Why Learning To Code Won't Save Your Job (fastcompany.com)

Over the years, several governments and organizations have become increasingly focused on teaching kids how to code. It has given rise to startups such as Codecademy, KhanAcademy and Code.org that are making it easier and more affordable for many to learn how to program. Many believe that becoming literate in code is as essential as being educated in language, science, and math. But can this guarantee you a job? And can coding help you save that job? An anonymous reader cites an interesting article on Fast Company which sheds more light into this: Looking for job security in the knowledge economy? Just learn to code. At least, that's what we've been telling young professionals and mid-career workers alike who want to hack it in the modern workforce. Unfortunately, many have already learned the hard way that even the best coding chops have their limits. More and more, 'learn to code' is looking like bad advice. Anyone competent in languages such as Python, Java, or even Web coding like HTML and CSS, is currently in high demand by businesses that are still just gearing up for the digital marketplace. However, as coding becomes more commonplace, particularly in developing nations like India, we find a lot of that work is being assigned piecemeal by computerized services such as Upwork to low-paid workers in digital sweatshops. This trend is bound to increase.

Comments

Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Design will be done in the industrialized nations while the coding and engineering will be outsourced to the poor countries. As well as the manufacturing.

India alone is pumping out 1.5 million engineers every year.

There are some massive changes coming down the pike and we'd better adjust and be creative.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

And by engineers you mean two years of tech school that they call a Institute or a University and they write horrible code they doesn't do what is needed. I'm not saying that there are not incredibly talented Indian engineers, but they are not anymore common than what you in other countries.

Re:Design

[Z00L00K]

To know how to design you need to know how to code. Otherwise you will end up with horrible designs because the designer don't know the abilities and shortcomings of the platform they design for.

But coding alone doesn't make you useful, it's knowing the business for what you design and code for that makes you useful.

Re: Design

[umghhh]

Material for good engineers is as common in India as in other places with fresh water, sanitation, electricity and public schools that is there is not much of it available and you get what you pay for - almost always that is if you outsource , searching for cheap only, you will get cheap. Sometimes it works sometimes it does not. You need a complex job done you need a team of people that speak common language. This is even rarer.
Fortunately we are approaching situation especially simple cohders are not as needed as they used to be.
No worry tho - there is always an option of becoming a taxi driver ooooooooops damned google so nail painter then...

Re: Design

[jonnyj]

It's generally more efficient for design and execution to happen close together. If coding moves to India, watch the design work follow shortly afterward.

On the other hand, most code is written to be used, not sold. We're a smallish financial institution, and we have an in-house software development group the gives us a key competitive advantage over the industry's behemoths. Putting developers in the same office as business users shortens development times, improves the quality of deliverables and increases flexibility.

If programmer productivity doubled, we'd probably hire more developers, not fewer, as the cost-benefit of various projects would improve.

Whatever the Twitterati say, we will continue to need a steady supply of high quality, intelligent, adaptable, proactive IT professionals for the foreseeable future.

Re:Design

[guruevi]

Design has nothing to do with code. A good coder can code any design as good or bad as it is. Designers should be programmers that are so good they can see the whole project but typically designers these days are the managerial types that have no idea what they want to begin with. They then outsource the design and get what they asked for, in those terms outsourcing to India is cheaper.

The problem comes in when what they want is not aligned with what they say they need or are so dense in what they work up that it is a bundle of generic ideas that change interpretation every week, for that you need coders or at least a leading team that knows what the business needs and that's what makes for "good" coders. There are as much good coders in India as the US, that has to do with inherent talent of an individual. But if bottom of the barrel is all your company pays for, they get that in either country, just cheaper over there.

  An external company is tied to contracts and paperwork so design specifications can't just change without a lot of money changing hands every time, so in the end outsourcing will be cheaper because the shit ideas gets them just that. But in the long term as every change has to be paid for after the initial contract, they will spend increasing amounts until they either fail as a company or realize their mistake 5-10y down the line.

Manufacturing companies already learned that. They outsourced to China and got their ideas stolen and their products counterfeited. I worked for one of those companies during the time they realized a factory in the same city had hired all their staff and their production facility was left abandoned. A lot of them already (especially smaller ones) are now reverting production back to the US. It was an expensive mistake for a lot of them, they lost their talent and some even failed. But there is a resurgence in my area of smaller production facilities now taking orders from the bigger companies they once worked for.

Re: Design

[AchilleTalon]

False, moving design where coding is done doesn't improve anything. The design is more tightly coupled to the business processes and needs than to the coding. The design is what makes the software useful in the way the business needs it. If you move the design off-shore, you decouple it from the business, unless you move the business as well off-shore. However, moving the business off-shore decouples it from its customers.

Re: Design

[Billly Gates]

If I read advice here from 2005 most Slashdoters thought there would be 0 IT jobs here by now.

Guess what? We are still employed and get paid alot!

The only jobs are non important entry level work. Any Indian who knows his shit is here on h1b1 visa making the same. Yes same as senior engineer because of his skillset.

Once you pull in 3 years you go visa and work 2 more. After 5 you are no longer cheap.

Employers found a steal in 1999 but that went away in 2016. The cheap talented worker is rare indeed.

Re: Design

[Billly Gates]

But but look at the excel spreadsheet! Half the costs??!

Re:Design

[plopez]

I prefer the Disney her to "engineers", "imagineers". as in "Imagine if I could get this code to work".

Re:Design

[Anonymous Coward]

There are multiple ways to end up at the same solution.
"For" vs "While" is a simple example of a design choice.
Design is inherently part of coding.
The rest of your comment rambles on about other things.
Your thinking is messy and wrong.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

93% of communication is non-verbal(tonal 38% and body language 55%, which differs by culture) and 60% of knowledge cannot be communicated because it is too nuanced for natural language to handle. You can write all of the documentation you want, but you'll at best communicate 10%-50% of the 40% that you can communicate, and probably miss-communicate a larger portion if working with people from another culture. The best projects are analyzed, architected, designed, and coded by the same team who have domain expereience.

Re: Design

[jonnyj]

93% of communication is non-verbal(tonal 38% and body language 55%, which differs by culture) and 60% of knowledge cannot be communicated because it is too nuanced for natural language to handle. You can write all of the documentation you want, but you'll at best communicate 10%-50% of the 40% that you can communicate, and probably miss-communicate a larger portion if working with people from another culture. The best projects are analyzed, architected, designed, and coded by the same team who have domain expereience.

Which was exactly the point that I was trying to make. I suspect that offshoring of coding has reached its peak: it's impractical for very many projects.

Re:Design

[gweihir]

Indeed. The main reason I code these days is that my architectures and designs would be way more expensive to describe on the level needed to have somebody else implement them than to implement them myself (at full consulting rates). Another reason is that they are mostly C and some Python (often with embedded C modules), and that is something basically nobody that learned to code just to get a job is capable of handling.

Make no mistake: If you are a really good coder (hint: if you are just a coder in one or two languages and do not have solid algorithm, datastructure, system-administration, network and writing skills, you do not qualify), you professional future is bright, even if you are probably going to do more architecture and design than coding. But all these "instant" coders will just be as out of demand as they are in their current profession.

Re:Design

[tnk1]

A designer is someone who understands the requirements well enough so that they get translated into reality. That can benefit from being a very experienced coder, but there are many cases where you need to know more than simply how to code. Design and code are complimentary, but different skills. I don't think you have to be a coder to be a designer, although I think you will be better off if you have a designer who is a good coder as well. What should happen is that one picks the hybrid over the dedicated designer unless the hybrid individual actually has higher design skills than the dedicated designer. Design is too important to leave in the hands of someone who is merely a gifted coder.

Re:Design

[gweihir]

I fully agree. That is why I keep doing some coding work. Otherwise, after 5 years or so, your designs begins to be disconnected from reality. And there are enough opportunities to do it on the side or as part of a larger job. Outsourcing, say, 10 days of coding to India does not make sense.

Re:Design

[gweihir]

I agree that design and coding is different. I also agree that the only way to get a good design is when you know coding on a level that you could code that design well. If people without such skills do designs, you often end up having to guess what they meant and having to re-do the design.

Re: Design

[gweihir]

Have you seen code coming from India? No smart Indian engineer is working in outsourcing there and many of the smar ones leave the country to work someplace else. That means only the inexperienced and the not-smart ones do outsourcing work. Coding there is already an almost unmitigated disaster, having these people do design can only result in utter failure.

Re:Design

[vilanye]

for vs while is a decision that is made because of the code. Need to iterate N times? for loop.

Don't know how many times a loop needs to execute? while loop.

These aren't the sort of decisions that are made by "software designers", nor should they.

They work at a much higher level.

Re:Design

[Z00L00K]

3 days of coding at home or 3 weeks of coding in India yields the same result. This because people in India don't have a clue about why we in the western world do some things that are natural to us but unknown to them.

I want a snowflake to be displayed in the instrument cluster when it's between +4 degrees C and -4 degrees C. It's logical to anyone living where snow and ice appears every year. But to explain why that's wanted to someone in India can take a few hours.

Re:Design

[Z00L00K]

That's like saying that designing a house as an architect doesn't have anything to do with knowledge of building materials and how they are used.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

The engineers who will be ahead of line in front of most people because they are cheap. The managers hiring them don't see the crummy work, and just assume it is just a shitty department, similar to how shitty code is tolerated by customers.

Here in the US, there was this heavy push for diversity and racial quotas (i.e. anyone non-white.) Businesses discovered H-1Bs fill those quotas, not to mention that because H-1Bs will get deported after being fired, they will do anything (legal, illegal, moral, immortal) to keep their jobs, which gives the employer a bonus for employee loyalty.

So, that engineer mentioned by the parent AC may only have two years of tech school... but he will get your job because he is cheap and damn loyal.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen code coming from India?

Yes. It is to spec and works.

Please tell me where that is wrong?

Later this year, we're canning our entire American developer workforce and using Indians. We're doing a Disney and Abbot Labs.

That's how capitalism works. We lower our costs and sell dear.

Oh, people who can't afford our products? Not worried at all about that.

Spiraling down to the bottom is working great for us.

Re: Design

[RabidReindeer]

Who says anyone cares about talented? Cheap is what counts.

As for cheap talent being rare, ask the folks at Disney. Among other places.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Inkjet Nail Painter.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarcasm aside, when you mentioned "according to spec", that is exactly the problem executives fail to understand. Specification are notorious for being vague and subject to interpretation. When you add a cultural difference and a time lag, the quality of the software drops as the product produced fails to meet up to the product that was intended.

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

And then we europeans have to take over the coding done in the usa cos it is late and unreliable and very expensive... cos your developers charge by the day.

Re: Design

[gweihir]

To create a spec that a bad engineer can deliver a well-working product on is much more effort and much more difficult than to create the well-working product directly.

Re:Design

[Hognoxious]

Design has nothing to do with code. [...] Designers should be programmers

Yeah, the guru part of your name is totally justified.

Re: Design

[Hognoxious]

You reckon? I'd say it's about the same level.

However a bridge is equally useless whether it's the first span or the second that's down. Or indeed the third...

Re: Design

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a requirement of 90% line code coverage. And this is what was provided, exactly. The problem was that the unit tests took half an hour to exdcute and any code was passing the tests. Even code that threw exceptions. There were bigger problems also.

Re: Design

[Billly Gates]

Disney kept their senior IT staff.

Re: Design

[gweihir]

Hehehehe, nice. And they followed the letter of the contract, but not the spirit.

Good engineering cannot be formalized. It needs understanding, insight and experience on the part of the person doing it. That is why so much bad engineering is around these days, but software is by far the worst offender.

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

So I not only need to learn to code, but I also need to learn to speak hindi or chinesse

skills

[pr0nbot]

Learning to code at school isn't just about gaining employability, any more than physical education is about becoming a professional athlete.

An understanding of how to write software will teach skills around how to approach complex problems (decomposition, logical thinking, planning, separation of responsibilities, etc), how to troubleshoot systems (not just IT systems but other workflows), how to identify opportunities for optimisation and automation, and so on.

Re:skills

[EmeraldBot]

Learning to code at school isn't just about gaining employability, any more than physical education is about becoming a professional athlete.

An understanding of how to write software will teach skills around how to approach complex problems (decomposition, logical thinking, planning, separation of responsibilities, etc), how to troubleshoot systems (not just IT systems but other workflows), how to identify opportunities for optimisation and automation, and so on.

They didn't specifically mention in schools, more for people looking for a career, which could be upper high school or college as well. And, they're right - many people seem to get the impression that programming is an easy career that pays really well. If you're going to program, you have to put the same amount of effort into it as any other career, and I think that's what the point of the article is. It's much more competitive nowadays than the magical surveys suggest.

Re:skills

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing the USA to India is a dangerous thing indeed.

In India, things are so hierarchical that any decent programmer will quickly become a non-programmer. They view the development shop as a sweat shop of low level people. The better ones become team mangers, the better ones go up to manage multiple teams, become architects, etc. What you have left at the bottom is a lot of people who can code, but can't differentiate themselves beyond that.

In the USA, we have a history of engineering (even if most developers don't engineer). We invest (or perhaps I should say invested) in developing high quality workers. It is somewhat common for a high level skilled worker to equal his manager's pay (if not exceed it) due to his value and history.

What is insane is that we replace the highly skilled people with India's sweat shops, and then three years later we wind up with a mess.

My brother works in building management, as an analogy, when a large building is truly shutdown, you can't just go in a year or two later and open it up. It takes rehab that takes months, if not years. Getting one of these coding projects back online after the damage that some of these Indian shops do to it takes years, even with source code control, after all you can't remove the new features you've become dependent upon even if they are build on a pile of poorly placed Jenga blocks.

How do you know if you're in this state? How long does it take to "stabilize" your release? If stabilization is a major effort, you're code isn't quality.

Re: skills

[Anonymous Coward]

Didnt we just read yesterday that k-12 cs is going to be studies into diversity isdues in emojies?

Re:skills

[Anonymous Coward]

A really good post, beginning to end.

Re:skills

[Z00L00K]

The worst thing you probably can do is to use Simulink for coding.

Re:skills

[Anonymous Coward]

For a mid career person very little, even acquiring skills new skills, is going to be enough to save a job. Jobs are going away, and those who did not prepare by learning basics and not just memorizing stuff, is going to have a harder time finding a new job. If this were not the case we would still have typing pools and buggy whip manufacturers and film developing services. Go to the store now and they don't even need to pay someone to feed the film in the machines, it is self serve printing.

The job loss is software development has been pretty drastic. Once code is developed and the skill is formalized in code, there is no reason to pay anyone to do it over. It becomes a widget which a lower skilled cheaper person can use. When I was starting out, people still wrote web engines. Ms Office was actually worth the hundreds of dollar MS wanted for it. One could make money writing customized software for small business. Now all this is free and if one was only a code monkey with little ability to think and create, then obviously that job is likely gone, just as if you were a car mechanic that only knew how to fix carburetors. Like if all you can do is pass the MS certifications tests, that does not give you a lot of ability to solve novel problems.

So no, training often won't save a job, because the job is gone, but what we really should be talking about is work, and I think that coding can help an early career person. I have known plenty of mid 20 year old persons that went back to college or took some other risk and began a new career because they realized that a new group of high school students were graduating every year that could do what they did better. Or engineers that realized they are not good enough to keep ahead of the class of engineers that are graduating every year, so they go and do something else.

The real fallacy here is that once someone has a job we have a duty to give them that job, in the original form, until they die. That just leads to stifling of innovation and inefficiency. We see this in the current Uber situation. Sure cab companies have some reason to complain because Uber can discriminate at will, but cab companies are going to die if they don't innovate just to save jobs. And these are good jobs being replaced by mostly shitty jobs.

Re:skills

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the classes will be taught by education majors with zero skills and the kids will learn nothing

Re:skills

[mjwx]

Learning to code at school isn't just about gaining employability, any more than physical education is about becoming a professional athlete.

An understanding of how to write software will teach skills around how to approach complex problems (decomposition, logical thinking, planning, separation of responsibilities, etc), how to troubleshoot systems (not just IT systems but other workflows), how to identify opportunities for optimisation and automation, and so on.

Which is why it doesn't necessarily apply to the workplace. Whilst it may be beneficial for a sysadmin to learn a bit of code (DevOps jobs are going for stupid money here in London) for an accountant not so much. In fact it may be counter productive in some professions that aren't based solely on computing/mathematical logic, like marketing, medicine or law.

I honestly dont expect most kids to come out of school with any coding skills what so every. Definately not if they haven't done any extra curricular coding study. Schools here in England are looking at using IDE's like Ardublock, which is not a bad way to teach kids about coding in a fun way and will help build problem solving abilities which I think is a very good thing, we cant expect most kids to leave high school with any practical coding abilities.

Re:skills

[Anonymous Coward]

An understanding of how to write software will teach skills around how to approach complex problems (decomposition, logical thinking, planning, separation of responsibilities, etc)

Yet 80% of veteraned programmers have almost none of any of those abilities. The only ability most programmers have is to learn from mistakes, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of mistakes. They might not ever make the same mistake again in the same context, but no two contexts are alike, so they keep making the same mistakes because they think they're new issues.

You're mistaking people's experience for understanding. Understanding lets you predict, experience only lets you avoid that which you've seen before.

Re:skills

[gweihir]

And if you look at no-so advanced mathematics taught in school, it is blatantly obvious that most people cannot benefit from any coding "skills" at all, because they never learn them well enough. On the other hand, those capable and motivated (and both are critical to ever become a good coder) will teach themselves far better.

Teaching everybody to code is about as useful as teaching everybody to sing opera.

Re:skills

[uncqual]

How do you know if you're in this state? How long does it take to "stabilize" your release? If stabilization is a major effort, you're[sic] code isn't quality.

In large complex enterprise systems with multiple features being introduced, I've found that most of the stabilization effort goes to addressing design not coding quality. Usually during design, someone didn't think of or fully understand an interaction between components in some uncommon cases (such as simultaneous hardware failure and session abort). Sure there are coding bugs and most of the bug reports from QA could be classified as arising from coding bugs, but the amount of effort spent on those generally pales in comparison to the "one session hangs once a week when running full stress (with pseudorandom fault injection) 7/24 on 500 nodes and we can't figure it out from the traces or logs" type of bugs.

Re:skills

[uncqual]

Agreed.

Importantly it also exposes students to the general field of software and some may discover they have a natural talent for it and like and excel at it. Some will of course figure this out on their own, but in lower income, lower education households/cultures, such "self discovery" is probably less likely due to limitations of their environment.

Re:skills

[uncqual]

This is a problem. They have some sort of "Computer Science" in Fourth/Fifth grade in a school I'm familiar with. What is it? Excel and Word! I've not met the teacher, but I suspect they have no idea what "Computer Science" is (of course it doesn't help that in High School the AP "Computer Science" test has virtually nothing to do with Computer Science).

I'd like to see most of what is claimed as "Computer Science" in K-12 be properly labeled either "Application Usage" (sort of like shop classes of old) or "Programming". There's no shame in learning "Programming" instead of "Computer Science" when you're ten years old -- but it's best to honestly tell the student what it is that they are learning.

Re:skills

[jader3rd]

And if you look at no-so advanced mathematics taught in school, it is blatantly obvious that most people cannot benefit from any coding "skills" at all, because they never learn them well enough.

What's holding a lot of students back from learning Math in school is that they never get to apply the Maths. They never get their hands dirty with it. But programming will allow them to do that, and a lot of Math concepts click, once you've done some programming. Programming in school is to shore up the foundation of the Math that's already being taught.

Re:skills

[idji]

Coding is not just about programming. I simply don't care what language you use c++#,java(script),lua,vb, sql....... or whatever. it doesn't matter to me. These are all effectively the same - ways of getting ideas from human minds into bits.
but can you sort, find, retrieve, loop, branch, recurse, encapsulate, isolate, simplify? And i am stunned that many programmers today are horrible at this - they know how to use libraries and write bloatware. I am so glad I learned algorithms in the 80's with 64k of RAM and no internet. I solve problems today that kiddies have no clue about - people come to me begging for help in solving their data problems - and the answer is also an idea or algorithm , not the code.

Re:skills

[gweihir]

You are kidding yourself. Most people are not able to see that writing and running code is "applying" anything. Most people are not smart enough for that. I have seen it time and again while teaching.

Re:skills

[jader3rd]

I know that they don't see that. It took me a while before I picked up on it. That's the genius of it. If instead of teaching Pre-Algebra you told the students "You get a year off of math, and we're going to do programming instead. Which is totally not math. I promise, it's a break from math." Most kids are going to cheer. It's a sneaky way to let math concepts sink in without the mental barrier of "Math is hard, and I'm not good at math".

And everyone can write a novel, too...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but only an idiot of a publisher thinks it's a good idea to give money to anyone off the street to write the next bestseller. There are people who can write code, and then there are programmers who can write programs, and architects who can design platforms. Just because you can write a "Hello World" script doesn't make you a coding genius. In fact, designing your own website is nothing more than a "Hello World" exercise. In the end, it's all about writing code that gets used and reused all over the world. If you can do that, you have the right chops. Nuff said.

Re:And everyone can write a novel, too...

[aix tom]

In a way "designing your own website" might be a skill on the level of "write a letter to someone" was in the last century. Public education should prepare you to be able to do it in a pinch, but you can't really make living out of that.

Re:And everyone can write a novel, too...

[KGIII]

There's a lot that can be done one the back-end that makes me think that we really haven't got time for teaching all of that. Are you saying we should teach 'em all PHP, AJAX, Ruby, MySQL, MongoDB, etc? There's more to a website than slapping up Joomla and throwing a theme on it. Also, plenty of people make money doing this. Hell, Twitter, Slashdot, and Facebook are websites. There are others that are far more complicated.

Bad logic

[Iamthecheese]

Bad! Bad logic! No conclusion for you! The point of learning to code isn't to get a job coding. The point of learning to code is to be able to fluently speak the language of the workers of tomorrow. Those workers will be decidedly more metallic, simplistic, rational, and deterministic than today's workers. The person who can speak their language will be in the proper position to make the best use of their efforts.

Re:Bad logic

[burtosis]

The biggest mistake you can make in your education is to go to an institution to "learn something". You go to school and college to prove you know something. Learn on your own time through your own interests, it's far more valuable in terms of actual education. People that only learn in class and can't wait for it to be over, never learning or doing on their own, tend to be terrible at their jobs in any science and engineering field.

Re:Bad logic

[Anonymous Coward]

> You go to school and college to prove you know something.

Which shows that, in your case, you should have stayed in your mom's basement and saved her a lot of money.

I, however, got to learn programming from Jerry Sussman, physiology from Jerry Lettvin, and Calculus from Bob Rose. Sussman was one of the authors of Scheme, Lettvin discovered how color vision really works, and Bob Rose was a co-author of the calculus text book we used. And you had better *believe* I learned a lot from those people, along with a lot from the students I got to study with and work. And I was expected to return that teaching, in spades, which I did. Class participation, tutoring with other students, and quite a lot of bleeding edge medical research after college paid off that hefty investment.

Re:Bad logic

[burtosis]

> You go to school and college to prove you know something.

Which shows that, in your case, you should have stayed in your mom's basement and saved her a lot of money.

I, however, got to learn programming from Jerry Sussman, physiology from Jerry Lettvin, and Calculus from Bob Rose. Sussman was one of the authors of Scheme, Lettvin discovered how color vision really works, and Bob Rose was a co-author of the calculus text book we used. And you had better *believe* I learned a lot from those people, along with a lot from the students I got to study with and work. And I was expected to return that teaching, in spades, which I did. Class participation, tutoring with other students, and quite a lot of bleeding edge medical research after college paid off that hefty investment.

Hahaha. I founded an urban warfare robotics company and dropped out of college with only my masters degree to pursue it. The worst people we had in the robotics lab and at the company had straight A averages and were only concerned about grades. The best performing ones may have had an A average but all learned on their own time and had those interests outside of work or school.

Re:Bad logic

[serviscope_minor]

That doesn't follow.

Wanting to learn stuff doesn't actively preclude learning it at a university in lecures. Hell, I went to extra lectures that weren't on my course (or were optional, unexamined material) simply because they sounded interesting.nJust because some people only want to learn in lectures they have to attend and want them to be over fast doesn't mean learning in lectures is bad, neither does it mean one shouldn't do it.

TL;DR, university is a great place for learning stuff.

Re:Bad logic

[AchilleTalon]

This is even worst logic.

Re:Bad logic

[Blaskowicz]

I hope you have worked out that part about detecting when someone has dropped a gun, by now.

Re:Bad logic

[unimacs]

Well, there is the possibility that you're exceptional and that there are lots people who benefited greatly by being taught by others in a college setting.

Over the years, I've probably learned a lot more on my own than I have in any classroom, but that doesn't mean that formal study and training weren't extremely valuable to me. I learned things that I would have never taken the time to investigate on my own, only to find that that knowledge was very useful down the road.

Re:Bad logic

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't go to school to gain knowledge and grades are almost useless predictors of ability.

Re:Bad logic

[gweihir]

Aaaaaaand....FAIL! Nobody will be fluent after "learning" to code without passion, dedication and talent. Incidentally, programming languages are not a communication tool and have no use as such. The most you can get is a data-description functionality (e.g. LUA), but even that is very, very restricted as communication tool.

Congratulation, you just added more insight-less bullshit to the pile.

Re:Bad logic

[gweihir]

Unfortunately, these terrible people make something like 85% of the whole. But I agree, telling these people to stay the hell away from coding (or STEM in general) is a far better idea than the converse. These people often end up having negative productivity because the few competent people get bogged down cleaning up after the incompetent ones instead of being productive.

Re:Bad logic

[david_thornley]

Institutions are very good at teaching a lot of things. Some things can be taught quickly (ever participate in corporate training?), some take time. In a good school, people who know more of the subject than you do know what things you really need to know and the best order to learn them in. If you have difficulties understanding things, there are people who understand them deeply there to explain things to you. In contrast, learning stuff on your own is likely to lead to patchier understanding at best.

If you can't learn by yourself, you're going to be useless, but institutions are great places to learn things. Your "people...can't wait for it to be over" aren't there to learn, and are throwing away some great opportunities. People who don't want to learn are not going to be useful in a lot of fields.

Lacking the basics

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't hire code monkeys. If they don't have a strong grounding in the basics, know the fundamentals of the language they are familiar, and are not able to reason about why they are making technical decisions then they cause more problems than they solve.

Re:Lacking the basics

[arth1]

I fail and pass applicants not so much on the ability to code, but the abilities to attack problems and to maintain code.

Re:Lacking the basics

[Z00L00K]

Don't forget to include the ability to understand what the customer really need. Essentially the unspoken part of the requirements.

Re:Lacking the basics

[gweihir]

Matches my experience. Example: Just recently about 5 "engineers" from 3 different teams at a customer failed to find out for more than a week that the source of their problems was their test server not running. Took me about 20 minutes to get approval to look at it (I am an external consultant and wayyy more expensive), 5 minutes to look at it and 20 minutes to write it up with evidence so they could understand it. This is not a rare or unique situation. That is the level of people you routinely find in the industry. You also find a few that are really really good and are fed up because they get to clean up every mess the others make. I think only having these few really good people would be far better.

What are you driving?

[info6568]

To code is like to know how to drive. It is important as a basic requirement in the digital era, but that's all.

Because there are many different types of drivers, the ones can control a bicycle, a motorcycle, a small economic car, a big family car, a construction truck, a tractor, a small ship, a big petroleum container, a plane, a space shuttle, etc.

So, it is right to know how to drive "well", but it is what happens after this basic knowledge what could or not to help you to have and to keep a job.

Re:What are you driving?

[ledow]

My analogy is slightly different.

Understanding how to use a computer, is like being able to drive. The more complex the computer, the larger / more complex the vehicles (supercomputers, etc. equate to pilots in some cases).

Being able to make the computer do what you want, that's like being a mechanic. There's a range of skill here too, from people who can change the brake pads (most programmers who only touch the one language they've been taught) up to someone who can dismantle and rebuild any vehicle or other motor that comes their way.

Being able to design and build the computer is like being an automobile architect, or highly skilled engineer. At the lower end, you have the kit-car builders, up to the people working for Ford et al.

Learning to code takes you from "user" to someone modifying their system to improve their (or other's) work pattern. It does indeed take you a step up, both in your understanding of the system and the things you can achieve.

However, claiming that "anyone" can learn to code is a misconception, in the same way that "anyone" can learn to repair a car. Of course. If they put a ton of effort in and lots of hard work and want to and have skilled people to learn from.

But those who can learn to code effectively enough to improve or change their career? That's a whole different kettle of fish. Like the guy who progresses from occasionally topping up the oil to someone who can strip down the whole engine to diagnosis the fault and make the car safer or faster or more efficient on the way.

No one skill is a panacea. But another skill never hurts.

Re:What are you driving?

[info6568]

But those who can learn to code effectively enough to improve or change their career? That's a whole different kettle of fish. Like the guy who progresses from occasionally topping up the oil to someone who can strip down the whole engine to diagnosis the fault and make the car safer or faster or more efficient on the way.

No one skill is a panacea. But another skill never hurts.

pr0nbot (313417) includes something interesting also:

... how to identify opportunities ...

We, as humans, need to adapt to survive. Before was important, when trying to catch a deer or to escape from a tigger, to learn how to use an arrow or to locate the wind direction, skills that could make a life/death difference; but now one of the basic skills is to "control" a computerised device (more than to learn now to code), because these computers became ubiquitous.

Re:What are you driving?

[DerekLyons]

To code is like to know how to drive. It is important as a basic requirement in the digital era, but that's all.

Horseshit. You can live your entire life quite sucesfully in the "digital era" without knowing anything about coding or writing a single line of code.

Re:What are you driving?

[info6568]

Well ... it depends on what "coding" is and what is to be "successful".

To code doesn't mean to write C or Javascript. On the beginning, the computing machines were "coded" by wiring them in one or another way. Maybe this is a mistake when we talk about "coding".

You can be productive just by knowing how to use the devices you have at your hand, but if these devices lack of some form of automation, then what you can do is limited to your own individual efforts. When you are a manager, you even need to control information, and with better tools you can make the information to be more productive and, as a consequence, more successful. And, what are you doing when working with all these information gathering tools if not to program them by introducing and/or changing parameters?

Even the microwave need to be "coded" when defining what type of "program" they need to use to perform a better task ... to cook well an egg instead of chicken. And the new washing machines have complex behavior that depend on how you will take the decisions when using them.

Returning to the driver analogy, if I can drive a bicycle I won't be able to drive a plane, but what about the future planes that will automate everything? That automation always will require some knowledge to be used appropriately, some sort of "coding" that can improve very much the plane schedule and the final benefit of using it. Because it is right to say that we don't need to code, but it is important to understand that we can be many times more productive if we know how to code our environment for it to perform better and to have much better results.

Re:What are you driving?

[gweihir]

Hahahaha, that so far removed from reality, it is really funny!

Re:What are you driving?

[gweihir]

On the other hand, if you think you can "code", you may have learned just enough to be dangerous to yourself and others.

Re:What are you driving?

[Blaskowicz]

Washing machines always have a dozen programs, and it's dealt with by only ever using 40C, color or mixed white/color.

TVs are little computers, even those of the 90s. You "program" them by hitting 1 to get channel 1, volume up button to get the volume up, etc.
By definition, seems everyone is a coder. We can train a rat to turn on/off the lights and say the rat is a coder versed in simple state machines.

Re:What are you driving?

[Hognoxious]

Why would you want to escape from a tigger? They're wonderful things.

Re:What are you driving?

[info6568]

Well, yes. A program doesn't need to have 1000 lines, it can be made with only one. And, there are a myriad of languages, some textual, other graphical, so in general, to code is to provide instructions, and a button is a perfect input device.

Although the rat IS a coder, we will be more useful if we have more knowledge about how to control our XXI century devices than a rat :-)

Re:What are you driving?

[info6568]

That's true. But think about it.

When I know how to drive a car I can be very dangerous to other people if I do things wrong. This is not an exclusive for computing devices, this is a natural characteristic in every type of technology we can use.

Re:What are you driving?

[info6568]

Anyway ... what is reality if not a definition by consensus?

Re:What are you driving?

[gweihir]

Well, there is a hole system of cops and laws to keep bad drivers in check to some degree. No such thing for coding and coding is far, far more difficult. To be fair, while entirely possible, it is also more difficult to kill people with code than with a car. And then there is the additional problem that while driving is ephemeral, code may stay around fro a long, long time.

But I see your point. Possibly we just need a few additional really huge IT disasters before bad (and cheap) coders will be out of work permanently.

Re:What are you driving?

[gweihir]

So you think reality is a shared fantasy or hallucination? Possibly, but not a model I favor. It seems to not really explain quite a few observable things.

Protectionism

[rsilvergun]

Protectionism. Tariffs. The end of Work Visa programs and if need be all but a few immigration programs. We take care of our own first. Let them leave. America is a resource rich country. They can leave, but they don't get to take the ball home. Taxes. Massive taxes to take back internal capital from the ones that leave.

Or we could just roll over and die. Pretend like the market can somehow be free and do nothing as workers to protect our quality of life as we hang desperately onto the principles of Laissez-faire and trickle down economics that were droned into our heads when we were children too defenseless to know any better. I've already made my decision. I'll vote for the left candidates. The Democratic Socialists. Can't get any worse for me but it might get better.

My question is: What are the rest of you going to do? Give up or join guys like me and Bernie?

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

"drummed", not "droned".

Re:Protectionism

[spyfrog]

I have news for you. I live in a country that used to be social democratic. It worked somewhat up until the 70-ties. Then it began to not work as well because of the first globalization movement.

After the fall of Soviet union, it stopped to work completely. The richest people in the world then got to run the world, through especially your country. They implemented total globalization - a scheme to transfer wealth from the average working man/women to the ruling 1 per mille that now decides (there is no "one perecent" - it's less than that). And a the social democratic way started to crumble. Now it simply doesn't work. It doesn't work with globalization and you wont be allowed to work against globalization. If you try, you simple will be removed.

The war is over. The richest won. Most people doesn't even understand that they have lost and that there was a war. This war was over for over 10 years ago.The only thing left to see now is what the richest will do with the rest of us. I don't think its going to be pretty. But there is absolutely nothing we can do against it. They control everything now. Nothing can be done. Sanders is a pipe dream like any other that believes that you can fight back. Sanders will never become president. He will not win the election. They will make sure of that.

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Your militant ways won't work. All coding can be outsourced overseas, and has done for years, and will continue to be the case. We locals are already up against the infrastructure, the resources and millions of agency staff covering all skills sets right now, all elsewhere. The only local IT skill reasonably protected is installing new boxen, and elementary support issues when NICs die, printers go loopy etc. But these can be outsourced to local service providers is there's a real push to get rid of all in-house staff.

Every single skilled position need not be local to the business or its satellite offices. Think on that. It's only laziness and apathy that keeps skilled IT positions local. Even kicking out every dark skinned, foreign, immigrant, non-white Anglo Saxon descendent will not change the future for IT staff.

Massive taxes are already applied to those leaving the US. Perhaps you had better do a little research before you troll next time?

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it up nerd. You should have learned how to wear a suit when you had the chance. Now you'd better get used to being called a misogynist bigot instead. Know your place.

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

The Left, as it is practiced today, is apparently all for "immigration" programs.

Take a look at Europe. I'm not sure what the agenda is there, whether it's importing cheap labour, increasing the pool of left-leaning voters, a guilt-driven attempt to right their wrongs, or an insidious attempt to induce instability in the countries in order to further the police state and control fetishes of the elite. America is doing the same, but with the primary source being Mexico.

Regardless, makes it damned hard to take care of your own when you're rampantly importing the problems of others.

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue isn't right or left anymore. Both parties are owned by the ultra-rich interests who are of course, all for globalism, since globalism benefits them and reduces the power of the group who may remain as the only sticking point to their continued status: The middle class.

Look at anyone who the establishment attacks the most viciously. Those will be the ones who present a threat to their system. Right now it's Donald Trump. They are seriously scared that he will stop the music and they'll be left without a chair. So scared that even the GOP is threatening to vote Dem. This goes to show you where their loyalties lie: in the status-quo. They aren't attacking Bernie, so I have to assume they have him under control. Hillary and Cruz are obvious status-quo placements. The same thing happened when Ross Perot or Ron Paul were running. Those in power used the MSM and psychology of the masses to vilify or neuter them as soon as possible to eliminate their chances of ascending.

These psychopaths have so much at stake, that they will do ANYTHING to keep their power. Anyone who represents an immediate threat should expect everything to be thrown at them, including assassination attempts.

Re:Protectionism

[rholtzjr]

Sorry, I believe the above mentioned solutions will not happen. It goes against every principle that the current "World Order" is attempting to accomplish. How else can you bring the rest of the world out of "Third World" status. The current means are to redistribute the wealth of the top countries to them. That is socialistic in nature but at an entire planet level. Are you saying that Mr Sanders would forsake his ideology and only apply it to the US?

Re:Protectionism

[Second_Derivative]

Dear Trump voters:

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

Re:Protectionism

[jader3rd]

Our non-protectionist policy's are more effective diplomatic and aid tools than sealing ourselves off from the rest of the world and hoping that USAID donations will pull the third world into prosperity.

Re:Protectionism

[jopsen]

Protectionism is hardly the answer. It would quickly lock you out of the international markets.

Find a balance, yes, you need to reduce abuse of VISA programs. But you also have to recognize that a place like the Bay area would not exist if it weren't for the steady influx of talent from around the world.
When people can't get an H1B for San Francisco they end up in Toronto or London instead. Don't think there isn't a line of cities trying to become the next tech hub :)

Besides America needs to sell products aboard if you want any hope of growth. 318 Million people is a lot, but the EU is about 742M, India 1.2B, you need to be present on these markets. America most certainly already is, but protectionism would end that very quickly.

By the way protectionism is not a democratic socialist idea, it seems a bit more nationalistic to me... Liberal socialism is about providing people the basics (education, health care, roof-over-head, food, etc) to be successful (and try again when they fail). While still leaving them with as much freedom as possible.

Note: I'm not saying multinationals shouldn't be taxed harder, or that tax loop holes shouldn't be fixed, merely that doing so is not protectionism.

Re:Protectionism

[jopsen]

Our non-protectionist policy's are more effective diplomatic and aid tools than sealing ourselves off from the rest of the world and hoping that USAID donations will pull the third world into prosperity.

So true... Just take the trade between the US, EU and China, it makes war unthinkable for all parties, that's nice :)
(despite what anyone says war is not good for the economy unless you are neutral and selling to both sides - and we can't all be neutral)

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Protectionism. Tariffs. The end of Work Visa programs and if need be all but a few immigration programs.

What are "Things that never work in the long run"?

(Oh, wait, that wasn't a Jeopardy answer? That would explain why you don't look like Alex Trebek.)

Re:Protectionism

[fluffernutter]

You know what I'd be all for that, if it were happening evenly across the board. But why should it be the US middle class that bears most of the burden of curing the third world?

Re:Protectionism

[Tablizer]

The "big wealth" is indeed becoming trans-national, ironically, not unlike terrorist groups.

Maybe nations are becoming obsolete, not just workers.

Re:Protectionism

[Tablizer]

Use protectionism as a negotiating tool, not as an end-goal. Threaten to tariff trade of low-wage countries if they don't encourage local consumerism, have labor/safety/pollution laws, and/or increase their exchange rate.

They often artificially tilt things toward low wages so that their population doesn't riot. Jobs are more important to their populations than cheap stuff. We seem to have it reversed.

Seems like a junk article

[burtosis]

How is this outsourcing different from any other type of job? Might as well tell them to not bother with getting educated at all because "India". It makes about as much sense.

the bigger picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to spot the "mega trends" may reveal how the economy is shifting like sand under our feet. The laws and the rules of accountancy does not protect the citizens, often called "consumers" by the politicians, allowing "free trade" and globalism to eat our lunches.
Exploitation of labor for lowest cost product helps nobody but the 1%. The 1% gets the "right" people elected to protect their wealth and power.
You think your vote counts?

Re:the bigger picture

[rholtzjr]

Case in point, GOP Establishment insist that their voters do not get to pick the presidential candidate, but THEY do. GOP Delegate: We Pick The Nominee, ‘Not Voters’.

I had to laugh at that delegate (Curly Haugland, a delegate from North Dakota) when he said "The rules are still designed to have a political party choose its nominee at a convention. That’s just the way it is. I can’t help it. Don’t hate me because I love the rules.". Evidently he is a 1%'er.

It's all about solving problems

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a very simple formula for getting and/or keeping a job:

          problems_you_solve > problems_you_create

Keep this equation in balance by minimizing the right-hand-side (RHS) and maximizing the left-hand-side (LHS).

As an employee, you will inevitably create problems for your employer. Most notably you will expect to be paid. Other unavoidable problems include the onerous government paperwork that is required for each employee and the legal liability of keeping you as an employee. These problems are unavoidable. To help minimize the RHS, however, you should avoid creating unnecessary problems. This means being reliable, honest, and getting along with other employees and with customers.

There is only so much you can do to minimize the RHS of the formula. But there is no bound on maximizing the LHS.

These days, many employers think (rightly or wrongly) that they have programming problems that need solving. So if you are able to write code, then that might help increase the LHS of the equation. Note, however, that this only works if you are good enough of a programmer to actually solve real problems. Having completed a coding bootcamp, or having a diploma in computer-science, helps but does not guarantee that you can solve real problems. And that is the crux of the issue. Employers want problems to be solved. They don't really care about your credentials, they care about capabilities and your willingness to apply those capabilities to productive ends.

So, yes, the article is correct in pointing out that learning to code is not a magic recipe for making you more employable. To the extent that learning to code can help you become a better problem solver, then it is valuable. But if you emerge from boot-camp with no new problem solving skills then you have indeed wasted your time.

On the flip side, learning to code usually involves doing lots of problem-solving exercises. And the best way to become a better problem-solver is to practice solving problems. So learning to code may well make you more employable even if you never touch a computer again.

It comes down to focus: If your reason for learning to code just so that you can say that you have learned to code, then that is probably not going to help you are anybody else. But if you are learning to code as an exercise in improving your problem-solving skills, then that are likely to benefit both you and society.

Re:It's all about solving problems

[Tablizer]

A lot of problem solving is balancing trade-offs, something that is rarely taught in school until financing. There's rarely a free lunch, but rather sacrificing something in one area to get more in another. And one has to be able to communicate such trade-offs in a way that makes sense to managers, such as spending 2k more on software to save 4k on labor.

Don't forget to factor in overhead when it comes to labor costing. On the flip side, procurement is often expensive and tricky in larger organizations such that throwing labor at the problem may actually be easier. Knowing the org matters.

a pinch of propaganda and dollop of supply/demand

[Anonymous Coward]

These stories have been around forever. There are armies of minions going around canvassing for kids with developer skills. It's tosh.
I have a degree in Computer Science and just finished a post grad in same and I can assure you I can develop. Despite thousands of applications for developer jobs over the years, all I ever got was one developer interview and even though I completed the programming challenges they asked of me, I still didn't go any further.

I work as a business analyst at present under contract and will continue that as long as I can, as I have a child on the way now. But ultimately, I deeply regret studying computer Science as it cost me dearly in terms of expending time and energy for no return. I really want to do my own freelance development work, with one simple caveat - it's not for open source or commercial use. Just as my sincere attempt to work as a develop were somewhat lost in translation, so too will be anything I develop. It will come with me to the grave. That's what I want.

Coding is a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

To be a decent coder takes decades. Its not just about the code, its about appropriate architecture. No graduate is taught that. Its learnt from experience. That experience is only gained in developing scalable architectures.

So coding, like you would do other STEM subjects is not probably useful. In fact, I could see it causing major problems. Arguing with junior devs because they lack they experience to understand why their code won't scale and it will be made worse if everyone thinks they are a coder.

Worse than reading medical material on the web...

Re:Coding is a waste

[gweihir]

Indeed. Scalability, reliability, efficiency, security, being fit to be deployed, maintainability, KISS, etc. all things that are not for beginners. You begin to understand these after maybe 10 years (if you are dedicated, smart and talented), and become good at them later.

Re:Coding is a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

People learn mathematics at schools but not all become mathematicians. The current crop of management has not received any software related education beyond Basic with punch cards and excel macros during their economics degrees. They could benefit from a clearer view of what it takes to implement a software system in an organization, so that they can finally stop fucking up the process and lose the badly served customers.

Ridiculous

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Looking for job security in the knowledge economy? Just learn to code."

This is like telling a farmer to learn aircraft engine maintenance for job security. Or telling a plumber to learn knitting to ensure he keeps his job.

NOT EVERY JOB REQUIRES KNOWING HOW TO CODE. Stop telling us that it does.

Re: Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Farmer might benefit from software. All big farms have robots. If not making them at least understanding what can be done and at what cost helps a lot.

If they taught coding, it could be useful

[Antique Geekmeister]

I'm concerned that they'll teach coding the same way that many schools teach math. Reinvent the paradigms every few years, require extensive retraining of all the latest teachers in the latest paradigm, and care more about the fad than about the basic skills.

For reference, I've linked to Tom Lehrer's "New Math" song:

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

And one must remember:

            The important thing is to understand what you're doing, and not to get the right answer.

I'm afraid I've been dealing with the results of changing fads in math, and in programming classes, for decades.

No, you should stay away from it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Coding will only be a hobby or a minimum wage job in the future... STAY AWAY!

Why waste time learning to code

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever language or API you pick, it'll have a limited shelf life. Instead, you could be making hard cash today as a Wal-Mart associate!

U.S is screwed!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is wrong with this country and it's politicians? Don't these corporate idiots realize that society(Country) can't function without employment. The point of employment is to keep people busy, give them some meaning in life, and as well to evolve into a better species. The purpose of money(value set by people, well, supply and demand) is for the exchange of goods and services it's not meant to be horded. Even gold and silver has imaginary value that we set. No point in having machines replacing human workers in manufacturing jobs even if the machines cost less and are more efficient than humans.

Government needs strong regulations for the Corporate world. Get rid of the loop holes and the ridiculous patent system as well as closing the U.S Market to those Corporations(monopolists) who permanently move overseas. Having tons of smaller businesses competing in the ISP sector will increase employment as well as lowering costs and it's the same with every other business sector.

It's better spending $100 on an American made quality product than one that costs $20 made in china. You will end up replacing the Chinese one 10 times anyway even if it's from a different brand. Of course everything in life has wear and tear, but come on, I know people who still use 30 year old ovens and refrigerators and still work without issue. I know people who had to replace new appliance after just 6 month's of use.

Re:U.S is screwed!

[nospam007]

"WTF is wrong with this country and it's politicians?"

You mean that people don't know the difference between "It's" and "its"?

"Don't these corporate idiots realize that society(Country) can't function without employment."

Or that questions finish with a question mark?

"The point of employment is to keep people busy, give them some meaning in life, and as well to evolve into a better species."

Really? I usually only hire people because I don't have the time or the skills to do it myself.

"The purpose of money(value set by people, well, supply and demand) is for the exchange of goods and services it's not meant to be horded."

That's why I hoard mine and don't give it to the hordes.

"Even gold and silver has imaginary value that we set."

You mean a handful of people in New York and London who sometimes go to jail for it.

"No point in having machines replacing human workers in manufacturing jobs even if the machines cost less and are more efficient than humans."

So you don't have a dishwasher and washing machines but you employ people for that?

"It's better spending $100 on an American made quality product than one that costs $20 made in china. "

Sorry, but there are no 'American made quality products' anywhere, not even for 5 times the price.

"You will end up replacing the Chinese one 10 times anyway even if it's from a different brand. Of course everything in life has wear and tear, but come on, I know people who still use 30 year old ovens and refrigerators and still work without issue. I know people who had to replace new appliance after just 6 month's of use."

That's why people buy German stuff for that. You sound like your father and grandfather, who ridiculed Japanese cars in the past.

It will still make you more valuable

[eth1]

Learning to code might not "save" your job directly, but (for certain fields, anyway) it can definitely make you a more valuable employee.

I've lost count of the number of times I've come across a coworker doing something that's taking forever, and a little time spent automating the task (even if it's a one-off) saved gobs of time.

Re:It will still make you more valuable

[religionofpeas]

I've lost count of the number of times I've come across a coworker doing something that's taking forever, and a little time spent automating the task (even if it's a one-off) saved gobs of time.

I've seen the same with most of my programmer coworkers, so I'm not hopeful that teaching somebody to code is going to fix that problem.

Re:It will still make you more valuable

[bugs2squash]

That is bang-on. I've seen hours wasted as someone tries to pair names and addresses from a spreadsheet that has gotten mis-aligned in some way or countless other tasks that can be achieved with a few lines of throw away python or awk.

I see coding as a form of communication, maybe a way to communicate intent to a machine but also a reasonable way to communicate domain-specific knowledge to an expert outsider.

There would be far fewer screw ups in procuring complex systems if the people that have been doing the job manually were able to build a rudimentary prototype to form a starting point to discuss their needs, or put together some pseudo code to help express themselves.

Ask you butcher

[AchilleTalon]

Unfortunately, many have already learned the hard way that even the best coding chops have their limits.

It all depends on your butcher and if you picked lamb, pork or veal chops.

Learning Coding is the Most Trivial part of System

[CAOgdin]

Probably, because our Legislators, largely still ignorant about computer "innards" can't understand it. We need population-wide, overarching understanding of systems, and how to design them. Coding is just capturing design in code. I'm amazed at the number of people who think "feedback" is either your critique of their latest ill-formed idea, or the sound that speakers make when the sound gets into the microphone. They have no concept of how "feedback" is--in the language of systems design and cybernetics--a much broader concept. The notions of sequence, iteration, conditional execution, and formal definition of values are utterly beyond most of today's adults, but second nature to those of us who'd learned how to translate those system implementations into reliable code. Teaching coding is about giving kids a tool set, and an old car, and say, "Go to it, kid!" They don't understand what the transmission is for, or the principals behind a crankshaft, no matter how many times they unbolt parts, and bolt them back on. Sure, they know that you're supposed to used a "torque wrench," but they seldom understand the concept of "torque" and why it's important...which is why the "shade tree mechanic's" only wrench is a pipe wrench.

If our electorate is to understand governments, and businesses, and economies are systems, they need to understand what systems are, and how they work, and how they can go wrong. Teaching them coding is just rote learning, and it imparts a false sense of "understanding" what systems are all about.

Try learning your job first

[plopez]

Then learn to code. If you do not know what you are doing coding is pointless.

Because the pie is limited?

[jader3rd]

This only makes sense if the number of jobs which use computers to solve problems is limited. Thus far, the reality seems to be that it's growing exponentially.

Re:Because the pie is limited?

[religionofpeas]

Except that most jobs involving computers don't require any programming.

Re:Because the pie is limited?

[jader3rd]

Except that most jobs involving computers don't require any programming.

That's going to depend upon your definition of programming. Yes, it probably won't involve compiling C, to create binaries; but at some point the person who gets the computer to do something which it hasn't done before, for that business, is going to be considered to be 'programming' the computer. And knowing how different kinds of programming works, will help inspire lots of people at different levels, on what is even possible.

One skill will not protect your job.

[dprimary]

Or for that matter fix the economy. If you are in any of many tech fields. You have to constantly add to your skill sets. The big push to learn code is fine but it does not solve the general lack of skills employers face. Code without hardware is just a bunch of one and zeros with nothing to do. Always adding new skill sets tend to allow you to move into new wide-open fields before anyone else.

Coding

[Anonymous Coward]

Coding will be one of those useless skills some people will have in 10 years, also because coding will become less and less of a task thanks to smart software.
A lot of programmers will basically be out of a job within the next 10 years. (Don't say i nobody told you so) You're better off studying medicine or DNA research in which programming will just be one minor task..
in the future people that can only program will be left out of the job market.

Fucker != Being A Husband

[Anonymous Coward]

And the same is with "Coding" != Software Engineering.

"coder" is in my opinion a derogatory word.

Design, Architecture, Business Analysis...

[jellomizer]

You cannot have a steady job as a Coder or Programmer in the United States. You will end up as just an expensive worker bee. You need to widen your skills across the organization. Most of the time they may call you a programmer, but need a consultant, someone who can look at what they are doing and come up with solutions. Understand their business and find ways to make it better or more efficient. If you just want to sit there and wait for your next program you will need to make, chances are you may be next on the chopping block.
Because.
1. They are cheaper programmers out there.
2. The company is not benefiting from the technology
3. Your skills are not being directed towards the need of the organization.

Just by focusing on one job, coding, your are making yourself vulnerable, because you are not the type of employee you want to keep, but someone they either need at the moment, or can't find a better alternative.

BTW:The above advice isn't 100% for a solid steady job, but it helps to make sure you are more valuable to the institution and are less likely to let you go.

New Opportunities

[SuperKendall]

I always figured teaching everyone to code was to enable a future where everyone earned money by hacking ATMs, the few people that could not learn to code would have jobs refilling ATMs.

Some Truth In This

[Anonymous Coward]

A software engineer calls this "domain knowledge". I agree this is very important.

BUT - if you do not know the standard techniques of computer science, your solution will be crappy, inefficient, faulty and so on. There is a boatload of Java developers who know a load of buzzwords, but don't know how to implement a sort algorithm. Because they have been told to value the latest hipster stuff more than solid basics.

Those basics will not change in the next 500 years. But in 100 years Java will be forgotten.

Excellent software engineers KNOW computer science and they have an open mind to learn about the domains for which they create software solutions.

Instead of giving up

[rsilvergun]

why not try something? Anything? Like I said, for 90% of us it can't get worse but it _could_ get better. It's happened before. It could happen again.

Of Course

[Anonymous Coward]

You can opt not to learn any software skills and this will be fine for a great many jobs in the future too.

Good software engineering skills are an elite capability and we should not try to make everybody members of an elite. The lefties tried this and failed miserably. (Yeah, they keep trying and fail, fail and fail)

Bullcrap

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a very solid education in physics, electronics, some chemistry, basic biology, some mathematics, computer science. All in schools and a university.

I was always a hard working student and got mostly good grades. These skills will help me to the end of my career. They will matter irrespective of the Language Of The Year and Operating System Of Fashion.

I stand on the shoulders of giants and I am happy about the view I can enjoy. If you like to stand between the feet of these giants (at the lowest level of this pyramid of giants), feel free.

Re:Bullcrap

[KGIII]

> If you like to stand between the feet of these giants (at the lowest level of this pyramid of giants), feel free.

Sure but then there is both the pride of having been the giant and the need for new giants all the time as our overall knowledge and skills increase.

Though, I suspect that, at a deeper level, even those giants we stand upon stand upon giants themselves. It's giants, all the way down.

For "Coding"

[Anonymous Coward]

...it is the right thingy.

For "software engineering" I suggest Ada. Plus a solid computer science education, if you can get hold of that. Also stay away from C, the evil invention of the Phone Company, facilitator of cyber war. At least initially. When you have learned to develop in Ada, you can go down into the dark dungeon of C and try to manually apply all the niceties Ada enforces.

If not Ada, go with Pascal, Swift or Rust. They all convey a similar spirit of rock-solid engineering instead of "bolt together a crappile".

It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[rbrander]

I keep reading everything here commenting on the paradigm that your job becomes coding; that you're just in competition with generic coders in India or the IT department for that matter. It's all about "coding" as a specialty, as a job in itself.

That's the problem. That has to stop. It's hurting corporations terribly, keeping them from realizing the full benefits of personal computing.

We acquired personal computing technology, but corporations remained in a paradigm of corporate computing development, where the corporation develops all applications as a body corporate, using specialists to do all the coding. It was actually an *offense* in my old employer for non-programmers to program. People had tools taken away, accounts cancelled.

You don't learn to code so that you can become a coder; you learn to code so that you become an accountant, technician, engineer, salesman, secretary...who can code and script their job. How much more productive is an engineer who can do Excel VBA from one who only knows your basic spreadsheet formulas? How many more documents can a secretary manage who can put together a small, three-table database? She becomes the *key* secretary everybody goes to, the one who gets things done, the one who gets the promotion, is the last one fired.

It worked for me; I actually got a CompSci degree but only ever called myself an engineer; I was just an engineer who knew EXACTLY what he wanted from IT and could insist on it...or do it myself if they weren't agreeable (which tends to make them more agreeable). I only ever wrote bash, Perl, and SQL scripts, but automated vast amounts of my job with just that. Oh, yeah, and Excel VBA, of course, which probably doubled my engineering productivity. I taught every engineer who worked for me to do SQL and basic scripts and sent them off all able to automate basic tasks. I believe they all see themselves as more productive and employable for it.

Re:It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be an excellent programmer but you're not an engineer. That terms is reserved for select disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, etc.

Re:It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[rbrander]

Sorry, not clear. I got my Civil Engineering degree first and practiced as a licensed professional engineer at all times. Dang! I thought the entire point I was getting across is that I was an *Engineer* who could program; I was inciting one and all to add "programming" to their skills of accountant, technician, salesman, etc...

Re:It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[Anonymous Coward]

The other thing is, coding is only part of your skill set. I find that in a large enterprise, the legacy knowledge of knowing how things work IN THAT ENTERPRISE make you valuable to it. There are a million coders that are better, brighter, and write tighter code than I do with better comments. But *I* know the architecture of the enterprise, how things are supposed to work in it, and where the failure point is likely to be when something doesn't work.

Re:It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[rbrander]

Exactly. My engineering job was taking care of 10,000 miles of pipes and related water infrastructure. My core skills were understanding pipes and corrosion and water flow. The IT component was designing the database that held them all - and had a structure that met the needs of the guys who abstract out the pure network for simulation, the guys I worked with who pulled out the pipe records for comparison and writing work orders, and the guys who had to work on those maps day-to-day. Then there was more IT to develop the custom GIS maps and the reports that popped up when you clicked on a pipe. I could have worked with the IT department more on all of that, relied more on their skills - but I would have got half the system at twice the price. The ability to know what you want without IT leading you by the hand (often a place more convenient for them than for you) and speed development towards it (either by yourself or by IT) is the biggest IT skill of all.

Re:It's not about the coding, it's about the job

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be an excellent programmer but you're not an engineer. That terms is reserved for select disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, etc.

That depends very heavily on where you live.

2008

[Anonymous Coward]

The cheap talented worker is rare indeed.

They're easy to get.

In the crash of 2008, quite a few very good people were thrown out on the street. And many are grateful to get a job. I'm getting people who used to be paid $80K/year for $65K. New grads for less than $40K.

Many unemployed IT workers and developers have never recovered because of the asinine hiring practices of people. My neighbor, who was also a developer, was shit canned because the new 20 something who came in to run the place told him that he was too old to know anything and he didn't have a degree from Stanford - as far as he was concerned, no Stanford degree == you're stupid. And even though age discrimination is illegal, just try to prove it. "You don't have the skills." goes a long way.

I had a discussion with recruiter recently who bitched and moaned how they have to get into these bidding wars for new CS grads. I was incredulous. I told her that I don't see that at my local university. She said that she only recruits from top schools. Which to her, GA Tech is a top school.

So, you have one guy who thinks Stanford is it and some other person who thinks GA Tech is it.

In the meantime, they bitch how there aren't enough "good" people when the reality is that they are just snobs.

Gimme a hard working sharp kid who went to state and I get a value with no bullshit ego crap. I get kids from state who commuted to school, have no student loans. Are ambitious, creative and smart - but they just don't have the name recognition of a good school. They work harder to overcome the prejudice.

tl;dr: the IT employment practices are fucking retarded.

Re:2008

[Billly Gates]

The cheap talented worker is rare indeed.

They're easy to get.

In the crash of 2008, quite a few very good people were thrown out on the street. And many are grateful to get a job. I'm getting people who used to be paid $80K/year for $65K. New grads for less than $40K.

Many unemployed IT workers and developers have never recovered because of the asinine hiring practices of people. My neighbor, who was also a developer, was shit canned because the new 20 something who came in to run the place told him that he was too old to know anything and he didn't have a degree from Stanford - as far as he was concerned, no Stanford degree == you're stupid. And even though age discrimination is illegal, just try to prove it. "You don't have the skills." goes a long way.

I had a discussion with recruiter recently who bitched and moaned how they have to get into these bidding wars for new CS grads. I was incredulous. I told her that I don't see that at my local university. She said that she only recruits from top schools. Which to her, GA Tech is a top school.

So, you have one guy who thinks Stanford is it and some other person who thinks GA Tech is it.

In the meantime, they bitch how there aren't enough "good" people when the reality is that they are just snobs.

Gimme a hard working sharp kid who went to state and I get a value with no bullshit ego crap. I get kids from state who commuted to school, have no student loans. Are ambitious, creative and smart - but they just don't have the name recognition of a good school. They work harder to overcome the prejudice.

tl;dr: the IT employment practices are fucking retarded.

It may not be 1999 anymore, but it is not 2008 anymore either. No one cares where you went to school unless it is your 1st job. If you suck on your resume a degree from harvard won't save you. If you rock on your resume with 7 years experience showing more responsibility any degree will help and sometimes an employer will ignore the degree requirements.

Sounds to me from your post you are new. Yes, it sucks in the real world but realize who you are. You are a kid with no real world experience so your first job if you made the mistake of not interning is to start help desk and at the bottom until you get your certs and some recommendations and experience. Then move on to the next big thing. But you can't move up until you are over qualified at the job you currently have.

Sure, but also learn to (project) manage; or sell

[Bearhouse]

As has been depressingly reprised here ad nauseam, your coding, admin or support job is just another H1B away.
I got into project management, then sales, then management, then consulting.
Still enjoy getting into the tech now and then, but that's not what pays the bills.
If your value-add is up-front visible you're never out going to be out of a job.

Yet another scare

[yacc143]

Ok, coding != software development, ...

But considering that it's usual to expect a new software developer to take 4-8 weeks to start being productive, I somehow don't see tickets being distributed via Amazon Turk to some Indian coders, ....

There's only one word for that spew

[DerekLyons]

There's only one word for that spew - horseshit. Words mean things, and if you have to make up definitions and blow smoke to make them mean something different to prove your 'case' - that shows the falsehood.

Re:There's only one word for that spew

[david_thornley]

Ever discussed that belief with a linguist? Language changes. If there's no good word to fit a definition, one will be adapted or coined, regardless of what Grandpa's dictionary says.

Somebody get me a vogmask

[Rujiel]

Proud of yourself much? Feels like I'm suffocating in a cloud of smug.

If humans can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will always be OK to use the ultra poor of poor nations and use them as your wage slaves. I can with ease predict this is a fuse.

Re:a pinch of propaganda and dollop of supply/dema

[penguinoid]

I can assure you I can develop.

Not to be a pest, but... what did you develop?

most programmers are useless

[anyaristow]

Since the 90's programming has become about minutiae, and not about problem solving. "Programmers" strive to please web forums full of their socially-awkward-but-now-connected peers, rather than their bosses. They test each other during interviews to make sure they are hiring someone autistic who has learned some useless facts rather than looking for people who can solve problems and talk to people. They saddle their employers with flavor-of-the-week technologies because they are so afraid of doing something a webforum didn't approve of that they won't write anything themselves. They *pride* themselves in not writing things themselves. They turn simple problems into large projects by bringing in "frameworks" and other webforum-approved technologies they can put on their resume, rather than solving the damned simple problem they were handed.

The rise of crappy sites

[ebvwfbw]

I've noticed as things are supported by Microsoft based sites, the site is crappy. Sometimes I can't even connect to it because the site doesn't even support the minimum encryption for Firefox to connect to it. Have a problem with the site? Send them a trouble report - fill it out and it doesn't even work because the people that did the site are almost completely incompetent. Oh by the way, they're also in India. Same old garbage. You want it done right, keep it in America, Europe or Australia.

same players behind the scene

[DriveDog]

It's also the same players doing the sweatshopping that are pushing the coding. Both are designed to lower their costs.