Coding is hard, let's go shopping!
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###Learn To Code, It’s Harder Than You Think
Guy gives a smackdown to all these coding outreach programs, trying to convince people anyone can learn to code.
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shush don't tell blakeyrat who believes anyone who wants to program should be able to do so...
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I'd like to see "Learn to do brain surgery" courses. Not everyone needs to do brain surgery on humans, we can start with cockroaches and then termite for the promising candidates. Lets start the next hack-a-tuna.
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Pretty good TLDR right here:
If we accept that programming requires a high level of aptitude, it’s fun to compare some of the hype around the ‘learn to code’ movement with more established high-aptitude professions. Just replace ‘coder’ or ‘coding’ with ‘doctor’, ‘engineer’, ‘architect’ or ‘mathematician’.
- “You can pick up Maths in a day.”
- Start surgery this year, it’s easier than you think!
- skyscraper.org aims to help demystify that architecture is difficult.
- “The sons and daughters of miners should all be learning to be lawyers.”
I especially love it when social justice crowd starts crying how IT is closed to women and minorities. Sure, why don't you go finish a 3 week course and get a job as a civic engineer instead.
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I'm rather convinced that coding requires a rather particular way of looking at things that can't be taught, but I really don't like how the article seems to conflate two things:
- that coding can be taught fast
- that coding can be taught to everyone
and by disproving the first one, it claims it disproved the second too. Yeah, coding requires a lot of education, that's not even debatable. And formal education in this field sucks, that's pretty much a given too. But it in itself doesn't mean that programming is some sort of ivory tower that only individuals blessed at birth can enter.
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I suspect a lot of people can learn to program a bit, enough to be useful making things for themselves. We can even do things to help people in this position become more effective; the Software Carpentry initiative is doing exactly that. (One of my colleagues at work is employed to give that sort of training course. Her courses seem to be well-attended and popular.)
Getting good enough to be a professional programmer (or software engineer, or …) is something else. Programmers tend to have a very different way of looking at problems to most people, and I don't know if that can be taught easily.
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Programmers tend to have a very different way of looking at problems to most people, and I don't know if that can be taught easily.
Perhaps it can't. I've seen a huge gap in my high school class between those who didn't "get" programming and those for whom everything just clicked right.
Point is, the article makes a bad case for this argument by basically saying "it can't be taught in 7 days of watching YouTube tutorials, so it can't be taught at all if you don't have a gift for it". Which smells more of professional megalomania than any reasonable argument.
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The problem is these courses do not tell you this. They want to give you a crash course to start as a professional programmer.
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I suspect a lot of people can learn to program a bit, enough to be useful making things for themselves.
They could, but the industry no longer makes tools for people who want to do that, and they now have to deal with the sneering of all the Linux fans calling them idiot constantly.
So practically-speaking, they can't. But back in, say, 1992, it was a lot easier to. Good job, IT.
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I'm rather convinced that coding requires a rather particular way of looking at things that can't be taught, but I really don't like how the article seems to conflate two things:
that coding can be taught fast
that coding can be taught to everyone
and by disproving the first one, it claims it disproved the second too. Yeah, coding requires a lot of education, that's not even debatable. And formal education in this field sucks, that's pretty much a given too. But it in itself doesn't mean that programming is some sort of ivory tower that only individuals blessed at birth can enter.
Sure, anyone can learn anything to a certain degree. Doh.
Doesn't mean they or society should force them to do so, if they don't have the aptitude.
Some skills are necessary for anyone to learn, whether they have the talent or not (eg. driving). IMO coding is not one of those.
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So practically-speaking, they can't. But back in, say, 1992, it was a lot easier to. Good job, IT.
Example?
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Doesn't mean they or society should force them to do so, if they don't have the aptitude.
Duh yourself. But the article is apparently about people who want to pick up programming, and they're told by the author not to bother unless they're kid geniuses or something.
I think. The article kinda flails between "coding is hard" and "coding is inherent".
Some skills are necessary for anyone to learn, whether they have the talent or not (eg. driving).
Last time I checked, you didn't get shot for not having a driver's licence. Well, at least I hope so...
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Example?
Of what?
Look, if Janice in 1994 built an Access or Filemaker database to solve her problem and save her own effort, she'd be applauded for it by pretty much everybody involved.
If she did the same in 2014, she'd just be sneered at by more "technical" people who would bitch that she should be using a "real" database product instead of building it herself, and what was she thinking, and now this is going to be a huge mess they have to clean up, and etc.
And what a coincidence, all of those things the "technical" people are sneering about serve to make more work and $$$ for them and less for Janice, hmmm! It's almost as if it's not about helping computers serve users, but it's more about helping computers give a small subset of the population safer jobs.
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Some skills are necessary for anyone to learn, whether they have the talent or not (eg. driving).
Last time I checked, you didn't get shot for not having a driver's licence. Well, at least I hope so...
I mean, in order to function normally in modern society, you need to learn some basic skills. No matter how bad of a driver you are, you'll probably get a car and learn how to drive it (and go from accident to accident). That's just a skill you need to have, like it or not.
Same goes for literacy, math, etc. You could even add basic computer skills to this list, although that's less and less relevant with the move towards dumbed down phones/tablets.
That's definitely not the case for programming, though. This whole "anyone should learn to code!" movement is bullshit.
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I mean, in order to function normally in modern society, you need to learn some basic skills. No matter how bad of a driver you are, you'll probably get a car and learn how to drive it (and go from accident to accident). That's just a skill you need to have, like it or not.
Fuck you, now I'm not getting that driver's licence on principle.
Same goes for literacy, math, etc. You could even add basic computer skills to this list, although that's less and less relevant with the move towards dumbed down phones/tablets.
That's definitely not the case for programming, though. This whole "anyone should learn to code!" movement is bullshit.
If it helps you be more productive, then it's a good case to learn programming. If you see no use for it, or even if you just don't want to learn to code, then duh, just don't, I don't get where you've got that strawman from. Nobody's arguing learning to code should be mandatory.
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dumbed down
I immediately discount the opinion of someone who uses this term.
That's definitely not the case for programming, though. This whole "anyone should learn to code!" movement is bullshit.
I'd be interested if I saw someone without a vested financial interest in there being fewer programmers saying that.
From you, it means nothing. It's just "I don't want people competing with my skillset, I could make less money." Even if you don't consciously realize it. Fuck that attitude.
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Of what?
Look, if Janice in 1994 built an Access or Filemaker database to solve her problem and save her own effort, she'd be applauded by it by pretty much everybody involved.
If she did the same in 2014, she'd just be sneered at by more "technical" people who would bitch that she should be using a "real" database product instead of building it herself, and what was she thinking, and now this is going to be a huge mess they have to clean up, and etc.
And what a coincidence, all of those things the "technical" people are sneering about serve to make more work and $$$ for them and less for Janice, hmmm! It's almost as if it's not about helping computers serve users, but it's more about helping computers give a small subset of the population safer jobs.
So basically, you hear about all those stories of financial transactions resting on the patchwork of hacked together Excel spreadsheets, and you think: "Good work, computer amateurs! That's the spirit!"
That's like saying we never should have moved on from Wright brothers stage of airline industry.
"Back in my day, two smart strapping lads could put together an airplane, and fly all over the place and people would applaud. Nowadays, they are all about safety and standards. Sneering how splattered remains of victims will just create a huge mess they'll have to clean up. What a bunch of elitist jackasses!"
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It's just "I don't want people competing with my skillset, I could make less money."
Are we talking about Average Joe picking up the skills to code himself a script that would fill his financial spreadsheets so that he can spend 8 hours drinking coffee, or entering the actual software development market with that skillset?
The biggest issue I see with Average Joe trying to code is if someone else is going to then pick up that code after him. If he's been taught VBA in 7 days, that could be a painful and ultimately counterproductive experience.
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"Good work, computer amateurs! That's the spirit!"
A picture is worth O(1000)
s
https://what.thedailywtf.com/uploads/default/original/3X/d/a/dab8ba4faf31a859d765d1275a44d51192bb7be9.png
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I'd be interested if I saw someone without a vested financial interest in there being fewer programmers saying that.
From you, it means nothing. It's just "I don't want people competing with my skillset, I could make less money." Even if you don't consciously realize it. Fuck that attitude.
Sure, there's an element of that. Doesn't mean I'm wrong.
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So basically, you hear about all those stories of financial transactions resting on the patchwork of hacked together Excel spreadsheets, and you think: "Good work, computer amateurs! That's the spirit!"
Yes, because it is.
If that code is unmaintainable or delicate, that calls for better VBA-like tools, or maybe a product with more useful help. It doesn't call for depowering those individuals, treating them like shit, and telling them their work is useless unless it came from a developer. Which seems to be the alternative strategy the IT industry has adopted.
Besides, I've seen plenty of professional software developers write code worse than the worst VBA monstrosities. There's no monopoly on spaghetti code here.
That's like saying we never should have moved on from Wright brothers stage of airline industry.
It's nothing like that.
"Back in my day, two smart strapping lads could put together an airplane, and fly all over the place and people would applaud. Nowadays, they are all about safety and standards. Sneering how splattered remains of victims will just create a huge mess they'll have to clean up. What a bunch of elitist jackasses!"
But software is not a physical object.
If a user doing development in Access create a spaghetti mess, that's nothing but evidence that Access needs improvement. The problem isn't with the user, who charged forward with the tool in good-faith, the problem is with the tool, which didn't not assist the user enough in creating what they actually wanted.
The problem is, all of those tools (at least since the long lamented HyperCard, and the first few generations of Access and FileMaker) are firmly in the control of developers who think the general public has no business being developers. So they never bothered to improve those products in the correct way.
I say again: fuck that attitude.
Computer companies used to be staffed by all kinds of people. And they all talked to each other. And a product team might be led by someone who maybe wasn't a programmer 5 years ago, but he's super-focused on the goals of the product, which are clearly laid-out and understood by everybody. That doesn't happen today.
I'd even go as far as saying that programming being a "profession" instead of just "a skill some guys have" is a bad idea.
Because if you put someone who does programming as a profession in charge of a product, they'll just make something that's only useful to people who do programming as a profession.
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Sure, there's an element of that. Doesn't mean I'm wrong.
No; it means your opinion is due to you being a greedy asshole, and you've never thought about the problem in any context other than "I'm sure a greedy asshole".
That's not to say you're wrong, but that is to say your opinion doesn't matter nearly as much as someone's who doesn't have a vested financial interest in one particular outcome.
Did you read those articles lately that said Carrie Fisher was calling for the resumption of selling "slave Leia" toys and costumes? OF COURSE SHE IS! SHE GETS ROYALTIES FROM IT! I MEAN DUH!
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I get what you're saying. It's a nice sentiment.
The final outcome of that idea is, basically, a programming AI. Manager tells it what kind of program he wants, and the AI spits it out.
Except, at that point, we won't even need the manager. Or workers. Or most of the jobs humans do nowadays. So it's a moot point anyway.
Back in reality, the kind of systems we make these days are too complex to be developed by amateurs, no matter the tooling. You don't think someone would make a Click & Play for managers if they could? Remember, most of the time, managers and investors decide what products will be made, not programmers. So whatever elitist attitude you imagine prevents coders from pushing this idea, it certainly wouldn't prevent the people above, who would be the actual beneficiaries if this ever happened.
But it won't.
Nobody is going back to VB scripts in an Excel spreadsheets. And judging by how things usually develop (towards greater sophistication and complexity), I don't see it happening in the future either.
For a more likely outcome, look at the car industry. When it first started, every driver was his own mechanic. People tinkered with and tuned their cars all the time. Nowadays, you buy a nice computerized car and just drive it, with little to no idea what's happening underneath the hood. Warning light tells you something's wrong, so you take it into the shop. Once the car is used up, you buy a new one.
So is this all a conspiracy of elitist car designers and mechanics, afraid Joe Shmoe will take away their job? Nope. Turns out most people don't want to design their own car. They just want to drive it.
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I get what you're saying. It's a nice sentiment.
Of course it is.
The final outcome of that idea is, basically, a programming AI. Manager tells it what kind of program he wants, and the AI spits it out.
That is both utter bullshit and not even remotely close to what I'm proposing. You're being obtuse on purpose to try to convince stupid people that I'm proposing some kind of magical AI instead of simple, well-studied, usability improvements. Stop it.
In fact, you know what? If you're going to pull that bullshit, I'm done with this conversation.
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That's not to say you're wrong, but that is to say your opinion doesn't matter nearly as much as someone's who doesn't have a vested financial interest in one particular outcome.
Everyone has a vested interest in some outcome. Whether ideological or financial, whatever.
And those who don't, usually have no idea what the issue is. So their opinion would be useless, no matter how unbiased.
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I think he has not had the misfortune of dealing with shitty contractors and non-programmers in his team, to hate them for their incompetence. They suck resources and produce shit, making it more difficult for the rest.
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Maybe our tentative qualification would involve the completion of a reasonably serious program in LISP? A kind of Glass Bead Game for programmers? The point would be to find out if they can code.
Commence FizzBuzzing...NOW.
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This is generating a lot of commentary...deserves a better home than the Quick Links thread.
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I suspect a lot of people can learn to program a bit, enough to be useful making things for themselves. We can even do things to help people in this position become more effective; the Software Carpentry initiative is doing exactly that. (One of my colleagues at work is employed to give that sort of training course. Her courses seem to be well-attended and popular.)
Getting good enough to be a professional programmer (or software engineer, or …) is something else. Programmers tend to have a very different way of looking at problems to most people, and I don't know if that can be taught easily.
I dare say it's the same with Physics or Chemistry (can't speak for the other sciences). You need to look at problems in a very peculiar way - you kind of need to dissect a problem and recognize the parts you can divide the problem into.
It's this methodical approach to problems which I think cannot really be taught.
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If she did the same in 2014, she'd just be sneered at by more "technical" people who would bitch that she should be using a "real" database product instead of building it herself, and what was she thinking, and now this is going to be a huge mess they have to clean up, and etc.
did you already had to convert a complex excel sheet made by an engineer to solve his problem to another language?
it was a terrible experience for me everytime this happened
its great they are empowered to solve it, but last time I asked to explain the requirements or forget about it. never heard about that sheet again
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This post is deleted!
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did you already had to convert a complex excel sheet made by an engineer to solve his problem to another language?
I think you're missing the point, which I believe is, that sure it's a bad experience, but on the other hand it worked and allowed a bunch of people save a lot of time.
Sure, writing code should ideally be done by professional and skilled coders, as everything else: internal network should be set up by network admins, offices should be furnished and planned by interior decorators, etc. But when a professional cannot be hired, it is great that people can try and solve the problem themselves.
Even if then, converting/fixing/extending the project is a major PITA for the paid professional, but hey, that's what their paid for.
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In my experience coding is not hard, once you understand the problem that you're trying to solve. Language syntaxes, control structures and all that kind of things can be taught to anyone who is wiling to spend some time learning it and who is not afraid to fail.
For example, you can tell someone "By writing
do { something } while (condition)you tell the computer that you want to keep it doing the same thing until the specified condition is no longer valid" and you can demonstrate that. The smile on someone's face when they figure out what it does - and what it allows them to do - is priceless.The same cannot be said for problem analysis. If you don't know what the problem is you're trying to solve, you can't figure out a proper way to solve the problem either. I once worked with someone who was an OK coder (junior level, but it got the job done and he knew what unit testing was) but that was having a really hard time when it came to problem analysis.
He was once asked to password protect a Word document that he had written (it contained some semi-confidential information) and it took him 3 hours to figure out how to do that.
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I feel like everyone understands what a doctor or a lawyer or a chemist does, and can assess whether they'd be happy in that career. By giving more people exposure to what programming is like, we enable them to make that assessment as well. Which is why I'm all for teaching as many people as possible just enough programming to get a sense of what it's like.
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I'm mostly with you in spirit, but I disagree that spaghetti code is evidence that "Access needs improvement." (It needs improvement for other reasons, and that's why things like Postgres and Oracle and MSSQL exist) You can make spaghetti with any language, even C# or ANSI SQL.
The amateurs will get better when they try to make changes and realize that, "hey!, this code kind of sucks, I should learn my craft better!" just like they do in every other aspect of life. Software development is a craft, like making furniture or cooking. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to "master" any craft.
But there's nothing wrong with people using tools to make their lives better, even if they're using them in slightly stupid ways.
But there's still a problem. Access is broken in ways that requires replacement by better tools. Not because of spaghetti code, but because of things like speed, ad hoc limits, etc. And it sucks for the literate amateur to have to learn a brand new tool chain. At some point, it becomes more efficient for everybody involved for labor to specialize.
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I'm mostly with you in spirit, but I disagree that spaghetti code is evidence that "Access needs improvement."
Well, then you're wrong. Not that it matters, since the people in charge of Access, FileMaker, etc, no longer give a shit anyway.
(It needs improvement for other reasons, and that's why things like Postgres and Oracle and MSSQL exist)
That's going in the wrong direction. Postgres, Oracle, and MS SQL are FUCKING DIFFICULT TO USE. That's exactly the opposite of what we need.
You can make spaghetti with any language, even C# or ANSI SQL.
Goddamned I hate when people say this stupid shit.
#YES WE ALL FUCKING KNOW THAT. WE ARE NOT RETARDS.
The point is this: you can make the right thing easy, and you can make the wrong thing difficult, and you can make refactoring from the wrong thing to the right thing possible.
The amateurs will get better when they try to make changes and realize that, "hey!, this code kind of sucks, I should learn my craft better!" just like they do in every other aspect of life.
Ok; that doesn't mean the tool itself couldn't do a much better job of guiding the user along that path.
Software development is a craft, like making furniture or cooking. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to "master" any craft.
Ok.
But there's nothing wrong with people using tools to make their lives better, even if they're using them in slightly stupid ways.
Software can change much easier than the brains of human beings. If something Access (or whatever) is doing encourages spaghetti code, that's a flaw in Access that should change in Access.
The way human brains work ain't gonna change in the next 10,000 years. The software product has to work in concert with the way normal human beings think. That's why tools like Mac Classic, HyperCard, etc. played to the strength of human brains-- they used spatial memory, not rote memory, they (attempted to) use natural language when scripting, not stiff formal language, etc, they used instant feedback to changes, not deferred feedback, they allowed the easy undoing of mistakes. Etc.
But there's still a problem. Access is broken in ways that requires replacement by better tools.
You do realize Access is just an example of the type of product we should be encouraging? I'm not taking about Access specifically. In fact, Access is a rather shitty example, it's just one everybody (or everybody reading this at least) happens to know. Nobody on this forum knows how AppleScript or HyperCard worked, and few know FileMaker.
At some point, it becomes more efficient for everybody involved for labor to specialize.
I never said otherwise. The problem isn't that to become productized, a "professional" developer has to take it over, then problem is that "professional" developer is going to act like a total douchenozzle towards the person who originally created it and made them feel like dirt. Then you get stuff like:
did you already had to convert a complex excel sheet made by an engineer to solve his problem to another language?
it was a terrible experience for me everytime this happened
its great they are empowered to solve it, but last time I asked to explain the requirements or forget about it. never heard about that sheet again
GEE I WONDER WHY THEY DIDN'T WANT TO WORK MORE CLOSELY WITH THE DOUCHENOZZLE!
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If something Access (or whatever) is doing encourages spaghetti code, that's a flaw in Access that should change in Access.
Languages don't encourage spaghetti code (unless they are truly terrible, in ways that Access SQL is not -- like early BASIC). People write spaghetti code because they don't know how to organize their thoughts. That's where the "craft" aspect comes in, because they have to learn how to do that.
YES WE ALL FUCKING KNOW THAT. WE ARE NOT RETARDS.
I'M PRETTY SURE YOU ARE.
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Languages don't encourage spaghetti code (unless they are truly terrible, in ways that Access SQL is not -- like early BASIC).
You're telling me there's no difference between the ease of writing spaghetti code between PHP and C#?
People write spaghetti code because they don't know how to organize their thoughts.
Ok; then the tool needs to endeavor to solve that problem. Duh.
That's where the "craft" aspect comes in, because they have to learn how to do that.
Ok; then the tool needs to teach that ability. Duh.
Is that easy? Probably not. But acting like a whiny little child, saying, "mooom! my homework is slightly difficult! I'm going to go play Mario!" That's certainly not going to help. Nothing worth doing is easy.
It's like you agree with what I'm saying, but then the exact millisecond the idea that implementing it might not be trivially-easy comes up, you just throw up your hands and give up.
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You're telling me there's no difference between the ease of writing spaghetti code between PHP and C#?
Yeah, pretty much. Both are imperative languages with OO tacked on. C# has nicer tools/features, but a C# beginner isn't going to know how to use them. If his thoughts are disorganized, he'll make the same kinds of messes in either language.
Somebody who has learned to organize his thoughts would have a better chance of not making spaghetti with either language, too, though PHP probably does have more WTFiness traps.
It's like you agree with what I'm saying, but then the exact millisecond the idea that implementing it might not be trivially-easy comes up, you just throw up your hands and give up.
Well yeah. I'm not getting paid to fix it, am I?
I'm not a "developer" these days, by the way. I'm a BA, and use the kinds of "amateur" tools you suggest, unless I decide to use better tools, like Postgres. I've gotten past the initial learning curve.
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GEE I WONDER WHY THEY DIDN'T WANT TO WORK MORE CLOSELY WITH THE DOUCHENOZZLE!
They were not in the company, and I had no opportunity to talk to any of them. I respect users.
The guy I asked for requirements was the fucking business analyst, I just asked him to do his job.
Edit: TBH I couldn't understand that sheet to save my life, as none of the other 10 programmers in the team. It was too many big formulas using rows and columns as variables. And no sample data to see what was happening.
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Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, well, you're wrong again.
Well yeah. I'm not getting paid to fix it, am I?
Nor am I. I'd love to, but we're in this ball of shit industry that doesn't even realize the problem exists.
I'm a BA, and use the kinds of "amateur" tools you suggest, unless I decide to use better tools, like Postgres. I've gotten past the initial learning curve.
Think about the learning curve between making a database-backed application in Access compared to making one in C# or Java. Hell, take the easiest C# implementation, using WebForms for the GUI and say Entity Framework as the ORM...
You'd have the Access application COMPLETED in the time it takes the naive user to install SQL Server and figure out how to compose a connection string.
There's no learning curve. There's a cliff. And if you're at the bottom, good fucking luck learning how to climb up it. And guess what: the industry wants it this way, to save their own worthless jobs.
I hate it.
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genexus is a lot easier to do cruds than c#, but it gets ugly when you want anything it doesnt fully support
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There's no learning curve. There's a cliff. And if you're at the bottom, good fucking luck learning how to climb up it. And guess what: the industry wants it this way, to save their own worthless jobs.
Wow, you're seriously veering into the crazy conspiracy theorist / Richard Stallman territory here.
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I've heard it like "not everyone can paint a masterpiece, but you don't need to to paint a house."
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Sure, why don't you go finish a 3 week course and get a job as a civic engineer instead.
*cough* They tried that on the Big Dig. And then a piece of the ceiling fell on a woman's car as she was driving through the tunnel.
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Nobody is going back to VB scripts in an Excel spreadsheets.
If by that you mean "lots of people are", then yes, that's true.
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That doesn't happen today.
I've argued elsewhere that I believe this to be the consequence of the industry's own successes, not its failures as you seem to think. As software has become capable of doing more things, the background level of expectation about what any particular piece of software ought to be able to do has risen accordingly. The net result has been to keep the skills required for development of generally acceptable software confined to that small minority of people who are motivated to keep abreast of the available tools, which are necessarily in a constant state of flux.
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Wow, you're seriously veering into the crazy conspiracy theorist / Richard Stallman territory here.
Especially since at least half of the point of open source is access to quality documentation instead of the proprietary secretive BS I have to deal with on a daily basis, like with SAP's Advantage Database.
But it is true that solving a problem is hard if you don't even know where to start.
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Especially since at least half of the point of open source is access to quality documentation
hahahahaha what!?
