on programmers and many people would not necessarily pursue a career in the field.

Also, one has to take into account that most people will just not cut it as programmers, no matter how much time or even practice they may put in.

I would rather see developers in the community focus more effort into already existing libraries/frameworks and making them easier to install/setup/build an MVP.

This is an understandable way to look at the problem, but I think it's largely wrong. You need to capture minds while they're still very open to learning. People are locking themselves into career paths by the time they graduate college, at least in America. Student loans means getting a second degree in something you rather do is largely impossible since you have to start paying down your debt when you graduate. A higher-paying job sounds great, but when it'll take an extra $400/month in debt for the next 10 years, it's pretty hard to justify. This leads to thinking "Huh, let's engage minds earlier".

Most people in high school aren't thinking super-hard about their careers. They're thinking about school and college. Even then, kids learn about "big" achievements - RNA, species classification, electron shells, WW2, White House scandals, etc. You're aspiring to be someone if you're in an area where you have scholastic resources, not just some programmer. You're not looking so hard at money. If you're in an impoverished area where graduation rates are abysmal and you're not even being taught science, the odds of being a professional athlete or pop star look about the same as going to college - a whole different set of challenges. Let's assume we're talking about high schools with resources to even have computer classes.

Paying more money doesn't make it a sexy profession - there are plenty of "famous" programmers that the HN crowd knows about, but none of their achievements are public. Creating a business like Amazon or Facebook doesn't have the same personal allure to most people like inventing a vaccine for polio does. I bet if you asked a classroom of high schoolers who Jeff Bezos is, 85% of the room would have no idea. There's no _personal glory_ to being a programmer.

With law, you can help people's lives directly - same with being a doctor. There's a social value to those professions that seems obvious and immediate (even though it might be far from the truth). Most people want to do good in the world, and being a programmer has no obvious correlation with that. It doesn't entice students because there's no history written about programmers, no scientific experiments you do in classroom, no math taught that correlates with programming. It's in academic isolation until college, and by then, it's too late.

I think that all this "get people to code" movement is bullshit. If you like programming you are going to do it no matter what. For some years I was without a computer, but I still managed to program in my smartphone. I will always like programming regardless of the outcome. If one day I become successful because of this great. If not at least I lived my life the way I like.

I think there's some moral issues in taking taxes from people who earn $40k and giving them to people who earn $100k.

Anyway, I think the issue of "not enough programers" is different to "not enough people can code." To keep beating the old writing analogy. One is "not enough scribes" and the other is "not enough literacy." At some point in history professional writing and literacy stopped being substitutes for one another.

Normal literate people didn't compete with novelists. Or looking at it another way, printing presses and literate public completely removed the need for scribes and (I think not coincidentally) we got lot more writers shortly after: novelists, pamphleteers and scholars.

So nurses who can code will not replace the programmers who wrote healthcare.gov but they might do different useful things.

Let's get "more people to code well" first. Then let's get companies to compensate their employees fairly (i.e. more proportional to the amount of cash they generate with their if and for loops). Then maybe we can start thinking about enrolling more people in the game.

One idea that comes to mind is the creation of a website with a list of problems that could be solved by coding, if someone would step up and do it. Regular citizens that are impacted by these issues would perhaps think they have a shot at solving a real problem for them, by coding something.

The main point is, some people might not be interested in coding just for the sake of it...

Is there such a list? Social hacks? Coding for change? What resources I could show a fellow citizen to get him/her fired up about coding?

One of the suggested solutions is for companies to raise wages. As far as I know, these companies already pay high five-figures for new, full-time employees.

Asking the government to create more coders seems like a good idea until you realize that our government doesn't 'know how to code'. Who would validate the code being submitted for benefits was good? That the children were learning? I realize this proposal is slightly humorous, but that was my first thought.

This is flawed in its effects. While it may result in more coders, they will be concentrated in the areas with the available money to pay them more. I'd argue that this is very similar to what we are doing already. Programming is chasing the money and not the most pressing problems.

Maybe we should also pay people to study math as well. [$10] for each Khan Academy lesson they pass. It'd cost ~$2,500 to educate one person on the entire math curriculum.

I think it's plausible, in the future, we will be paying people to learn.

This is a rather forceful and coercive way to solve this (alleged) problem. I'd expect to see lots of mediocre labor pop up as a result.

Code is a tool. We don't want more people to code, we want more people to make cool new things and automate.

"Like all brilliant ideas, my solution is simple". Too modest.

Programmers already get paid more than most people. You're proposing a solution which has already been tried.