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Forget 6-Minute Abs: Learn To Code In a Day

Posted by timothy on from the which-day-is-the-question dept.

whyloginwhysubscribe writes "The usually excellent BBC 'Click' programme has an article on 'Why computer code is the new language to learn' — which features a company in London who offer courses on learning to code in a day. The BBC clip has an interesting interview with a marketing director who, it seems to me, is going to go back and tell his programmers to speed up because otherwise he could do it himself! Decoded.co's testimonials page is particularly funny: 'I really feel like I could talk credibly to a coder, given we can now actually speak the same language.'"

10 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. language != logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Writing code has little to do with "grammar" and more to do with logic. I wonder, how do you teach that in a day?

    1. Re:language != logic by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Incidentally, why doing you programmers just prove that your algorithms will never hang before shipping code? Are you lazy or something?

      Few programmers are computer scientists, just as few slashdot users being grammarians.

    2. Re:language != logic by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a course in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Javascript is the only one of the three that is an actual programming language, they aren't teaching people how to program. They're teaching people how those three languages interact to create a web page. It actually seems like a pretty useful course for developers who work in any company that produces online products to send their marketing and sales teams to, so that those teams can at least get a glimpse about how these things work just so that they have a better understanding of what they're asking us to do. Or, so that they have more of an idea of what's possible. The #1 question I'm asked is "is it possible to..." Yes, it's possible, it's always possible, it's a question of time and money. I don't know how many times I have to answer that question before people realize they can just skip straight to the second question ("what does it take to do it"). A class like this may clue them in.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    3. Re:language != logic by DJRumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they teach the fundamentals of HTML, CSS and Javascript, not the entire language (or markup as the case may be). Unless someone has perfect recall, and a thorough understanding of coding structures, there is no way you could possibly teach them to code well in an hour.

      You CAN teach someone basic coding fundamentals, some basic structures, and where the index is on their 'coding for dummies' book, but hoping for some to spit out a complex, complete program after an hour of teaching is not realistic in any sense of the word.

      "Hello World" yes. Beyond that? Not so much...

  2. A little knowledge... by CadentOrange · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... is a dangerous thing! I can just see bosses putting more pressure on coders to "get the job done now!" and then failing to understand why code takes so long to be delivered.

    1. Re:A little knowledge... by iamgnat · · Score: 5, Funny

      If coding can be learned in a day, why do we have people who suck so badly at it?

      Because they learned it in a day?

  3. More accurate title for the training by bjdevil66 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Learn how to really piss off real developers in a day.

  4. Mandatory Code Monkey quote by ashshy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
    Code Monkey not say it out loud
    Code Monkey not crazy, just proud

    --
    #o#
    O Moo.
  5. Excellent comparison with spoken language by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The similarity with spoken language is uncanny.

    Much as I can teach you "beer please?" and "where's the bathroom?" and "my /. UID is lower than yours" in spanish in about a day, I can probably teach you the crudest basics of any programming language in about a day.

    I'm told that learning your 2nd 3rd 4th spoken language gets easier, every time you learn one you learn the next easier. Programming languages are certainly like that.

    Even the epic overconfidence is similar. "I know how to ask for a beer in Spanish, I'm now fully qualified, lets book our flight to Spain!"

    Also the teasing is similar. Sure kid, that "O(n^n^n) algorithm is perfectly scalable, you just roll that right out into production, testing in for wussies anyway" is the computer equivalent of teaching a noob that the foreign equivalent of "nice rack, wanna F" actually translates in English to "thank you"

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  6. WARNING: Chess Analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole point of the class appears to be able to help people relate to the technicians that run their infrastructure. In the broadcast, the students learn how to use a GPS Java API along with very rudimentary HTML, and CSS. I have done that in a single 2 hour class. That makes them about as qualified to program as this /. post makes me qualified to write a sequel to Lord of the Rings.

    You can teach someone the rules of Chess in a day, yet it takes years to master the game. Programming is the same. I can teach the syntax of HTML, CSS, and basic Java in a day (just like the BBC broadcast depicted), but the student will not know how to properly utilize the logic for years. Good luck with recursion, overloading functions, vulnerability testing, and many other concepts.