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Comment by schoen | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about the use of the terminology "code/coding/coder" as distinct from "programming/programmer".

I've noticed that a lot of recent programming outreach and education efforts consistently use "learn to code" instead of "learn to program". How come? What connotations do they perceive? Are they intending to refer to a broader set of activities (including document markup, which I wouldn't refer to as programming)? Do they think that some audiences find the term "programming" to have negative connotations that aren't present for "coding"?

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Some use of "coding" is simply for text and syllable brevity.

Also thanks to its relatively new household term status, it doesn't carry as much of the pre-internet 80s/90s imagery of nocturnal bearded men doing arcane systems programming through a CRT. The average non-tech office worker in the 80s had some kind of experience with an oddball programmer coming in for an assignment and leaving with a check in hand. As a child of the 90s, that impression even trickled down to me. Partly due to my father sharing his past workplace experiences, but mostly due to the exaggeration of television, movies, and early internet culture.

"Coding" is more cleanly associated with the new wave of engineers, entrepreneurs, apps, and games visible to young people in popular media.

It seems irrational, and it is, but that is language and life.

It's to devalue the profession. Instead of a 'software developer" or even "programmer," now you're just a "coder" or even a "code monkey."

All of these initiatives that claim to want to make programming more accessible, even though it is already extremely accessible in that it doesn't require a degree or licensing and there are a wealth of free tools, books, and other information available online now to get started with, are really intended to change the public's perception of programming from a highly-technical, white collar career to a low-skill trade that is easy and that anyone can do so they can flood the job market with sub-par applicants and drive down wages.

I remember seeing some statistical evidence that women in particular are more responsive to ads to 'learn to code' than 'learn to program'[1], which would ring true with my personal experience where I notice I often describe myself as 'learning to code' rather than to program.

[1] But I can't remember where I saw it and googling hasn't helped me to find it... :/

That's interesting; did anyone have suggestions about why that should be so?

Maybe it's just that code is a shorter word, which makes for snappier titles for initiatives and whatnot. Then that carries over to the surrounding discussion about it.

"Coding" is using a computer language to create software.

"Programming" is a superset of that, and includes planning and psuedocodes and etc.

As an example of that use see "Jackson Structured Programming" which spends a lot of time drawing little boxes and includes coding right at the end.

Do you ever write code without doing any planning?

No, I never write code without doing the programming first. Coding is converting the planning into whatever language you're using.

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