Why Non-Coders Shouldn't Write Code

jfruh writes "Software firm FreeCause made a bit of a splash with a policy that requires all its employees — including marketers, finance, etc. — to write JavaScript code. And not just 'code to learn basics of what JavaScript can do,' but 'write code that will be used in production.' Phil Johnson, a tech writer and editor who himself once coded for a living, thinks this is nuts, a recipe for miserable workers and substandard code."

Comments

Marketing guy's function

[crazyjj]

function MarketingFunction(originalText)
{
var revisedText = new String(originalText + ", which will help build synergy and increase marketshare.");
return revisedText;
}

Re:Marketing guy's function

[olsmeister]

Or just use the Corporate BS Generator.
Or, alternatively, here.

Re:Marketing guy's function

[Scott Swezey]

The other side of the coin... why non marketing guys shouldn't write marketing materials:

function MarketingFunction(originalText)
{
var revisedText = new String(originalText + ", which will help build synergy and increase marketshare.");
return revisedText;
}

Re:Marketing guy's function

[RenderSeven]

Hardly a fair comparison. No one in sales/marketing/management could pass a Turing test to begin with.

Re:Marketing guy's function

[CanHasDIY]

do you think the marketing exec could pass the Turing test?

Well, perhaps, if not for the satanic ritual that's part of graduating from marketing school, during which the individual's soul and humanity are removed and replaced with tapioca pudding.

Before you ask, it's obviously because tapioca is the most evil of all puddings.

Re:Marketing guy's function

[SomeJoel]

What if your targeted market is IT professionals?

Then you have a failed business model since IT professionals, as a rule, have no budget.

Re:Marketing guy's function

[cowdung]

Or just use the Corporate BS Generator.
Or, alternatively, here.

I prefer this site for my Corporate BS. Thanks.

Appreciation Exercise

[nurb432]

It will at least give the non coders an appreciation of what is being done.

Now, they need to take the coders and make them do sales for a day.. finance go clean trash for an afternoon.. .etc etc.

Re:Appreciation Exercise

[Chemisor]

Every cook has to learn how to govern the state.
        - Vladimir Lenin

In the early days of the Soviet Union it was a very popular idea that there should be no specialization in work. No man should have to do the same thing over and over every day of his life. Jobs should be changed regularly to keep the worker interested and motivated.

Re:Appreciation Exercise

[CanHasDIY]

At the same you complain that Marketing people look down on you. But your job is important right? You're better then janitor right?

Huh? I used to be a janitor, fella, and I can tell you, the people who spend their careers cleaning up your shit so you don't have to are some pretty fucking awesome people.

Here's a word of advice - your pay scale does not, in any way, reflect what kind of person you are. One look into any boardroom in this nation is all one needs to know that most of the people who take home the lion's share are complete, abject pieces of shit. Hell, nevermind looking at them, just look at how much they pay themselves to do virtually nothing, compared to how much they pay the people who actually make their money for them.

You want marketing people to respect you, but you don't respect them, or people that make your work comfrtable.

I couldn't give a shit less what 'marketing people' or anyone else thinks of me, Chief. Spending your entire life trying to live up to other people's expectations of you is no way to live.

Re:Appreciation Exercise

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have hated to get heart surgery from one of their doctors.

I see nothing wrong with this

[Sparticus789]

While they are at it, perhaps their accounting department should replace the plumbing in their office building, the secretaries should swap the engine in the CEO's car, and let's have the janitors install a new security system. What could possibly go wrong?

Everyone needs to start somewhere

[davidwr]

We were all non-coders once.

Saying non-coders shouldn't write code is like saying non-writers shouldn't write.

How about: Don't expect consistently professional-quality code from inexperienced coders.

Re:Everyone needs to start somewhere

[mykepredko]

Back in the '80s, IBM Canada gave a number of employees the chance to learn how to write code after being told that they didn't have any other skills that the company required. If you wanted to stay employed by IBM, you had to take a two year course which was actually quite substantial (covering assembly language, PL/1 (which was the language of choice at IBM back then), databases, and the usual IBM system stuff like JCL) and was administered by Ryerson (which was a polytechnic, not a University then).

A surprising number of people graduated the course - I seem to remember that it was 80% or more - and went on a new career path coding in the Toronto Lab.

So learning to program because your employer requires it is not necessarily a bad thing for both the company and the employee.

myke

Geekcentric Nonsense

[fm6]

Back in the 60s Robert Townsend was brought in to turn around a dying Avis Rent-a-Car. He decreed that everybody spend some time working a rental counter so they would understand the activity that was at the core of the business. He was very amused by the experience of his chief programmer, who fled in panic upon seeing his first customer!

That was appreciation. This is geekcentric nonsense. The CEO doesn't just want everybody to better understand the coding, he actually thinks everybody can contribute to the codebase in an ongoing fashion. This is the classic geek fallacy of "everybody's brain works just like mine."

Scott Adams did.

[Medievalist]

He didn't just spout computer-generated buzzwords on the phone, though, he actually put on a fake mustache and physically attended a meeting - spouting total drivel. Nobody noticed until he started drawing Dilbert cartoons on the blackboard!

http://www.tealdragon.net/humor/articles/dil-hoax.htm